Online Higher Education - Prepare for The Challenges of Tomorrow

The job market is very competitive nowadays. You have to place yourself at an advantage edge in order to secure the best career opportunity that comes along your career path. It is a common dilemma for working individuals who want to pursue advanced degree without giving up their current career. The online higher education provides the best alternative options for them to prepare themselves for the challenges of tomorrow by pursuing an advanced degree online.

Universities and colleges are offering career related degree programs for working individuals to earn advanced degrees online. Online higher education that comes with features like flexible learning schedule, study from anywhere and any time via internet connections, makes it fits very well for working adults, especially those who have a busy time and other commitments. Moreover, many career related courses are conducted entirely online, enabling online students to take the best courses that meet their career goals without the need to consider where the university is located.

With the available of online higher education, working individuals have no more excuse to postpone their desire to earn a degree for career advancement. As long as they are able to commit and want to prepare themselves for the challenges of tomorrow, they can always earn the degree online.

Online degrees have been widely accepted in the job market. More professions from various career fields are going for online higher education to upgrade themselves for facing the challenges of tomorrow and for securing a better future. Moreover, many companies have employee benefits for education, enabling their employees to reimburse the tuition fee after they have completed the online higher education programs. So, employees who take advantage of this benefits and earn a degree for their career related course via online higher education programs offered by accredited colleges and universities.

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How To Select The Best Online Education Degree Program

Selecting the best online education degree program from so many programs offered by accredited online schools can be a challenge. You will find a number of online schools are offering the online degree program you plan to pursue, which is the best program that benefits the most for you? It is not easy to select one of them, but you can use the guideline below to help you narrow down your selection and finally filter the best out of the best online education degree programs.

1. Generate A List

Use the advantage of search engine to find the best online degree programs. Just type-in the online degree you are interested in pursuing, you will find many online schools are offering it. List them down to a paper or spreadsheet. You may not list all of them, just select the online schools that appear at the first 3 pages of the search results. Another way to generate a list for the best online degree programs is by visiting education portals or online education review sites to find the best schools that offer your desired degree.

2. Check for Accreditation

Although accreditation is an optional certification for colleges and universities, many of them choose to be certified to meet the minimum requirements designated by an accrediting agency. The rule of thumb, you may safely eliminate the online degree programs from schools that are not getting proper accreditation. Then, check the accreditation information of the schools in the list and make sure they are getting legitimate accreditation from recognized accrediting agencies.

3. Request for Information

Even though the online education degree programs offered by different schools carry the same name, they may offer in totally different subjects and contents. Moreover, some degree programs require students to attend certain hours of physical classes and other schools may offer them entirely online. So, you have to understand the detail information about the online degree programs from these schools before you select the best one among them. Most online schools have the information request form online at their website for anyone to request for course details. Since information is free of charge, submit the form to request the information so that you can select the best online education degree program that fits the best for you. Eliminate irrelevant programs from your list.

4. Contact the admission counselors

Almost every online schools have admission officers or counselors to help their students in application process. At this step, you should have smaller list in hand. The bottom line is, don't sign up a program unless you get all your question answered. You can contact the admission officers of the schools your list and ask them the questions and clear all your doubts. The information you get from the conversions with admission officers will help you in making a right decision for the best online education degree program.

5. Making your decision

Once you have gathered all the information, spent some times to go through them again. It's time to decision the best program from the list. If you find none of them fully meet your requirements and you want to research more schools, repeat the steps above until you find the best online education degree program that fits the best for you.

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Online Education - What is Accreditation?

Accreditation is the voluntary certification process for universities and colleges in meeting minimum requirements designated by an accrediting agency. Although graduating from an accredited online school does not guarantee a job, it may facilitate such achievement since most employers recognized online degrees from accredited schools. In fact, an online degree program that is accredited will give confidence and trust to its students and the employers in the job to accept job applicants with online degree from accredited schools.

However, you have to watch out for any school that claim for accreditation as well because not all of them are legitimately accredited. Since accreditation information has become an indicator for students to find the best online education program, it has been misused by diploma mills. Nowadays, diploma mills also claim to be accredited, but they are accredited by "fake" accrediting agencies. So you have to watch out and make sure you read and confirm the school is truly accredited by a legitimate accrediting agency before you sign up its online degree program. Don't become a victim of diploma mill!

