Posted on 09/07/2009 2:47:55 AM PDT by prisoner6
The next generation of online education could be great for students—and catastrophic for universities.
by Kevin Carey
Like millions of other Americans, Barbara Solvig lost her job this year. A fifty-year-old mother of three, Solvig had taken college courses at Northeastern Illinois University years ago, but never earned a degree.< snip >
Luckily for Solvig, there were new options available. She went online looking for something that fit her wallet and her time horizon, and an ad caught her eye: a company called StraighterLine was offering online courses in subjects like accounting, statistics, and math. This was hardly unusual—hundreds of institutions are online hawking degrees. But one thing about StraighterLine stood out: it offered as many courses as she wanted for a flat rate of $99 a month.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonmonthly.com ...
Solvig threw herself into the work, studying up to eighteen hours a day. And contrary to expectations, the courses turned out to be just what she was looking for.
Every morning she would sit down at her kitchen table and log on to a Web site where she could access course materials, read text, watch videos, listen to podcasts, work through problem sets, and take exams. Online study groups were available where she could collaborate with other students via listserv and instant messaging.
StraighterLine courses were designed and overseen by professors with PhDs, and she was assigned a course adviser who was available by e-mail. And if Solvig got stuck and needed help, real live tutors were available at any time, day or night, just a mouse click away.
Maybe not perfect...yet. But could this be the beginning of the end for traditional "higher" education?
prisoner6
A long, but facinating, read. I’d recommend it to anyone.
Good Luck to them!
Bump
Or test out through CLEP and DANTES tests.
Transferability and accreditation are key issues. If you want a degree you have to be able to transfer your credits to a reputable institution. Otherwise, they may be great for advancing your skill set but have a limited value in continuing your education or gaining certification. Especially if you are interested in entering a post-graduate degree program. You can get a real good idea of the value of your education when you look at the fine print.
Reads like an advertisement in disguise, an informercial. So I stopped reading! :)
It is more likely that the online college attendee actually paid attention and learned something. Online college requires a very high degree of self motivation to continue with the effort and complete the degree. The student makes many choices during the semester, the largest of which is “do I sit here and do this work, or go buy groceries, or watch TV?”
The transferability issue doesn’t exist solely at online schools either. I took many courses that “did not transfer” and had to retake the identical course. Perhaps rather than discounting the value of online learning we should be taking a closer look at the issue of transfer of credits. I equate it to having a credit card that raises it’s interest rate but won’t permit you to transfer the balance. Kind of locks you into the single institution mode.
Similarly accreditation - I know many people who were educated in Asian universities. They are intelligent and excellent in their field but they attended schools that are not accredited in the US. Should I not hire them? After all they didn’t take a bunch of electives, didn’t learn about gay issues, black history, sociology, anthropology, etc - all they learned was how to be a good engineer.
The resistance to online learning is generated by those who stand to lose dollars - the brick and mortar, party hardy, liberal enclaves.
There are ways around transferability and accreditation. As the article stated, this program has partner colleges that are accredited and will give credit to the transferred credits so your transcript would come from the brick and mortar institution. Another way would be to treat these as AP prep and take the College Board AP tests which are counted as credit hours. Or CLEP out of them. The company is only offering freshman intro courses so it’s mainly book study rather than hands on chemistry labs.
Many employers only ask potential employees to have a minimal amount of college and don’t care where it’s from. Others won’t promote without some college so this is a great way to grab some hours without leaving your job. A few online hours at $99 will help many get their foot in the door.
Back in my day, the ‘70s, a college hour cost $3. No, that’s not a typo. Three dollars an hour at a state university. It was almost cheaper to room and board your kid at college than support him at home. Today, I don’t know how we’re going to pay for the kids’ college. One year at a private school could buy a small house. One year at a state school would buy a very nice new car. Let’s face it, brick and mortar college costs is a a dirty scam.
I have posted many times that the death of liberal indoctrination camps, also known as colleges, is coming via technology.
The people who think these degrees are worthless are just fooling themselves. It is the brick-and-mortar degrees that are useless anymore. Most companies don’t care where you went to school because an undergraduate degree is basically today’s GED.
