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Top Online College Degree Programs
When considering earning your college degree online, think a bit about why you want to apply to college and what a college diploma will do -- for you
In 1858 the University of London created its External Program; the beginning of distance learning.
Online college degree programs offer you flexibility and control through widely accepted learning options. You can even validate self directed learning that has taken place outside the structures of higher education.
If you want to earn a college diploma faster, try studying and taking the the CLEP tests. These tests can be a great college deal, saving time and money.
The value of an online college degree
Understanding your destination will help you decide on the online college degree program that may be right for you.
Most answers on "why get a degree?" are not about education or learning. Having a university diploma and declaring at which brick and mortar campus it was acquired, influences how some people will view you.
Online college degree programs will not excite a career bureaucrat; they want expensive vine covered historic buildings and lots of rules. Is it worth 4 to 10 years of your life, and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs and foregone earnings, to change their view? Sometimes it is.
If your goal is to be a full partner in Dad's top law firm; it may be worth the years of your time, and the oodles of his money you spend to be considered for a no pay internship. If all you want is to be a practicing lawyer, your state may not even require a degree to sit for the Bar.
The option exists therefore to thoroughly read a lot of law books, take Bar prep courses, and become a state licensed attorney. You can start earning, rather than spending, many years sooner. What is the difference worth to you for deferred gratification? Investigate and cogitate first.
"You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library." - from the movie Good Will Hunting
Your employer or prospective employer may require a "sheep skin" to get hired or "earn" a promotion above a certain level. Are they looking for specific knowledge? Very seldom. They want proof that you will complete something you start, no matter how difficult or absurd the requirements. That qualifies you to be a cog in their machine.
If you want to feed at the public trough, you probably need an approved & accredited degree to get a government job. You will have some job security and a numb brain, but that is all many want out of life. Go to a state university, veg out and party, and get their sheepskin.
To bureaucrats the degree itself is what matters, all you need to have learned is bureaucracy survival skills (they teach that at State U) to slide into a bureaucratic cubical. Will you enjoy this job? Very seldom. The risk is small, the life style rewards are consistent with the risk.
Consider starting a business instead.
"The risk and rewards for you from enterprise are greater, and of far more value to society, than the illusions of security and belonging that enslave human cogs in a social machine." - Allan Wallace
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Some solid video options.
Spend a weekend exploring your college options.
Dead Poets Society (Special Edition)
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Amazon Price: $14.99 (as of 07/26/2008)
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The Agony and the Ecstasy
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Accepted (Full Screen Edition)
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Good Will Hunting (Miramax Collector's Series)
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Amazon Price: $5.99 (as of 07/26/2008)
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The effects of having your own college degree.
A bricks and mortar college sheepskin will make your relatives proud, and they will remind you of old data suggesting that in the industrial age a degree was a meal ticket and provided job security. If you land that job as a cog, they will retain that proud feeling; unless you are downsized, outsized, exportsized, or your company is capsized.
Do your parents know you spent most of your university experience at a party school? Very seldom. The degree is the goal, not what may have been learned.
We could go on. Maybe we should go on. You may be considering investing several years of your life, hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses and deferred earnings, to pursue what is becoming an oversupplied commodity. Degrees are losing value as they become common and as bureaucracies shrink with the ending of the industrial age.
In the Netcohort society that is slowly replacing the industrial society - personal attributes will be the measure rather than security of position achieved by possession of a college diploma. Personal networks, achievement, and acquired knowledge moves with you when you leave.
Perhaps you should value learning, action, imagination, creation, and useful knowledge above credential acquisition.
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College and college degree information
It's years of your life, a book is a cheap investment to protect your future.
Consider the purpose of education.
Invest in Yourself.
What Colleges Don't Tell You (And Other Parents Don't Want You to Know): 272 Secrets for Getting Your Kid into the Top Schools
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Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes
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BFU Weekly Journal
Updated most Thursdays with college insights
You have started your own business, or perhaps want to start your own business, or you may want to learn how to improve your own business. A degree might be nice for marketing -- but who has time for formal education. E-Learning on the go -- self directed learning for business owners.
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