If learning is the goal, and we just learned that we need to do more work to provide an experience conducive to learning, then the cost for learning just increased.

First, its interesting to see a situation where a new technology INCREASED the cost of something.

    Grading a stack of blue books is a "just kill me now" brutal experience.
    When I had 200 linear algebra exams to grade at once

Second, this is alluding to one of the dimensions along which that cost is going to be born, staffing. If its too many papers to grade, then more staff are needed to grade them.

We're probably not going to get that, though, and instead the cost increases, the funding stays the same, so the quality will decline to compensate.

So it goes...