How Fast Can you Get an Online Degree?

One thing that you hear a lot when people start talking about their reasons for getting an online degree is that they seem to think that they can do it much more quickly than they can do a regular degree program. This is usually important to them because they need the degree quickly for career advancement. This does raise the question of just how fast can you get an online degree?

How long it takes to get an online degree is going to depend in large part on how much you already know. There are options that will allow you to get a legitimate degree in a relatively short period of time either through testing or through a portfolio review. There is a site called BA in four weeks that explains how this is possible. Keeping in mind of course that 30 days is an extreme example and very unlikely.

More realistically if you already have most of the knowledge that is necessary for a degree you can probably do it in about a year. If however you need to actually learn the material you should plan on a much longer period to complete your degree. Often it takes longer than a regular degree program takes.

If you are able to devote as much time to your online degree as a full time student does to their degree you can probably finish in about the same amount of time. If you work hard and take self paced classes it may even be possible to do it in a little bit less time. Expecting however that you are going to do what amounts to four years of work in one year in order to get your degree is not realistic, particularly if you already have a job.

One of the biggest reasons that people fail to complete their online degrees is that they get discouraged when things don't go as fast as they had hoped. It is therefore important to make sure that you have realistic expectations of how fast you are going to complete your degree. A fast degree is possible if you are looking to get credit for stuff you already know,usually through your job. It is not very likely however if you need to learn the material from scratch.

What are the Best Online Degree Programs for Someone in the Military?

While serving in the military it is a good idea to take advantage of the educational opportunities that are available to you. This is true whether you plan to make a career out of the military or if you plan to move onto other things. One of the best things that you can do while you are serving is to complete your degree, there are lots of military friendly online degree programs that can help with this. The following are probably the best options.

American Military University

Despite the name the American Military University is not affiliated with the military. Nevertheless they are set up to help military personnel to get a degree. They offer very flexible course schedules to make it easier to fit your classes around deployments. They also offer a wide range of degree programs that are particularly relevant to someone making a career out of the military. One other benefit is that they offer some of the least expensive courses that you will find anywhere.

The Big 3

The Big 3 are group of schools that are known as assessment colleges. This means that they don’t actually offer courses, what they do is allow you to earn a degree by taking courses at other schools. This means that as you move around during your career you can take courses locally and transfer them into your degree program. They will also allow you to earn credit with exams like the CLEP or Dantes. They also tend to be pretty good about granting credit for military training. The Big 3 Colleges are Charter Oak State College, Excelsior College and Thomas Edison State College.

Schools that have a Partnership with the Military

One last place that  you will want to look if you are doing a degree while in the military is with the schools that partner with the military to allow personnel to earn a degree through a combination of their military training and online classes. A good example of this is the partnership the University of Arizona has with the Air Force to allow weather technicians to complete a Bachelor’s degree in weatherforecasting. There are lots of similar opportunities depending on your MOS, you will need to take a look at what is available. 

Is it Really Possible to Take College Courses Online for Free?

Whether or not you can take college courses online for free is going to depend on your definition of taking a college course. Many schools have started to make their course materials available for free online. The best known of these is MIT who have made the materials for all of their courses available online. What they do not do however is offer credit for the courses, for that you will have to sign up and pay the tuition. Basically the free courses are the online version of being able to audit a course, you can take them for your own interest but you won’t be able to get a free degree.

Just because you can’ t get credit for the free college courses however does not mean that they have no value. Obviously there is the benefit of personal enrichment that you can get from taking them, but you may also be able to turn them into college credit for a fraction of the cost of actually taking the courses.

There are a number of programs that will allow you to earn credit by taking tests to demonstrate what you know. The most widely known of these are the CLEP exams but there are quite a few others as well. The  open courseware that is available from many online colleges can be a great way to prepare for these exams.  Most colleges put a limit on how much credit you can earn through testing but a few like Thomas Edison State College and Excelsior College will allow you to complete a full degree in this way.

Another way that you can use free online courses to earn college credit is through challenge for credit. Most schools will allow you to challenge a course for credit without requiring that you take it. Just how they will do this depends on the school and the course, in most cases you will have to make arrangements with the professor to come up with a plan for demonstrating that you have mastered the course material. This may involve an exam or a project, or a combination of both.

