The teaching and correct use of our mother tongue, Turkish, which enables us to express the thoughts in our minds as tangible manifestations, express ourselves, communicate with other people in the society and form our national culture is very important. Due to its significance, Turkish is taught as a core course at universities. Since 2013 some universities in Turkey have started offering all courses or only the required ones in their associate, undergraduate and graduate degree curricula in their entirety or partially through distance education. The Turkish language course, which is among the required courses, has been offered through distance education since then. The reason for universities to tend towards distance education is to be able to address the increasing student needs, offer quality education and support the contemporary need for individual development. The aim of this study is to evaluate one of the required courses in the university curricula, namely, the Turkish language course, which is offered via distance education based on student opinions. This descriptive study is qualitative by design. The sample consists of 100 students. 50 of the students were freshmen at the Gazi University in the 2016-2017 academic year who were attending the faculties of Science, Engineering, Medicine, Education and Law. The rest consists of students who graduated from the same faculties in the 2015-2016 academic year. The data were collected through the interview technique. The data collection tool was a semi-structured interview form. The content analysis technique was used in the analysis of the data. The findings showed that regarding both distance and face-to-face teaching of the Turkish language course, there were more negative student opinions than positive ones. The findings obtained from the analysis of the data from both groups were similar. Regarding the teaching of the Turkish language course through both distance and face-to-face education, the students stated that the course content was simple and insufficient, that the instructors were not using effective teaching methods and techniques in the teaching process, and that the exams used in assessment and evaluation were simplistic. Problems in these three areas affected students' opinions negatively regarding distance education. Taking of these findings into consideration by institutions implementing distance education, instructors and the Council of Higher Education may contribute to improving quality in the teaching of the Turkish language course.