Women meeting over coffee with their laptops

Three-Tiered Tuition Rationale

There is a significant need for “just-in-time training” for people active in ministry. The MMU team works hard to create learning experiences that can be immediately applied to anyone’s ministry. Mission Media U is an initiative of Visual Story Network, a United States non-profit ministry.

Our goal is for Mission Media U to be a world class training platform that is self-sustaining. We want the tuition revenue to cover the costs associated with each cohort ($2400-$3000). Costs include fees for instructors, teaching assistants, administration, marketing and software. A generous donor covered the initial costs to launch Mission Media U and subsidized registration costs in the first three years.

We set tuition to cover the costs of each course based on a minimum of 15 people in each cohort. We offer a three-tiered tuition based on a generalized capacity to pay. We want every motivated student to be able to join a course. It has been our experience that one indicator of those who are truly motivated is their ability to find funding for tuition. That is why it is our general policy to require everyone to pay one of the three tuition tiers. We have structured tuition so those working with “Western world” organizations with greater resources offset the costs of those who are not working with this kind of church or organization.

We offer discounts to all students who register early and/or take a course with one or more colleagues from the same team.

Our tuition structure is as follows:

Courses with live instruction (synchronous):

$270 Standard ($230 per person if two or more register together as a team).

$230 “Majority world” individuals working with a “Western” organization that can help cover the cost ($190 per person if two or more register together as a team).

$100 “Majority world” individuals NOT working with a “Western” organization. Limited to five per cohort ($60 per person if two or more register together).

An additional “early registration” discount of $20 is available. For example, if you qualify for the standard registration of $270 but register with a teammate and register early, your cost would be $210 per person.

Two Course Bundle Discount of 25%: A 25% discount is available if you sign up for both courses at the same time. When registering, select the appropriate payment category in one of the last three “bundle” options. This will register you for both the Foundations of Media to Movements and Strategic Storytelling courses. You will not need to register on the second course page.

Because we hold ourselves to a high standard, we are happy to offer a refund for anyone dissatisfied with the course. Here is our commitment to excellence.

Primary Reasons for These Rates:

  1. Each live-session course with an expert instructor is limited to 25 people. Research shows that the quality of online education diminishes when cohorts grow larger than this in live training. The asynchronous courses are not affected by this limitation. For this reason–and because of the increased costs associated with live instruction–the synchronous courses are priced at a higher level.
  2. People are willing to pay for that which they believe is a worthwhile investment and they will invest time accordingly. Our experience with a course we offered several years ago is that when people don’t pay much, they don’t put in much effort and it degrades the quality of the course.
  3. We want to make courses accessible to “Majority world” individuals. We understand the costs may be difficult, but trust those who are sincerely interested in taking the course will be able to find a way.
  4. We want the MMU to be a sustainable and scalable endeavor. We want to cover the hard costs of each course session.

If you have any additional questions, please feel free to email Clyde Taber.