While we have not yet reached the point of their being truly free online college courses the opportunity to learn for free is there. If you have an interest in a particular subject this can be a great way to learn. It is often possible to turn what you learn from these courses into credit but doing so will definitely not be free. 

Why Don't All Colleges Offer Online Degrees?

Currently there are a lot of colleges that offer online degrees so finding one should not be a problem. That being said you should not assume that all colleges will offer online programs. In fact it is generally the best known and most reputable schools that do not offer online degrees. There is of course a reason for this.

The reason that the well known, big name schools do not offer online degrees is that it would reduce the value of their regular degree programs. One of the reasons that people pay a hundred thousand dollars for a Harvard degree is that the number of people who have them is strictly limited. If they were to open the doors and start conferring thousands of online degrees every year the value would decline dramatically.

This recently became an issue when Berkeley attempted to start an online degree program, the students of the regular degree program protested against the move. So far Berkeley has introduced one online Master's degree program but it is unlikely that more are going to follow any time soon.

The schools that are much more likely to offer online degree programs are the ones whose job is to educate large numbers of people, like the state colleges. The job of the state colleges is to make educational opportunities available to as many people as they can so they have embraced online learning. They also don't have to worry nearly as much about too many graduates as adding a few more to the tens of thousands who get them every year is hardly going to devalue them.

The other colleges that are likely to offer online degrees are the ones that were set up specifically to do this. Because you can operate an online school with much less overhead than would be required for a regular college it has proven to be a good business for many companies.

While most big name schools have avoided offering online degrees some of them are starting to dip their toes in the water. As already mentioned Berkeley has started to offer one degree program. In addition Harvard has an online program that actually offers quite a few different degrees. They have decided that online learning is something they can't avoid. In order to get around the problem of devaluing their degrees they have decided to differentiate them. You can get a Harvard degree online but it is not the same degree that you would get if you attended class in person. This is probably the route that the other well known schools will follow.

Are Nationally Accredited Online Degrees Reputable?

If you are going to register for an online degree you have to make sure that you pay attention to the accreditation of the school offering the degree. The best by far is a school that is regionally accredited, this is the gold standard and any school that is regionally accredited can be considered a legitimate school. There are however quite a few schools that do not meet this requirement and that does not necessarily mean that they are bad, in fact many of them have national accreditation.

Nationally accredited online colleges are not as desirable as ones that are regionally accredited that is the simple reality. This does not however mean that NA schools are not legitimate. They do have to meet a certain standard and schools that meet this standard are generally considered to be legitimate, at least in the sense that they are not diploma mills.

There are however some downsides to attending a school that is nationally accredited rather than regionally accredited and you need to be aware of these. The biggest is that you will likely find that if you want to transfer to another school down the road that it will be very hard to transfer your credits. Schools that are regionally accredited rarely accept transfer credits from schools that are not. In addition you will also likely find it hard to get into a grad school that is RA if your undergraduate degree is from an NA school.

As a general rule even though nationally accredited schools are legitimate institutions they should be avoided. There are just too many negatives to attending one. Given that there are thousands of regionally accredited online colleges there is really no reason to attend one that is not.

When you are looking at any online school the first place that you should go in your research is to the accreditation, this should be listed on their website, if it is not easy to find it is probably best to just move onto your next option. Schools that have the proper accreditation will make this known.

So, are nationally accredited schools legitimate? The answer is that yes they are, however they are not really a good option for getting an online degree. There is nothing they can offer that a school that is RA can't offer without the disadvantages.

Are You Ready to Complete an Online Degree?

There has been a huge increase in the number of people registering for online degrees over the last few years. This is no huge surprise as online learning has made it possible for people who otherwise not be able to get a college education. The problem is that a large number of people are rushing out and starting online programs with thoughts about how they will benefit from completing their degree. Few put any real thought into the actual process of getting a degree and as a result a large number of people never finish.

One of the reasons for the very low online degree completion rate is that people underestimate how much work is involved. Combined with the fact that most people want to get it done as quickly as possible and it is fairly common to see students registering for too many courses at one time. It is called a full time course load for a reason, it requires a full time commitment. If you have a job and a family it is not particularly realistic to think that you are going to be able to carry a full course load. You are going to have to work at a slower pace which unfortunately means that it will take longer for you to get your degree done.

