Online Degrees: Equally Accepted

One of the often hindering truths of human nature is people tend to reject change and mistrust new things. So it should be no surprise that the emergence of online education, which radically altered the age-old methods associated with teaching, was initially met with some resistance. A number of would-be detractors launched studies into the new wave in learning, examining the quality of online education, the acceptance of online degrees and the opinions of top educators. Right across the board, the results were positive. As enrollment numbers rose in leaps and bounds, the good word on online education rapidly spread. Today, most employers, educators and politicians consider online degrees to be just as valid as those earned at traditional schools.

Presidential Seal of Approval

For proof that online education has become accepted by those in power, one needn't look any further than the most powerful man in the country. To combat the projected shortage of educated workers in the U.S., Obama has introduced a plan that calls for the United States to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. To achieve the lofty goal, he's earmarked $500 million to be used for the development of online courses and to provide educators with materials to help students graduate with online degrees. If there were any lingering doubts regarding the importance of online education before, the president's clear vote of confidence in the revolutionary method of learning will certainly dispel them.

Enemy Mine

Even the people one might expect to be its biggest opponents--traditional educators--are recognizing the benefits of earning online degrees. Among them is Dr. Bill Boshner, a respected education specialist in Richmond, Va. After giving the new medium a test drive by developing and teaching a few classes for the Virginia Virtual Advanced Placement School, Boshner said he was surprised to discover there was far more involvement and interaction from online students than he'd ever experienced while teaching in a conventional classroom setting. "I had more responses from students the first week than I normally had in several sessions of traditional classes," Boshner said. "They e-mailed me and their colleagues; they used instant messages, chat rooms and texting. The course was alive with interaction and learning." And Boshner isn't alone in his assessment of Internet-based schooling. After investigating the validity of online education, Judy Gust, a respected member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Task Force, said she found it to be "a quality, critical thinking and professional offering." And a 2007 report by the Sloan Consortium found that "an overwhelming majority of public institutions believe that online education is critical to their long-term strategy."

But that belief isn't exclusive to just public institutions. Large prime universities like Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and Kent State have joined countless others in adding Internet-based classes to their programs. Clearly, the 21st Century modification has met with little resistance from the faculties of these schools. "Both chief academic officers and online teaching faculty said that flexibility in meeting the needs of students was the most important motivation for teaching online," the Sloan report reveals.

The Opinions that Count

While one couldn't easily dismiss the support of the commander-in-chief and top educators, to online students their opinions would be worthless if the people who sign the paychecks in this country didn't concur. Fortunately, that isn't an issue. Employers, many of whom were initially leery of applicants holding online degrees, have come to realize that applicants with Internet-based educations are every bit as educated as those with traditional degrees. In fact, not wanting to miss out on the talent that comes out of Internet schooling, many employers have taken great pains to make sure the members of their personnel departments know the differences between accredited online educations and so-called "diploma mills" so online graduates won't automatically be set apart from those with traditional degrees. After surveying top employers from all over the country, the Sloan Consortium concluded leaders in the academic field do not believe that there is a deficiency of acceptance of online degrees by probable employers. Supporting that assessment, a similar study conducted by Volt Inc. found that 91 percent of the country's employers say they wouldn't think twice about hiring a candidate with an online degree.