Good news! We’re pleased to let you know that NJCTL has significantly lowered the prices of its online courses and programs. For example, the cost of NJCTL endorsement programs have been reduced by 40% or more.
As a nonprofit charitable organization, created by teachers, for teachers, a key element of our mission is to ensure that the largest number of teachers can make use of our online courses and programs to get the tools and training they need to provide high quality science and mathematics instruction to their students. This requires making our courses and programs convenient, accessible, and affordable.
A decade ago, NJCTL began offering face-to-face training and endorsement programs and, while the quality was high, there were always teachers who couldn’t participate due to location or time conflicts. We addressed this over the last several years by developing online, asynchronous, learner-scheduled instruction that captures the content and methods of our face-to-face instruction.
All teachers can now participate in our courses anytime, anywhere…starting when they like and proceeding at their own pace. Teachers get the same high-quality instruction for which NJCTL has always been known, but access has been made more equitable.
While our courses have always been less expensive than traditional higher education, we were still not satisfied that they were affordable to all teachers, regardless of where they lived and how well they were paid.
Reducing our prices represents another step towards equitable access. Donor support and program revenues have successfully funded the development of our online courses and the free, editable K-12 classroom course materials upon which they are based. While we will keep investing in new courses and continuously improving current courses, the initial multi-million-dollar development expense has been paid off.
At the same time, experience teaching these online courses has allowed us to continuously improve their efficiency and effectiveness while better understanding their costs, allowing us to adjust the price of each course accordingly.
If you do plan to take a course or endorsement program, especially if you’d like to teach a new STEM subject in the fall, we recommend enrolling soon. While 96% of anonymous responses from teachers recommend our online course to other teachers, they also recommend starting early to have enough time, without feeling rushed.
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