The other issue that a lot of people really struggle with when it comes to online degrees is motivating themselves to do the work. One of the great advantages of online learning is that it allows you to set your own schedule and study when you want to. While this sounds great the reality is that a lot of people need to have somebody to tell them when to get to work. If you can't get yourself to work you are going to really struggle with online learning.

The last thing that you want to do is spend thousands of dollars on tuition to get halfway through a degree and end up not finishing. To make sure that this doesn't happen you have to make sure that you are actually ready for online learning. This means that you have to have the necessary time available to do the work. If you only have a an hour a day to study you are going to have to limit yourself to one course at a time.

In a lot of ways online learning is self employment, you have to take responsibility for getting it done. The best way to do this is to schedule time for your studies and then stick to that schedule. Creating an office where you can be left alone to study is also helpful. Going in prepared will greatly increase your chances of completing your degree.

What is the Cheapest Regionally Accredited Online College?

The cheapest regionally accredited online college that I have managed to find is Louisiana State University. They offer their online and distance learning courses for just $119 per semester hour which compared to the cost of many other online colleges is very inexpensive. There are however a couple of caveats when it comes to taking online courses at LSU.

The first issue that you are going to encounter with LSU is that they offer only a very small number of online courses. That being said they do have a wide selection of the more traditional paper based distance learning courses. If you are willing to combine the two types of courses LSU is probably the least expensive way to get a distance learning degree.

The other big issue with LSU that may be a problem for some students is that LSU doesn't actually offer a distance learning degree. It may be possible to complete a degree entirely through distance learning however you will have to be admitted to one of the state university campuses and they will award the degree. The other option that you have is to take as many courses as you can through LSU and then transfer the credits to another school. If you are going to do this you will need to be careful to make sure that all of the courses that you take are transferable.

If you want to find an online degree program that can be completed entirely online the least expensive option that I have managed to find is Fort Hayes State University. They offer a reasonable number of programs that can be completed online, currently tuition is $182 per semester hour.

There are of course even less expensive ways to get a degree if money is really tight. The cheapest possible way to get a regionally accredited distance learning degree is to use the many examination programs that are available. Programs like CLEP and Dantes and several others will award university credit for about a hundred dollars a course, the price varies from program to program. If you take a 6 credit CLEP exam for example the cost is $80 which works out to about $13 per semester hour. You can transfer a limited number of exam credits to most online colleges, a few like Excelsior College or Thomas Edison State College will actually allow you to complete a whole degree using these exams. In theory this will allow you to complete a degree for less than $5000 including all of the fees charged by the colleges.

Can You Really get a Harvard Online Degree?

The answer to whether or not you can really get an online degree from Harvard is sort of. Harvard has a pretty extensive continuing education programs that does offer quite a few online courses and even a few online degrees. That being said there is a major caveat if you are going to go down this road.

The big thing that you have to keep in mind about Harvard online degrees is that they are not the same degree as the one that people attending regular classes get. The requirements are different and even the name of the degree is different. Admittedly a lot of people are not going to realize this and you can legitimately put a Harvard degree on your resume if you use their continuing education program. However anybody who has attended Harvard and most people in the world of academia will be well aware of the fact that it is not a “real” Harvard degree.

While the online degrees that are offered by Harvard may not be at the same standard as their other degrees this does not mean that they are not worth pursuing. Surprisingly in terms of cost a Harvard online degree is quite reasonably priced compared to those offered by a lot of other online schools. In addition the education that you get is very good even if it is not the same as the one offered to regular Harvard students, the classes are usually taught by the same instructors.

If you want to get a degree from Harvard it can only be done completely online at the masters degree level and even then they only offer a very small number of programs. There are also several graduate certificates that are on offer if you don't want to commit to a full time masters program, most of these can be laddered into a masters degree down the road if you wish to continue on.

At the undergraduate level the Harvard Extension school offers both Associate and Bachelor's degrees, and many of the courses are available online. There is however a requirement that you attend at least some of the courses in person. If you live in Boston this usually means attending night classes. For students who live further away they offer a summer school during which you can meet the requirement, in most cases however it will require at least two summers.