How to determine an online degree program is accredited?

There are a few ways to ensure the legitimate accreditation of an online school and its degree programs, but the best way is to check with the U.S Department of Education (if you leave in US or want to pursue an online degree offered by one of the universities at the United States of America) at http://www.ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. This is a database that contains almost all post-secondary education institutions that have received accreditation from accrediting agencies recognized by the Department of Education. Assuming that the online school is accredited, you can determine if the particular online degree program is accredited by checking the following websites:

• APA: http://www.apa.org/education/grad/program-accreditation.aspx
• ASPPB (maintained jointly with the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology): http://www.nationalregister.org/desig_about.html
• CACREP: http://www.cacrep.org/
• CORE: http://www.core-rehab.org/
• COAMFTE: http://www.aamft.org/iMIS15/AAMFT/Education_and_Training/Accreditation/Content/COAMFTE/Accreditation.aspx
• MPAC: http://www.mpcacsite.org/mpac/accredited-programs/
• NASP: http://www.nasponline.org/certification/ApprovedPrograms0603.pdf

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4 Big Changes to Federal Student Loans in 2012

President Obama made an announcement on the major changes of Federal Student Loan Program in late 2011 that take effective in 2012. The new rules are aimed to help students who are struggling with student loan debt by consolidating their student debt with a more affordable loan payment.

These big changes are:

1. Consolidate students loans at lower interest rates

All new students who are approved under Federal Student Loan Programs will be lending under the Direct Loan Program, which carries much lower interest rate than the old Federal Family Education Loans. For students who hold and owe Federal Family Education Loans will be given an incentive to consolidate the student debts into a loan under Direct Loan Program so that they can enjoy lower interest rate and reduce their debt burden.

2. Reduce the student debt repayment to 10% of your income

In this hard economy situation, paying a large loan with a low-paying job can be difficult to many people who still suffer from student loan debts. Before the implementation of new Federal Student Loan's rules, graduates who face hardship to repayment their student loans are allowed to apply the loan repayment be reduced to 15% of their monthly income. With the Obama announcement of new changes, the payment cap is reduced to 10% in 2012. Graduates who are struggling for debt repayment can now minimize their debt burden with a smaller monthly loan repayment.

3. Get student loan forgiveness in 10 or 20 years

Starting in 2012, most federal student loans will be forgiven in 20 years, instead of 25 years as before the new rules implementation. The people who service in public service sectors like teachers, nurse, etc will receive student loan forgiveness in just 10 years. So, before you apply for a federal student loan, check it out with your financial aid counselor for further information about student loan forgiveness and see if it applies to your loan.

4. Learn before you apply for loan

Many students sign up a loan agreement without fully understand the terms and conditions apply to them. They will get surprised when they see the expected monthly payment they have to make after the graduation. Therefore, the government is  putting together educational information to educate the students and get them understand all terms and commitments that have to make when they apply for a federal student loan. This information will be helpful to guide students choose the best college's financial option.

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Is Online Education Right For You?

Online education is alternative to traditional campus-based education for you to earn a degree online. But, it may not fit everyone. That's why there are online students failed to complete the online courses. If you want to be a successful online student who will complete all the subjects in the course and earn the degree online, you have to make sure online education is right for you, else you may want to reconsider the traditional campus-based program as it will be a better option for you.

Compare yourself to the following list to determine whether or not online education is right for you:

1. Successful online students do just well even without people looking over their shoulder. They are able to self-motivate themselves to get through the course and complete it to earn the online degree successfully. This is important characteristic for an online student because there will be nobody look at your shoulder in an online learning environment. Although you are not in the virtual classroom, nobody will push at your back to complete assignments, tasks or projects like you are in a traditional classroom.

2. Successful distance learners never (or at least rarely) procrastinate. They are able to plan the study schedule, set their education goals and make sure they meet each goal on time. Successful online students don't put off assignments or waiting until the last minute to write their paper. They set mini goals on every task and make sure the task is completed on time or before the due date.

