Students pay a premium to attend a regionally accredited online university. At the end of my undergraduate journey, I owed Miss Sallie Mae close to $40k. That number may sound astounding, but 15 years ago that opportunity was not available to me. I sat in dead-end jobs making barely enough to contribute to the family and it was miraculous if anyone answered a resume submission. I don't care what anyone says, attending school online is HARD but you will learn a lot. Check out these pros and cons from someone who has walked this path.
Like I said, online courses are VERY challenging, not because the subject matter is necessary difficult but more so because you have 16 weeks of material crammed into 5 weeks. Everything is WRITING, WRITING, WRITING.
I have attended classes with folks from all over the world and learning about their cultures was both enriching and fascinating. This was an unexpected surprise.
Most people don't like this aspect of the online university but it IS required for the school to have regional accreditation. Team work will teach you how to function and communicate in teams. If you are thinking of attending an online university that does not require teams, I would do a serious research of its regional accreditation status.
Some universities are now using electronic books with DRM, Digital Rights Management, for copyright protection. This kind of sucks because you have the DRM and can view or print the book pages (which you pay another mint for) and what happens 5 years down the road when the DRM is no longer supported?
Traditional universities are non-profits and a lot of the online universities are for-profit. Someone who says there is no difference has never experienced the terrible customer service and the "you're number 150,000" phenomenon that comes from attending a for-profit university.
Posted by Miss_d