Choosing the Best Online Degree Program

Unfortunately when it comes to online degrees there is no one best program, you are going to have to choose the best degree program for your needs. This can be tricky because a lot of people really don't know what their needs are when it comes to online education. We will therefore take a look at some of the things that you should consider before you make your choice.

The first thing that you are going to want to think about when you are choosing an online degree program are why you need the degree. In most cases people say they are doing to improve their career prospects but this in itself does not answer the question. You have to think about things like whether you are going to need to continue on to graduate school, not all online degrees are particularly helpful when it comes to applying to a masters program. You also have to think about whether your desired career requires a specific degree or if any degree is acceptable. There are lots of careers where being able to check the box and say you have a degree is acceptable, in other careers it will matter what your degree is in and in some cases even where you got it.

Once you know what your reasons for getting a degree are the next step is to find an online school that offers a degree that meets all of your requirements. This may be very easy or very difficult depending on your situation. If you just need any degree to meet your career goals you will have lots of options, if you want to be an engineer on the other hand your options will be much more limited.

The next step is to take a look at the way that the schools you are considering teach their courses. Some will just give you a course syllabus and a list of textbooks and leave you on your own to work through the degree at your own pace. Others will require regular interaction through chat sessions and have pretty rigid schedules that you have to follow. While it may seem that a course that allows you to work on your own would be best because of the flexibility that it offers this is not always the case. A lot of people struggle when they don't have someone there to tell them when to do their work. You have to take a hard look at how you learn best and find an online schools that teaches in that way.

The last major consideration when you are looking for the best online degree is going to be cost. I am a big proponent of the idea that when it comes to online degrees you should take the cheapest option that meets all of your other needs. The reason for this is that when you choose a high priced school you are almost always paying for its reputation. The reality is that even the best online degree programs simply don't have a reputation to be worth paying extra for. In general if you can find an acceptable degree program that is offered online by your local state college that is usually the best option.

Are Fast Online Degrees Legitimate?

One of the things that a lot of people pursuing online degrees have in common is that they want to get their degree done as quickly as possible. Usually this is because they are working professionals who need the degree for a promotion or to move into a better job. Not surprisingly since there is a demand for fast online degrees there are now a lot of schools offering them. This does however beg the question of whether or not these degrees are legitimate.

Unfortunately in a lot of cases these fast degrees are not legitimate. This is particularly true of the ones that promise that they will award you a degree based on life experience, real colleges simply don't do this. In order to get a degree you are going to have to put in the work and that does take time. There are however a few options that can get you a degree fairly quickly, at least for some people.

The first thing that you have to make sure of if you want to get on a fast track degree program is to make sure that the school that is offering the degree is properlyaccredited. This means that they must have regional accreditation, any school that does not have this is crap and should be avoided.

Once you have found a legitimate school that will allow you a fast degree you have to look at your options for getting credit. The best way to do this is if you already have credits from other schools. A lot of people have started college programs that they never finished, these credits can still be useful. The big challenge that most people have is fitting them into a coherent degree program and meeting residency requirements. Fortunately there are a few schools that have no residency requirement which will allow you to take credits earned from several other schools and grant you a degree based on them. The so called big three, Excelsior College, Charter Oak State College and Thomas Edison State College are the best options in this regard.

Another way to get degree credit quickly is for work experience. While no legitimate college is going to give you credit for life experience many of them will give you credit for work experience and training that you received at your job. In order to qualify for this you will need to create a portfolio of all of the things that you did and learned as part of your job.

The third option for a fast online degree is testing out. There are a number of tests that you can take that will give you college credit without requiring that you take any courses. In some cases it is possible to complete a full degree just based on these tests. The most common testing options are CLEP, Dantes, ECE, and Ohio University, do a search for them and you will find lots of information. The major issue with testing of course is that you have to know the material, many people however can pass a lot of the tests with just a short amount of studying.

3 Tips for Your Online College Search

In a lot of ways the search for an online college is the same as the search for a traditional college. There are however a few areas where there are differences. The big ones are that a lot of the on campus facilities are not going to matter if you are not going to be physically attending the school. There are however a few things that you have to keep in mind when you are looking for an online school, the following tips will address the most important of these.

