ERAU's Prestigious New Contract

A kind of distance education that we never discuss on Degreeinfo is on-site education that is provided by a university to a customer at the customer's remote site.

Well, this evening I was leafing through the October 2002 issue of 'Air Forces Monthly'. On page 13 there was a news item saying that the US Air Force was outsourcing their introductory pilot training at the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs to a private contractor. It was further reported that this rather prestigious 'Introductory Flight Training Program' (IFTP) contract had been won by Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. Initially they will use a fleet of 14 aircraft, which may grow to 35 by the end of 2003. Approximately 500 officer cadets will be trained to fly annually.

While I'm talking up ERAU, I see in the 2003 US News' 'America's Best Colleges', page 116, that they rank ERAU's Florida campus as having the best undergraduate aeronautical engineering program in the United States, for schools that don't offer doctorates in that subject. That beats the Air Force (#2) and Naval (#3) Academies. ERAU's Arizona campus came in fourth in the nation, tied with Cal Poly-SLO (Burt Rutan's alma mater) and St. Louis University.

ERAU offers on-line programs and remote-site programs at airports all around the US. (They are CA-approved to offer something at the San Jose airport, but I don't know what.)

http://www.ec.erau.edu/ddl/

 

I have almost finished my MAS at ERAU and have taken classes at LAX, March ARB, and Long Beach (Boeing facility).
Another take on distance learning: fellow students included two that commuted from Portland, Oregon, and one from Denver (all worked for airlines and had free flight privileges).

 

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