Online Degrees in the Real World

Most individuals graduating high school realize the best way to secure their financial future pertains to pursuing education in an effort to earn an undergraduate degree. From here, individuals choose to attend graduate schools, take entry positions within a desired career field or pursue other types of education. It’s a common belief of the more education an individual pursues, the better their financial future will be. However, during the course of pursuing this education, most individuals accumulate a large amount of student debt. Student debt can put a halt to anyone’s educational goals if interest payments begin to create a hassle. Most students take up a part-time job in order to help pay down interest on their student loans while pursuing an education. Thus, it becomes important to this person to try and cut costs of educational pursuits in any way, shape or form.

Online Degrees in Your Home

Some students decide they’d rather live in their parent’s house while pursuing their undergraduate degree. However, travel needs can become quite time consuming, when one has to commute to and from work or school. Thus, online degrees offer these individuals a way to pursue further education from the comforts of home. Not only do online degrees accompany smaller tuition bills but one could save quite a bit of money by not having to pay rent, travel obligations and other similar expenses.

The Information Follows You Anywhere

Online degrees allows individuals to pursue their hopes and dreams of further education by offering students access to course material from just about any computer at any location with Internet access. Earning online degrees allows the individual to focus most of their energy towards the coursework and part-time jobs, instead of stressing out over travel issues, bill obligations and the hassles of living in an apartment or dorm room.

Schools and universities offering online degrees allow a student to access their homework, quizzes and course material via the Internet at their convenience. All an online student needs is a computer and access to the World Wide Web and they hold the same learning capabilities as students attending campus classes.

Education, Family and Success

Some families depend on a tightly knit community to provide financial, emotional and environmental stability to each individual in the unit. If an individual were to stray too far from home for an extended period of time, several obligations may go unfulfilled and leave the family with the responsibility of reallocating resources. With the introduction of online degrees, younger members of the family can pursue a college degree from the convenience of home. This means the family will stay secure and knit, while contributing less amounts of assets but continue to provide further education to their success-bound members. Any individual wanting to pursue their education further but finding it difficult to leave the comforts of home or even simply unreasonable may be able to find the best circumstances available through online degrees. Most students pursuing online degrees claim they save time, resources and freedom from stress by conducting educational matters from the comfort of home.

Undergraduate Online Degree Programs

For many adults today, the opportunity to pursue a college degree immediately after high school simply was not an option. The reasons for this can vary greatly, from military service, work or financial obligations, family responsibilities, or to pursue other goals before buckling down to attend college. Sometime further down the road, many of us woke up one day to realize that we needed to obtain that degree in order to achieve professional or personal goals. In fact, career stagnation is reportedly one of the primary factors influencing a person's decision to return to school.

Yet, in many instances, current life obligations do not seem to allow one to return to school, mostly due to time or financial restraints. The uncertainty of family commitments and work schedules can further discourage a potential student from considering evening or weekend campus work. And, as adults, the prospect of sitting in class with a bunch of students freshly out of high school really seems unappealing for many of us. Too few working adults can commit to attending an evening or weekend course for a twelve or thirteen week period. In addition, the traditional college route requires a student to take several courses per semester in order to graduate within a reasonable period of time; in fact, failing to graduate after 8-10 years might require a student to take additional courses to meet new requirements.

The increased availability of computing and Internet technologies has helped increase the popularity of online degree programs, many of which are tailored to meet the demands of working adults. These programs alleviate the obstacles facing working adults today by offering 24/7 classroom access and intense, rapidly paced classes that help students to learn skills and keep pace with their brick-and-mortar counterparts. Through online degree programs, working adults can pursue previously shelved educational goals.

Many online degree programs at the undergraduate level are comparable to those found in traditional schools. Programs ranging from law enforcement, nursing, education, business, arts and humanities, and even technology can all be found through online programs. Most of these programs provide the full curriculum that one would expect to find at brick-and-mortar schools. New tools enable instructors to teach material (including online lectures, tutorials, and math and writing labs) to help students excel in all areas.

Like traditional schools, there are some programs that can help further accelerate a student's progress. Most of the online degree programs require 4-5 years for degree completion. Students can choose to transfer previously earned credits from other accredited institutions, and most of these will satisfy general education requirements. Students can also seek to test-out of certain classes by passing accepted exams (CLEP comes to mind). Still other universities offering online degree programs will accept related education taken outside of the traditional college system (as long as there are some continuing education credits attached to that course). I was fortunate to be able to translate military training into acceptable general education studies. A few universities will accept personal or work experience related to your program, often demonstrated through an experiential essay. The best advice is to ask about these programs prior to admission.