There are quite a few good reasons for getting an online degree versus the traditional route. Here are a few of those reasons.
1. Study Whenever, Wherever: Probably the most obvious difference between a traditional school and an online school is that an online college does not have a campus. When you are studying at an online college, you can study anywhere, at any time. Anywhere that has access to the internet is you campus. When and where you study is up to you.
Since there are no set class times, you can study on your own schedule. Your education revolves around your professional and personal life, not the other way around. Because you can hold down a full-time job and study based on your schedule, you could possibly be earning enough to pay for your education and avoid going into debt.
It is also completely your responsibility to you to keep up with your coursework. A big part of studying on your own time is forcing yourself to study on your own time. You have to be a real self-starter, be organized and have good time-management skills.
2. Cost: Distance education can cost much less than a traditional education. Tuition alone at a traditional four year university can cost you about $15,000 to $20,000 a year. If you are studying at an out-of-state school or a private school, that amount can double. And if you live on campus you have to factor the in room and board that is no longer provided by the parents. If you commute, you have to factor in the cost of gas, parking permits, and (inevitably) parking tickets.
Text books are not typically used in online courses, so that would save about $300 to $800 a semester in my experience. You may have to hit up Kinko’s every now and then to print out texts that get emailed to you.
3. Financial Aid is available: One thing not many people know about studying online is that you are still eligible for Financial Aid. You just fill out a FAFSA and find out if you are eligible for Federal aid.
Many online universities participate in financial aid programs, including Pell Grants, Federal Stafford Loans and PLUS Loans.
4. Work and study: It is worth noting that some employers will reimburse employees for continuing education in order to improve their skills. Studying online to continue their education gives full time professionals the flexibility they need to take advantage of their employers largesse. Sometimes amounts in excess of $5,000 can be made available to employees every year to be spent on their education. According to Back2College.com, 59% of University of Phoenix students receive tuition assistance from their employers.
Another interesting program many people do not know about it is the College Level Examination Program (CLEP). The CLEP allows you to earn college credit for what you have learned through independent study, previous education and real world experience in an effort to cut introductory or rudimentary courses from a working student’s queue of required classes. The CollegeBoard tests you on college-level material in subjects like Business Law, English Literature, Economics, Biology, Calculus, and dozens of others, and then scores you on a scale of 20-80. A passing score (50 or higher in most cases) will earn you course credit in over 2,900 colleges and universities.
Each 90 minute exam can be worth between three and six credits, and language exams (Spanish, French and German) can be worth up to 12 credits. The tests are administered at testing centers and over 1,400 colleges. So if you have spent a few years in the work force, you can knock years off the time it would take you to earn your degree by doing nothing more than exercising the knowledge you have gained in the work force.
5. Degree acceptance: Still prevalent is the misconception that a degree earned online is a lesser degree. This perception dates back to the early days of distance education when unaccredited universities sold degrees through magazines. Now the persistent presence of "diploma mills" continues to hurt the image of the industry.
In 2005, Edventures’ Continuing and Professional Education report found that 62% of the surveyed employers had favorable opinions of degree earned online and believed they were equal to, or better than, face-to face degrees. According to the 2006 report from the Sloan Consortium, 69% percent of academic leaders already believe that the learning outcomes for online education are equal to, if not better than, the outcomes of a face-to-face education. But what is causing this rapid burst in acceptance of online education? Simple; employers and educators alike are beginning to understand. They are beginning to understand how difficult it is to earn a degree while working full time. They are beginning to understand that the quality of online educations has vastly improved since the dark ages of crooked correspondence schools. They are beginning to understand the need for online education.
Two more years have passed since the 2006 Sloan Consortium report, opportunities for online educations have increased, the quality of online education has increased, the demand for online education has increased, and the concept is becoming more widely accepted. In all likelihood, the upward trend will continue until degrees earned online are on equal footing with their face-to-face brethren.
Of course there are drawbacks to an online education.