A college degree gets you that first job....after that it is your presentation, skill-set and experience that takes you through life.
As a graduate student at an accredited university, I can tell you stories about folks trying to get into graduate programs with these “paper mill” Bachelors degrees, and they’re laughed out of the admissions office. My graduate studies are all online, but I’m paying $2,000 per semester to get my MA. When I’m done, any employer will look at my credentials and understand that I went through the motions, whereas someone with a Bachelors or Masters degree from a “paper mill” (i.e. University of Phoenix) would be dismissed from most Fortune 500 company recruiting rolls.
The really big problem I have with these $99 college courses is that they’re taught by people who may or may not have academic experience or knowledge on par with what is expected of a associate or full professor. It’s sort of like the public school system in this country. In order to be hired by most public schools, you just need an Associates degree and promise to complete continuing education credits. Most of our kids’ teachers are collegiate “C students” who scraped by with a BS in Education or even just a lowly AS, leaving our kids to be taught by the lowest common denominator. The same is true with many of these online universities.
I had to take the SAT and ACT to get into Florida State University, and I had to score relatively well to be considered seriously. I worked off my tail for six months prior to graduating from high school. I had no social life, few friends, I didn’t drink, smoke or use drugs, and I went on to succeed in my undergraduate studies. When I was ready to go back to get my post-graduate degree, I had to take the GRE, requiring six months of prep, a lot of reading and anxiety, and when all was said and done, I was accepted to a graduate program on my educational acumen. While I applaud those who are trying to move ahead in their professional lives, I fear that they’ll be very upset to learn that most, if not all, of their work done at one of these “paper mills” doesn’t account for a wooden nickel in an accredited university.
Online “paper mill” universities aren’t going to put any accredited university out of business, because, as a matter of fact, MOST universities are now offering online-only courses (I am involved in one such program) at the standard rate with the convenience of not uprooting the family to move back to a college town. Employers may not care from where your degree came, but an employer making a decision between someone with a BS from the University of South Florida vs. someone with an MA from the University of Phoenix, I’d bet my life that they’ll take the USF grad.
Learning is learning.
Most true learning is just you and the subject matter.
I don’t see why, say, most of a engineering or any other science degree couldn’t be learnt remotely at a minimal costs. Maybe one year of lab work.
MIT offers, non credit, most of it’s courses free, online. A true and noble idea.
I hope there is more of this and it puts price pressure on these bloated, over priced colleges and universities.
bookmark for later reading
Cheers1
I am not asserting that it doesn't happen. I work in a non-profit industry that can't get quality applicants due to salary caps and market shopping to prohibit certain job titles from being used. I have a BA and make good money, and there are people in my organization who have MAs and make less than me. And then there are members of leadership who have degrees from Univ. of Phoenix and Nova Southeastern who couldn't lead their way out of a paper bag. It's not about the person, it's about the institution.
In my last job, I was hired based on the fact that I had a degree from an accredited university. The gentleman against whom I was in the running had two Master's degrees from different "paper mill" universities, was a military veteran, taught public high school for fifteen years, and had worked as high up the chain as a director, but his resume was riddled with spelling errors, poor grammar, and when asked about a basic economic question regarding an assertion on his resume that he saved his company X%, he couldn't provide a proper number in relation to the savings.
I don't give a damn where someone gets their degree, but I would hope that the fact that I took the time, went through the motions, and was properly vetted by standardized tests and a thorough application process would give me more capital in a job interview than the quantity of undergraduate or graduate credentials from a "paper mill" university.
I’m just thanking God we don’t have two in college at the same time!
Just because courses are costing $99 instead of the $2,000 a semester you are paying does not make them “paper mills”. The level of snobbery, and the attitude that “it doesn’t cost a fortune therefore it must be a worthless paper mill” is telling. I know a number of exceptional individuals who have EARNED graduate level degrees in their field from reasonably priced online institutions who have received an education that is far superior to anything Harvard is putting out and it didn’t cost them $2000 a semesterfor an MA or Ph.D..
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