Fees imposed on college students who take online classes can be more than $1,300 at some schools, according to a new survey claiming that internet-based education is often more costly for students than attending classes on campus.

The one-time registration fees charged to web-based students are not levied on students who take traditional classes, and some online college programs include other charges for course materials and "technology resources and services," according to a survey of 182 institutions conducted by the Campus Computing Project and Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET). The report was released Oct. 22.

Online students are paying less than their brick-and-mortar peers at 20 percent of the campuses surveyed, while 31 percent are paying the same price, according to the survey. But nearly half of respondents said their online students are paying more for a college education than traditional students.

Online registration fees ranged from $51 in public master's colleges to $1,316 in private universities. Online students pay an average of $232 in one-time fees, according to the report.

The higher fees for online courses seem to fly in the face of traditional thinking: that online courses are cheaper for schools to produce.

But despite the common belief that online classes cost far less to develop and administer, schools incur a number of extra costs associated with training web-based professors, converting massive amounts of course materials to an online environment, and developing all the marketing, admissions, and recruitment resources that are key to maintaining a viable online program, said Kenneth C. Green, director of the Campus Computing Project and head of the joint study.

"There are pretty hefty commitments … and real costs" for colleges supporting robust web-based learning programs, Green said in an interview. "Those are real costs that are coming from somebody's budget."

The WCET survey also documented a frequent transitioning of online education programs in recent years. Nearly three out of 10 colleges and universities have "restructured" their web-based courses in the past two years, and 52 percent expect to adjust their online approach before 2011.

The rapid adjustments by colleges trying to keep pace with the boom in web-based courses have not affected online enrollment. Ninety-four percent of campus officials who responded to the survey reported increases in online enrollment between 2006 and 2009, and 48 percent of schools have seen increases of 15 percent or more.

The steady climb in online education has proven profitable for most colleges during a recession that has forced state and federal lawmakers to slash higher-education funding.

Forty-five percent of responding institutions said their web-based programs reaped a profit in the fiscal year that ended in June, and 27 percent reported their profits were more than 15 percent. Less than 2 percent of institutions said they lost money on web-based educational programs, and nearly half said they didn't know if the program made or lost money last year. Seven percent said they "broke even."