Online or In Class

When online schools first started, traditional schools were not sure how to keep a high standard and not be in the class room.  But online schools delivered what busy adults needed, access to education at a convenient time and place.  Traditional colleges and universities are now catching up and are truly a better choice for several reasons.

The first reason is cost.  Most of the original online schools are "for profit".  What this means is that these organizations are companies with investors and they must show a profit.  Their courses are more expensive than most traditional schools and their "advisors" are more like sales people than advisors.  Traditional colleges and universities generally charge the same fees to online students as they do for in-class students.  There may be an additional "online" fee but the costs, particularly for state institutions is much cheaper per class.  Most students receiving financial aid (Pell Grants) at a state institution will not need additional student loans just to pay for course work.  Unfortunately, the excessive costs of course work at online schools generally require student loans in addition to other forms of federal financial aid.

Second, what good is a course if it is not applicable to a degree or isn't transferrable?  While many of these online schools are acredited by the same organizations that acredit traditional schools, the way that many of these schools teach to fit courses into five week sessions doesn't transfer as well to the format of a traditional school.  Many traditional schools find it difficult to acurately match this type of online course work to courses in their own programs, making transferability of course work difficult.

Finally, when a student is having difficulty with a course or with some other administrative issue, a traditional school offers the student the opportunity to physically meet with someone.  There is nothing that can replace face to face when a student is experiencing a difficult situation.