What online college did you go to and how was your experience?

Question

I have decided to get the rest of my Bachelor's degree from an online institution as in this day and age it really doesn't matter how you get that degree unless it's from Yale, Harvard, or one of the top 10 traditional schoos. I have considered University of Phoenix, but I heard their tuition goes up? I have also considered Kaplan and Jones university but can't find enough feedback on them. AIU has been on probation for the last 2 years so they are not an option. Please help if you have any feedback regarding any online institution or suggestions for research.

Answer 1

I've taken courses by DL at:

University of South Carolina
Excelsior College
Brigham Young University
Louisiana State University
Coastal Carolina University
Webster University
PCDI (vocational)

over the past 26 years. What I've seen is that the quality of delivery has steadily increased until now, there's just about no difference in quality between online and in-class at the same school.

As for picking a degree program; you're not restricted to those proprietary schools - almost every state U has an online degree completion program now and it's usually cheaper with a better reputation than the proprietary schools.

You can get a degree online from some very well placed universities (UMass, Boston U, Fl State, UC) but the reason you don't hear about them as much is because they aren't easy.

http://www.petersons.com has a list of online degree programs by subject area. It's a pretty good resource.

If you already have a large portion of your degree finished and just need a school that will take maximum transfer credit then "the Big Three" may be the right option for you.

Excelsior College http://www.excelsior.edu
Thomas Edison State College http://www.tesc.edu
Charter Oak State College http://www.cosc.edu

you won't find any other regionally accredited programs as flexible or as generous with transfer credit as these three.

If you're interested in low cost per course and need some more courses, Peru State College in Nebraska http://www.peru.edu/online/index.htm has a nice selection of bachelor's online and their tuition is more than reasonable when compared to most others.

American Public University http://www.apus.edu also has a good selection of courses and degrees but they are just a little more expensive than Peru (though way lower than the proprietary schools).

If you're interested in Emergency Management, Jacksonville State University has a pretty cool looking bachelor's online. http://jsuonline.com/online_degrees.php and they are very cost effective.

Two sources for feedback about distance education:
http://www.degreeinfo.com
http://www.degreediscussion.com

These folks usually know the real facts about programs out there and can be very helpful. The general recommendations to get the most value of your online education are these:

1) pick a school that is regionally accredited. Specialty accreditation in addition to RA will be essential in some fields. National accreditation such as DETC is valid but won't have the same universal utility as RA.
2) pick a school that has a solid reputation already. This will most likely be a school that has a presence on the ground somewhere (such as UMass or UFla) over those schools who exist only online (UoP, Kaplan, et al). Don't exclude a proprietary school if they meet your needs though and come up as the best viable option.
3) don't expect online education to be easier than in-the class. It simply isn't. You can expect online courses to require a lot of writing and more independent reading than most people want to do.

Answer 2

If you just want the degree University of Phoenix will get you that, but if you really want an education I would look elsewhere. I only took a few on line classes to be fair, but I was not impressed with what I learned. For me I just needed the piece of paper to qualify for a much larger salary, so it worked out for me. The tuition is very expensive compared to traditional schools and you won't get as good of an education.