1.    Accreditation is Critical: There is little value in going to the trouble and the expense of getting a degree if that degree is not useful. In order to make sure that is the case you have to get your degree from a properly accredited school. In the United States this means that you need to get your degree from a school that is regionally accredited. There are literally thousands of regionally accredited online colleges so there is really no reason to waste your time on a degree that isn’t.

2.     Consider Scheduling Issues: One of the great benefits of online schools is that they give you the freedom to take classes at times that are convenient for you. How much freedom you have in this regard however does vary from school to school. Some online colleges offer courses that allow you to set your own schedule entirely, there are no due dates for assignments for example. With these courses you generally get six months to work through them at your own pace and you will have little interaction with your teacher or other students.

 Other schools however actually have quite rigid schedules. Not only does this mean that you have to submit assignments at specific times but often you have to be online at certain times for chat sessions. If sticking to a schedule is a problem for you it may be a good idea to think hard before you enroll in a school with a rigid schedule.

3.   Think About the Costs: An online degree is one of those rare cases where you may not actually get what you pay for. There are lots of very expensive online schools, rarely however do they offer anything that you couldn’t get at much less expensive school. If you are getting a traditional degree it might well be worth the expense to go to Harvard because of its reputation, online schools however do not have the same reputation so there is no reason to pay a huge sum for your degree. The best option is usually your local state university, if not there are lots of other good quality schools that offer online degrees at reasonable prices.

What are the Top Online Accredited Colleges?

Determining which online colleges are the best is not an easy thing to do, mainly because  there are so many variables  that go into the decision. In truth the best that you are going to be able to do is to determine which school is best for your needs which may well be different from those of another person. That being the case it is important to know what to look for in an online college.

The most important thing when you are choosing an online college is to make sure that it is properly accredited. For schools in the United States that means regional accreditation. There are six accrediting agencies  that are responsible for this they are:

The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

The New England Association of Schools and Colleges

The North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

The Western Association of Schools and Colleges

 The Northwest Accreditation Commission

Schools accredited by one of these agencies are considered to be legitimate colleges by pretty much everybody so there will be no doubt about the quality of your degree.

There are other agencies that accredited colleges, they are however not nearly as good as having regional accreditation. As a rule there is no reason to consider one of these schools, there are more than enough regionally accredited schools to choose from.

One thing to keep in mind if you are considering a foreign school is that they are not accredited in the same way. In most cases their legitimacy stems from having government approval to grant degrees. There are lots of good foreign schools that should not be ignored because they are not regionally accredited.

Once you have made sure that the school that you are considering is properly accredited the next thing that you have to do is to find one that offers the courses and the degree program that you want. This may be very easy or very hard depending on what you want to study. If you want a business degree you will have lots of schools to choose from, if you want to study physics you will have far fewer options.

One thing to pay attention to when you are looking at what degrees are available is the courses that are offered. Lots of online colleges will grant degrees in certain subjects despite the fact that they don’t offer all of the necessary courses. In these cases you are expected to take the course at another school and transfer the credits. This can be problematic as usually the courses that are not offered by that particular school are not widely available and may not be available online at all.

The next thing to look at when choosing the top onlinecollege is the course schedule. Some schools stick to the traditional semester system while others offer self paced courses that you can start at any time and work through as fast or slowly as you want. The choice of this is going to depend on how you like to learn.

Another consideration is how the courses are taught. Some schools leave you pretty much on your own to work through the material while others will require that you participate in online chats sessions and other types of interaction with other students and your teachers. Again this is largely going to depend on your preferred learning style.

The exams are something else that you need to make sure that you consider when you are choosing an online college. Almost all schools will require that you write exams, how this is done can be a problem however. In almost all cases you will need a proctor. If you live near the school normally you will be expected to go to the school and use their proctor. If on the other hand you live a long way from the school you will be expected to arrange this on your own.

Cost is the last major consideration when choosing an online college. The cost can vary dramatically and in truth there is no reason to pay for the expensive schools. The best deals are usually at your local state university so they should usually be the first place that you consider.