3. Successful online students have good reading comprehensive skills. Most students learn by listening to lectures and taking notes in the physical class, but this is not the case for online education. Online students are expected to master the knowledge through the reading of text materials. Although more and more online learning materials come in audio and video formats, most of learning materials in online education are still in text format. Therefore, you should have a good  reading comprehensive skills if you want to choose online education.

4. Successful online students feel alright about missing the social elements of traditional schools. If you find yourself like the college life or want to get through the college in a brick-and-mortar college environment, then online education is definitely not a right option for you.

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The Advantages of Online Education

Online education provides an alternative option for students to obtain a degree. With the increase population of education via the internet, more and more students are turning to online courses. Regardless of the reasons for students choose to pursue a degree online, there are some of the advantages of online education that gives the student the best reasons to decide for online degree. The common 5 advantages of online education are:

1. Convenience

Most online education programs allow students some extend of flexibility to schedule their own study time. They can login to the online classes at any time whenever they feel convenience. You can read and study during the times of the day when you are at the most productive, you choose the time, not according to the fixed schedule like the traditional courses. You can reach instructors and peers from your computer via internet connection. Although you don't meet them at the same time, your questions can be posted via the forums or messaging board in the online learning system and they will be answered. Assignments, projects and learning materials can be reached from your computer because most of them can be downloaded or read through the browser.

2. Don't need to quit your job

Flexible learning schedule and study from anywhere are the key features of online education. These features fit the busy working time of many working individuals, enabling them to purse for a degree online without the need to quit their current job. Even if your job requires you to travel from one place to another, you still can progress through the online courses as long as you can get connected to the online learning system via internet connection.

3. Enable you to earn a degree fast

It is nothing do with the degrees offered by diploma. Online education lets you optimize your time on study and earn a degree faster than the traditional channel. Moreover, there are many accelerated online degree programs that are designed to fit particular career fields. You can choose one of these programs to earn a related career certification for career advancement.

4. Cheaper cost

Generally, online education programs cost lower than the traditional courses. This is because many of online resources can be shared by many online students, lowering the cost in teaching and administrating that lead to low tuition fees. Moreover, you may save money in term of petrol and other traveling cost as you don't need to travel to the school.

5. Take any course as long as it is offered online

In the traditional campus-based education programs, location does matter because you can't take courses that are offered by school far away or located oversea unless you are willing to relocate to the place nearby. With online education, regardless where the school is located, as long as they offer online degree programs, you can reach them via via internet connection. Therefore, you just need to consider the best online degree program, not where the school that offers the program is located.

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How Online Education Works

Online education can be offered by traditional colleges and university that enable their traditional degree programs for online students; or it can be offered by online schools that run entirely on the internet.

Students who are interested in online education have to go through the admission and registration program after researching the best accredited online school. Each online education program has its graduation terms and conditions that students need to meet in order to earn the desired degrees. After the registration process is completed, online students begin begin their course studies by logging into the school's online learning system via internet connection. Generally, online classes are conducted asynchronously, meaning that students and instructors don't need to logging to the online class at the same time except for certain real-time discussion sessions. Students will learn by reading assignments, asking questions and receiving instructor feedback. Some courses even offer online forums and online chat rooms to enable students to have discussions for group assignments.

In most cases, online education does require students to sit for examinations before they can earn the online degrees. The examinations may be conducted online or the schools will prepare examination centers where students need to attend for tests. The homework, assignments, projects and test scores will be calculated toward the graduation of online students.

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What is Online Education?

Online education, also know as distance learning, online learning or e-learning is an alternative of education option that enables students to take classes from their computer via internet. It differs from traditional education because it does not require students to attend classes at preset schedule and listen to the teaching session from instructor face-to-face.

Online education provides a convenience way of learning environment for students with a flexible learning schedule, making it fits well to the busy time of working individuals who want to take a degree or advance their education qualification for a better career future.

With online education, students no longer have to:

• Travel to and from college or university that may take miles and hours,
• Quit their jobs to attend college,
• Follow a fixed class schedule that may not fit their busy time,
• Waste time in finding parking space and walking to the classroom.

With online education, students now can:

• Learn at their own pace,
• Work for a living and study for a better career future at the same time,
• Earn online degrees in less time to get fast degree by optimizing their times on study.

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