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What’s keeping people from thinking online colleges are legitimate? Is it just prejudice, or is it a reflection of reality.
According to a piece by Alex Taussig in Fortune, it’s only a matter of time before we all think online is totally okay. Taussig, however, is probably wrong.
As he writes:
If polled, I’d imagine most would associate online education with those late-night “go to school in your PJs” commercials. To some, online education may feel like online dating sites felt 10-15 years ago: sketchy at worst, a poor substitute for the real thing at best.
Yet, today Match.com claims that 17% of married couples met online. While that number is probably too high, most of us know at least one of these couples. Furthermore, the stigma attached to this concept is gone. In fact, many tout the efficiencies of an online matching service, especially for older professionals who don’t have time to play the scene.
Fast-forward 10-15 years. I think online education will be a lot like online dating is today: Pervasive and of acceptable, even higher quality.
Well no. While this sort of thing looks analogous, it isn’t.
Online college is not like online dating. That’s because what most of us think of as “online dating” is really only an online matchup, a way of finding people online. The actual courtship takes place in the real world. There are people who have relationships entirely online, but those relationships are, well, different….
Like with dating, there’s a lot of online content that can help improve both the quality and efficiency of education. But online content probably won’t replace education, and that’s because the college experience is not just about getting a piece of paper that indicates that you’ve earned about 120 credits of academic work. College is actually supposed to take place in the real world. People understand this and that’s why people who have money will always go to such schools.
As long as people continue to attend colleges (and they will, because they rather like them), online colleges will seem less legitimate. Sure there are ways to get an education another way, but let’s stop pretending such an education is equivalent to a normal one.
There are people who conduct all online relationships, too. But those online relationships are shallow and weak. And the people who involved in them are mostly, well, losers. There’s actually been a great proliferation of this sort of thing as the internet has evolved. Sure it’s kind of a relationship and, yes, it’s taking place entirely due to advances in technology. But these relationships aren’t going to replace real ones, because they’re just not as good.
Online college is probably just like that; there’s going to be a lot more of it, and it’s not going to be that great. [Image via]
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Karlyn Morissette on March 22, 2011 5:05 PM:
This post is ill-considered at best. Having done degrees both the traditional way, at a well-respected top tier university, and online, I can say that I learned infinitely more online. Far more was required of me than in the so-called "normal" method. And, indeed, we've seen statistics to show that students don't learn very much in traditional colleges at all.
I also work in higher education, at a traditional college that offers online programs. The classes are EXACTLY THE SAME as the ones taught on campus - the delivery method is just different. As the number of online learners grows (and it will), the reputation that it is "less than" will diminish.
At the end of the day, it's all about what the students put into it. Students can half-ass their way to an ivy league education or they can put their all into going to a state school or doing it online. And it's almost sad that, in a time when we know that education could be the silver bullet for solving so many problems, people like you write things like this that discourage people from getting an education in what might be the only way available to them. Not everyone can go to school right after college and it's unreasonable to ask most people to quit their jobs and go to school full time.
By the way, in addition to the school I work for now I've also worked at an Ivy and found one thing to be sure - alums of ivies are some of the most book smart people you'll ever meet but severely lack in the common sense department.
Bernard Schuster on March 22, 2011 6:45 PM:
This post by Mr. Luzer, the "Online" Editor, relying as it does on prejudice and name calling, is not as impressive to me as this 2006 New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/education/edlife/conted.html) which is based on some actual research and evidence.
That article is not all hearts and flowers for online education, but it notes that accreditation source is often a higher source of degree credibility than the online v traditional dimension; that many degrees include both online and traditional credits; and it cites numerous employers including the CIA, Northrop Grumman, United Parcel Service, Boeing, and Discovery Communications that do accept online degrees. It also cites research by Eduventures that 10% of surveyed employers said they preferred online degrees, and only 39% (a minority) said online degree were less valuable than traditional. I think this information puts Mr. Luzer's post into some perspective.
The New York Times article also noted that many employers, including Johnson and Johnson and many others, sponsor and support online education programs for their employees, which implies a high degree of acceptance of online education by employers today.
Many if not most state universities, including Washington State (http://online.wsu.edu/) have online degree programs, which I believe do enjoy some credibility with many employers. Do WSU online degrees have the credibility of on campus... my guess is it's
relative, it would most likely depend on the applicant's work/achievement history, the degree, the job, the employer, and GPA. Traditional degrees are great but I believe the evidence shows online degrees are also competitive.
Bernard Schuster
pewredBreesty on May 28, 2011 4:48 PM:
I agree, it's interesting, probably in the future ...