Some Early Tips on Flexible Ways to Get Educated and Earn a Degree

Probably one of the most flexible and financially viable ways to earn a degree these days is to do it online. I have done a lot of research about online higher education from a newsletter I wrote and published for 8 years called “Educational Pathways” (see http://www.edpath.com/stories.htm).  Plus,  I  wrote “A Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Your MBA Online,” published by Alpha Books in 2005. I got the rights back to that book and how have it freely available on my website at http://www.edpath.com/oldwebsitepages/onlinembaebook.html. 

 

Going online gives you the opportunity to continue to work while attending classes. However, don’t think that taking this path is any easier than going the traditional face-to-face route. In fact, in my opinion, earning a degree online is more difficult than earning a degree the traditional way. 

Earning a complete degree online, without setting foot on a campus, has grown in popularity since they started to become available in the 1990s. There are a couple of web portals that supply visitors with all the information they need in order to pursue an online education. Two of my favorites are http://www.geteducated.com/ and http://www.worldwidelearn.com/.

There are some pretty interesting new developments happening in the world of online education on a number of fronts where the system is geared toward helping working adults find the easiest and least expensive way to get a degree. Getting a degree, after all, is mandatory these days, unless you decide to pick up a trade through an apprenticeship or various other types of training. Getting a degree is mandatory because it has proven to earn people a lot more over a lifetime as opposed to not having degree. For example, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, if you are a high school graduate without a trade, you can expect to earn S1.37 million over your lifetime. If you are a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree that figure goes up to $2.42 million. A master’s degree puts you at $2.83 million.  I’ll get into trades later in the book. For now, my focus is on higher education and some of the best and least expensive ways to earn a degree.

One thing that looks to be happening fairly consistently across the board is that 4-year institutions are becoming more flexible and making it easier for students to transfer in college-level credits toward a degree. These transfer credits can be earned in a variety of ways. If you are a working adult, for instance, there may be some work experiences and training that you can get converted into college credit, resulting in less total number of courses you would have to take in order to get a bachelor’s degree.  Rather than go into all the details here, when and if you start investigating admission processes to 4-year institutions, ask the representative about the possibility of earning credit by exam and/or through what’s referred to as Prior Learning Assessment (PLA), which give you credit for what you know and have learned over your work career to date. These types of credits can save you time and money, but not every college in the nation is generous about accepting this kind of college credit. If you look hard enough, however, and you are not overly concerned about where you get a degree, then these college credit options might be what you need.  One thing you do need to know, however, is that no matter what institution you choose, the main criteria you should have is that it be regionally accredited. 

One of the relatively new developments in the world of higher education is called “competency-based learning.”  If you haven’t heard about this yet, stay tuned, because it is starting to catch the eye of the media. Some educators are calling this kind of education a game-changer that will alter higher education in ways we have yet seen.  There’s a debate going on about these programs and their relationship to how college credit is earned (see http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/04/30/wgu-example-shows-chilly-policy-climate-competency-based-education). 

One of the latest examples of a competency-based degree program can be found at Southern New Hampshire University, called “Snew” for its acronym of SNHU. The short story about SNHU is that you can earn a complete associate degree from your home without ever setting foot on campus for about $5,000 through its new College for America (see http://collegeforamerica.org/). However, it’s not available to the general public. You have to be employed by one of its partners (see http://collegeforamerica.org/partners). 

I wrote about SNHU at  http://edpath.typepad.com/source_scholars/2013/04/snhu-and-college-for-america-serving-those-who-may-not-be-well-served.html.  See the comments on this piece that are pretty interesting because they reveal some things about how some people feel about these kinds of programs. I do, however, believe that these competency-based degrees are viable and that we are going to see them grow in popularity very quickly.

Other institutions that are leading the way and are the early adopters in this arena are Western Governors University (WGU), Excelsior College, Kaplan University, and SUNY Empire State College.