Online Education Evolves as It Draws More Students
Cynthia Stebbins loved her first two years at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, but after she got married in May of 2013, she found herself in a bind. Her husband, Cody, who is in the Air Force, was transferred to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.
Stebbins, 21, didn't want to have a long-distance marriage, so she decided to finish her bachelor's degree the 21st-century way: online. She'll graduate next spring from CSU with a degree in psychology.
Although Stebbins sometimes misses the campus social life, she's confident she's getting just as rich an academic experience as when she was trekking from one classroom to another.
[Learn how to succeed in an online course.]
"The experience is similar to what it is on campus, and I appreciate that," she says. "I don't want my education to be different just because I've chosen this program."
Whether you're an undergrad like Stebbins who faces logistical challenges or a working student who wants a degree without giving up that salary, attending class virtually is an increasingly viable and popular option. Some universities allow students to earn their degrees entirely online; a growing number are dabbling by letting students earn a handful of credits virtually.
Nearly 460 schools offered online bachelor's courses in 2013, according to the latest annual survey by Babson College in Massachusetts, which has been tracking the spread of online education for 11 years. And the proportion of all students, undergraduate and graduate, taking at least one online course hit a high of 33.5 percent in 2013, Babson reports.
Moving the lecture hall onto the Web isn't always a smooth process. In April, the high-profile pilot program Semester Online was discontinued; a consortium of 10 universities -- Boston College, Northwestern University and Washington University in St. Louis among them -- had tried offering for-credit virtual classes to their own students and to attendees of other colleges interested in transferring the credits.
[Understand the common terms used in online education.]
The organizer, Maryland-based 2U, declined to comment but said in a written statement that it found "significant challenges related to the complexities of a consortium structure." The firm continues to provide software solutions to individual schools developing online offerings, and in October will be working on its first online undergraduate degree program with Simmons College School of Nursing and Health Sciences in Boston.
But the end of Semester Online shouldn't be viewed as a sign that digitally enhanced learning is a bad idea, argues Elliott Visconsi, an English and law professor and chief academic digital officer at consortium member University of Notre Dame, which offered four undergrad courses online during the pilot.
Instructors found the teaching "to be exciting and interesting, but new and unfamiliar," he says. While there were problems associated with students moving in and out of classes and seeking credits from other participating schools, he says, Notre Dame is now pursuing a variety of digital initiatives.
[Decide if online education is right for you.]
"Our primary goal is to give our students a world-class undergraduate experience," he says, "and certainly digital tools and strategies are part of that puzzle."
Arizona State University associate professor Dawn Gilpin, who teaches an online course in social media, says Web-based teaching platforms have become so sophisticated that students can easily be as engaged as they are in physical classes, if not more so.
Some of Gilpin's students these days are military servicemen deployed to Afghanistan; indeed, online education is fast becoming a popular route to advancement for both active-duty folks and veterans. Some programs give veterans credit for time spent serving the country.
"More often than not, veterans have had training and experience that could be equivalent to some of our introductory-level courses," says Christine Shakespeare, assistant vice president of continuing and professional education at Pace University.
Those who apply to the Pace program submit information outlining their work and any courses they took in the military, which is then evaluated by faculty to determine how many credits they should receive.
This story is excerpted from the U.S. News "Best Colleges 2015" guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
