News and Articles

By Leslie Bowen

Distance learning is the most convenient way for adults with busy lives that include full time jobs and family responsibilities to obtain a quality education. While these days, the most common form of distance-based coursework is online delivery, there are also programs delivering education through correspondence, television, and mixed delivery methods, providing options for everyone.

Adults are earning Bachelor's degrees, Master's degrees, and doctorates online in every field through accredited colleges and universities. Distance learning students are self-motivated and independent learners. They are willing and able to take responsibility for their learning and can accept a learning environment in which the instructor is a facilitator of knowledge application rather than a dispenser of information. Adult students take with them into each course vast and varied experiences and knowledge upon which further knowledge is built.
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By now, nearly everyone has heard about distance or online education (sometimes referred to simply as "DL". While it's been around for more than a hundred years, the explosion in interest has occurred only in the last 5 or 10 years.

Here are some common questions we hear at DegreeInfo.com:

1) What does "distance learning" mean, anyway?
2) Are DL degrees legitimate?
3) Are the degrees earned through DL respected by employers and other learning institutions?
4) Who gets DL degrees? (And why?)
5) Will I have to start from scratch, or can I get credit for classes I've already taken, and work or
life experience?

In this article, we'll do our best to answer these questions and more. And if you can't find what you are looking for, try visiting our discussion forum, where our members and contributors discuss and debate a wide variety of Distance Learning issues. Or check out our free Quick Degree Finder to help you find the perfect school.

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Roger Habeck is a high-school dropout who, at age 58, with no prior college courses or other higher education, earned an accredited bachelor’s degree in just under a year (with far from full-time effort) from Charter Oak State College, part of the Connecticut state college system. His entire degree (123 credit hours) was earned through exam-for-credit programs (DANTES, CLEP and GRE.) In 1998, his entire degree cost about $1800. A rough equivalency today (2010) would be between $3500 and $5500, depending on the specific exams and other factors. Still an unbeatable option for an accelerated bachelors degree from a state school with topnotch accreditation! You can get free information about Charter Oak's innovative degree completion programs (and help support DegreeInfo in the process), but read on to learn exactly how he did it, and how you can too!
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Introduction
Nearly every school which offers courses and degree programs through distance learning has a Web site. Some are slick, some are shabby. How can you get past the appearance to find out whether the school is worth your time and money?

When you find a school online, start your evaluation with these factors:
* Accreditation
* Administration and faculty
* Student service

Accreditation
The U.S. system of accreditation is unique, as it is a decentralized educational system (I use the term "system" loosely). Often confusing and inconsistent, it is still an important factor when considering U.S. schools. If you are considering a non-U.S. school, look for the equivalent of accreditation, such as a Royal Charter for schools in the United Kingdom.
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by Nathan Whiteside

It was the perfect arrangement, really.

Dr. John Bear and his daughter Ms. Mariah Bear were both very busy with their lives, yet the 14th and latest edition of the Bears' Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning was becoming dated material, as the world of nontraditional education is constantly changing. The Bears' Guide has been the foremost authority on distance learning since its first printing in 1974, so something had to be done. Regardless of how much "spare time" they had (or didn't have) for such a project, it was time for a new edition.

We, the staff of DegreeInfo.com, were working hard to turn a simple online discussion forum into a major information clearinghouse for distance education. To that end, we were compiling a comprehensive database of accredited and International-GAAP schools, and developing plans to compile a similar database of unaccredited and fraudulent schools.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that we could help each other out.
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