Here, there everywhere: accredited online colleges invading the map of education

In other articles, we’ve talked about pros and cons regarding online education, where teacher and student never get to know each other personally, where they shall only see each other at least via a webcam. We’ve also said that being apocaliptic was not the solution nor the best way to think about this issue. We won’t take that back. Nothing farther than apocaliptic will be the tone of this article. But what we are going to point out is that the proliferation, like bugs, like mops in old clothes, of accredited online colleges, is somehow damaging the quality we should have and claim for of the education, both for college and university. To start getting deep into the topic, if you go onto google and type “Accredited online colleges”, about half a million sites will appear. In each of those sites, you will also find thousands of instituions offering online courses, being the best “to fit your needs”, “to be efficient for what you look for”, etc. even the most important universities, like Cornell, offer this kind of courses, giving to the students the opportunity to take these courses virtually, online and through the Internet. We have also said before that this kind of services are not as bad as traditional perspectives may say: they are offering to certain public, that is not capable of attending to class, the possibility to be absent from a phisical place and even so take courses and go to a virtual school, through a virtual campus, and talking to virtual teachers. This is not bad at all. On the contrary, it should be celebretated, as it is giving opportunities to people that may not have them otherwise. But the problem lies elsewhere. What does it mean that thousands and thousands of businesses offer accredited online colleges? Is it really positive that there is so much offer of courses to be made online? I think the main problem towards this issue reflects on quality, both for learning and teaching. As competition and quantity keep going up, the aim transforms: it is not offering a good course, with fine contents and a respectable quality; no, the aim now is to be like the others, but different. And it doesn’t care anymore how much quality one may put into a product: the product has to be comparable to others on the same topic.

Of course, the result of this is the decaying of quality. Just to give you one example: on www.elearners.com , you can find 173 different accredited online colleges and universities. Only in that website! Imagine how many more there will be, if you take into account the first web search, that showed almost half a million results for your search. With this, we do not intend to insult or to be disrespectful with this type of courses, we are just saying that too many impact directly on the quality of each one. One can never doubt about Boise St. importance, Boston University or Baker, but it is actually a fact that courses online are more seen as a business than anything else.

Why have so many accredited online colleges proliferated? Because of the legal vacuum. We have commented this topic in one previous article, but here it is very obvious the relationship: where there are no clear laws, or no laws at all, advantages are taken and businesses are set up. In this case it has to do with college online; in other cases, it may reflect on other type of courses.

As the amount of courses offered continue to grow, prices also do that. Every reknowned university take advantage of that fact, and by that they feel able to really charge you for courses that may then result on you having a degree from accredited online colleges. But is it really comforting having received one of those degrees? Can you really say that after having sat for such type of courses, that are spread all over the region and that have no control, no legal support, you can be proud of that. Would you really make your dipolma framed to hang it up in your bedroom wall? I wouldn’t be. It’s like having something everyone can have. Offer is so huge, that there is no possibility, at least by now, to be innovative. Market is very difficult, and every course intends to be different from all the others. But with such accredited online colleges on the road, it sounds like a far aim to expect for some quality, as a differential from the rest. We should remember that education is not like any other business: quality of contents is expected here, and it should be respected.

Concerned by the cost of these online courses, every school and university offer possibilities to students so they can get loans and pay them with their own pace, and according to their possibilities of paying loans back. In some forums, students are thankful regarding this issue, and do usually take advantage of these opportunities offered by online universities and colleges. The accredited online colleges degree will not be forbid due to hugh costs or impossibilities of affording the courses. In some websites there are a few recommendations, like Florida institute of technology, walden university, capella university and university of phoenix online.