Online Education Blog

In an article from Times Union, “Online learning edges towards respectability,” Marc Parry writes about how online education is earning prestige as the economy continues its downward spiral.

If studies suggesting that students that attend virtual classrooms are more engaging with their peers than students attending physical classrooms, the escalating costs of gas, combined with the deaccelerating income of the economy, is enough to bolster online education into its rightful position as a quality equivalent to traditional postsecondary education.

If you are not convinced online education is going mainstream, take a look at the programs offered at your local community college. It is not just online-exclusive schools offering distance learning programs anymore. Prestigious universities that have been around since the late 1800′s like Saint Leo University have quality online programs that the campus is proud of, giving it the same merit they give their traditional educational programs.

The above-mentioned article quotes, “At Excelsior, an Albany-based distance educator catering mostly to out-of-staters, online registrations grew 23 percent this year.”

Online education started decades ago. In fact, the beginning of distance learning wasn’t on the Internet at all, but on those archaic VHS tapes you can’t even find in your local media store anymore. Since then, the ability to learn from home has only grown, so that nearly every college student, at the very least, a hybrid learning experience (exposed to online and campus learning).

Sprinkle a little bit of economic struggle with some prestigious accreditation agencies, several flourishing online programs, a dash of happy distance learners, and a steamy story (think like a romance novel, almost) on how distance learning and campus-based learning live together, and you get a recipe for success.