What Are The Advantages Of Online Degree Programs That Have Made Them So Popular Nowadays?

By Author: Bimol Bee
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A college degree (an associate’s, bachelor’s or master’s) has become in our days a critical prerequisite for successful career promotion. Even highly-experienced seasoned professionals have come to realize the necessity to continue their education in order to be promoted and keep up with the competition. Such is the nature of the modern business environment: it is highly dynamic, features new challenges and the competition is more intensive than it has ever been before. A busy working professional can hardly count on successful progress up the career ladder without a corresponding degree, despite his or her professional merits and extensive practical experience.

The necessity to continue education and get a college degree creates a kind of vicious circle: one needs to start earning a living, but it can be hardly compatible with going to campus to continue with one’s degree training. The majority of students indicate the urgency of getting a job and a regular paycheck as the most common reason for quitting their college education or not pursuing a college degree. If you start earning an income you could hardly ...
... spare time and energy on getting an education. Both of those issues seem to be connected in a kind of stalemate. And the college degree is a critical asset in gaining a well-paying and satisfying job, since, as it was discovered by the research, the individuals with college degrees on the average have significantly higher incomes than those who do not have a college degree, though as professionals they can be on the same level of practical experience. According to some estimations made by the employment market experts, the difference in earnings between the degree holders and non-degree holders can reach, in fact, $1 million during the average career time!

A college degree has become a critically important factor for any professional aspiring for higher paying job; however in the past it was hardly possible to combine professional and family obligations and commitments with quitting one’s job, leaving behind one’s regular paycheck and one’s familiar home in order to go to a campus to get a degree. Previously the problem seemed to have no solution and people were forced to forego making any income during degree studies or to forego getting a degree, there was no other choice available. Some people tried studying in the evening but that was the choice for really superhuman individuals. No ordinary person, burdened with his or her job and, very often, family responsibilities, taking care of mortgage payments etc – you just name it! – happens to be strong and resourceful enough to endure driving to a college several times a week after the hectic working hours and staying in class for three-four hours in a row. That was virtually inhuman feat, not for any ordinary person to achieve.

But today, fortunately, all people looking for continuing education but failing to provide necessary time resources are given a feasible option to obtain a degree without quitting their jobs and, consequently, regular paychecks. The distance learning programs in combination with modern PC hardware and Internet communications opened revolutionary opportunities for all those wishing to get a college degree without necessity to quit earning their living.

During the current decade the online degree programs have demonstrated truly amazing explosive growth of popularity and the demand for online degrees continues to grow.

Online accredited degree programs have become a perfect solution for getting a degree without putting your professional life on hold. The main, though not the only advantage of the online education, is the possibility of completing the course without leaving one’s home. Another great advantage is the flexibility of the course scheduling. An online student with a PC and Internet access can complete the online degree training course according to a comfortable, self-paced schedule, using his or her free time as it seems to be fit. For instance, the assignments can be done even when travelling or on vacations. A student is in position to suspend classes for a week or two and then catch up with the schedule. The online program imposes certain time limitations and dead-lines to be met. Still, within those limits, an online student is the master of his or her own time, managing it according to the existing pattern of everyday activities, not the other way around as it happens with the traditional colleges and universities. A traditional campus program demands from students to adhere to a strict classroom schedule, to attend the classes in person. A student is required to keep the studying pace with the rest of the class, but people are different and they have different tempo of learning, so keeping with the class may be a frustrating problem for slower students. The online accredited degree programs are free from this kind of leaning blocks, since a student is tutored individually, and this fact happens to be a perfect option for people with introverted personality types, which prefer to make progress according to their individual tempo and pattern. The flexibility in terms of the study schedule that is offered by online education cannot be matched by the traditional colleges. And this is another reason that makes the popularity of online degree programs grow so rapidly, gaining larger and lager share in terms of the education industry market.

It is no wonder that almost all top level universities and colleges now offer online degree programs. They have recognized and understood the potential of online learning and they have understood it very well. Now they are successfully moving into the segment of education market. The quality of the distance learning they offer is not inferior to that offered on campus. These online degree programs have been fully accredited by the pertinent state and national educational bodies and agencies but due to enormous flexibility of online training they can be completed at the student's convenience, at a stress-free, self-paced tempo, an online student can carry on with earning his or her living while completing the degree training – without the necessity to quit the job for going to a traditional campus.

Since the online students set up their own learning pace the online degree programs, in many cases, may be completed faster than their traditional on-campus counterparts; the required time varies from 10 months to traditional two years to get a degree. The accredited online degree programs offer the same degree types as the traditional colleges, including Associate, Bachelor, Master, MBA, Law, and Doctorate degrees.

If the online degree program is of the accredited type, it can be considered as the 100% guarantee of its quality, since accredited programs are specially designed to cater for online distance learners and they are able to enhance the learning experience significantly due to all those modern online features, like e-mail, instant messaging, VoIP and video-conferencing; besides, they make use of the same curriculum as traditional campus-based colleges and universities and provide the online students with all important skills or teaching materials, the same way they do for off-line students that personally attend classes, save for the fact that online students do not have to purchase expensive textbooks. The diplomas of accredited online degree courses are accepted and valued by employers on the state, national and international levels. That means that by taking up accredited course you are making a wise and secure investment into the promotion of your career and further progress along the career ladder to the ultimate success, increasing one’s qualifications and professional status as well as earning potential.

Besides their great flexibility of scheduling and the convenient self-paced mode of learning progress the online accredited degree programs offer their online students considerable credits for work and life experience. This also greatly facilitates the progress towards getting the desired degree, accelerating the course significantly.

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