Study Finds Earning Online Degrees Superior to Traditional Education

Now that naysayers have come around to the idea that the quality of online degrees is comparable to those offered by traditional colleges, the findings of a recent study stands to turn the country's entire higher education system upside-down. After surveying and testing numerous online graduates, a group of researchers at Bradley University in Illinois determined that students enrolled in Internet-based courses retain between 30 percent and 75 percent more of the information they've been taught than do students in classroom settings. The conclusion ranks online education above traditional college and university schooling--a revelation that's sure to surprise even the most stalwart supporters of Internet-based schooling. While researchers failed to pinpoint the exact reasons for the higher level of comprehension, it isn't difficult to identify the most likely candidates:

• At traditional schools, students are forced to progress at the whims of their instructors--regardless of whether the entire class fully grasps the topic at hand. Online students can progress at their own speed. If they have trouble understanding a particular lesson, they're free to spend as much time as they need on it, attending class more than once or putting the lesson on hold to research various elements as they surface. Conversely, if they feel they fully understand a lesson before other students do, they're free to skip ahead to the next one.
• As hard as they may try to pay attention, traditional students who find a subject or an instructor particularly uninteresting often find their minds wandering after listening to just a fraction of a lesson or lecture. Should students pursuing online degrees run into this problem, they can break the lesson down into two or three segments so they can more easily focus on it.
• While students attending traditional schools have to abide by set schedules, online students can attend classes whenever it suits them best--preferably, at a time of day when they find they're most alert and susceptible to learning.
• As focused as they might be, the fact of the matter is students sitting in traditional classrooms are forced to battle a never-ending onslaught of distractions, often courtesy of their classmates, while the instructor stands at the front of the class and forges ahead. Should students earning online degrees lose their focus, they can always review what they missed or put the entire lesson on hold until a later time.
• If an illness, family emergency or personal obligation forces a student to miss a day of school at a brick-and-mortar institution, he or she has to either get as much information as possible from someone else's notes or plan on failing a section of the final exam. People enrolled in online colleges never miss a single thing because their lessons are always standing by, waiting to be taught at the students' convenience.