College On The Internet: The World of Online College Degrees

Everyone has heard about distance learning. Often treated as a joke in movies and sitcoms, usually about how easy it is to get and the dubious quality of education provided,  nowadays, it is being treated more seriously. This can be seen in the veritable explosion of legitimate universities offerince online college degrees. Advertisements about additional education can be seen plastered all over the Internet.

Though it's not exactly advisable for young people, getting an online college degree is definitely the way to go if you're already working and are hoping to add a bit more to that CV of yours. Traditional college is great and gives you a lot of life experiences, but when you've already been through college once and just want to earn that extra degree then an online degree might just be right for you. The benefits are quite noticeable in terms of time and money. First, online degrees usually take twelve to eighteen months to finish – and this is mostly because you're not doing it full-time. Compared to the four-year course that most traditional courses entail, this is nearly a fifty percent cut in the time investment – not to mention that you're still working while studying; earning money all the while.

The money you earn can also be added to the money you've saved – traditional classroom teaching is, on the whole, expensive. Rooms, electricity, handouts and a hundred other things that make up your tuition fee are cut by seventy-five percent when you are studying for an online degree. Your expenses will also be almost non-existent; visits to your college or testing center are usually done only once a month or term instead of having a daily class.

So, who's offering these courses? There are a lot of online-only universities and there are several state university systems like the University of Maryland that offer online degrees. The important thing is that you always check a school's accreditation before enrolling. There are six accrediting associations for the United States depending on location so it would be best to find out the actual physical location of the university you're planning to enroll in and to check their credentials. The Department do Education also has a database of accredited schools.

When choosing the school to enroll in, you also better check on what exactly they're known for and what's their background. A simple background check does wonders in narrowing down your choice of schools. Your choice of degrees can also influence your choice.

And there you have it, the basics of getting an online college degree. It's time to take the bull by the horns and improve your life through education.

Financing homeschooling

When people talk about teaching their children from home in the absence of any definite or structured curriculum, it is perhaps natural to think that homeschooling is cheap. But this is far from the truth. Although homeschooling does not stick to any particular text, this is perhaps more of a bane than a boon, when it comes to finance.

When you need to make sure that your children receives state-of-the-art education so that they can compete with regular school goers, expenses will naturally mount. The actual cost of educating a child at home is surprisingly high. Up-to-date textbooks, course materials, a library, computing equipment, lighting, specially designed furniture all cost money. In this case, the cost may be slightly lesser when it comes to homeschooling the second child. Add to this any additional tuition cost for tutors who come to teach subjects that cannot be handled by parents, like higher-level math or science. The total cost can be a bit mind boggling.

If you take another important factor into consideration, homeschooling costs may effective triple. The need for having one of the parents tied to the house and fully dedicated to providing education deprives the family of a second earning member. The average homeschooling teacher is usually a lady with a college degree. This means that she can easily bring home a pay of $35,000 or more. It is also interesting to note that most families that have more than 2 children do not opt for homeschooling at all.

But, there are those who have been successful in carrying out homeschooling at low rates. This is dependent on the size of the
family, the support group, the type of materials used and the availability of the material. When successive children can reuse the materials, cost goes down. Much of the course material can be got from vendors of homeschooling materials. A membership in a public library, theatre, concerts, ballets and other cultural events also help in cutting costs. Sometimes, it is even possible to barter expertise. For instance, the mother of an 8-year old gives dancing classes, and her daughter receives drawing classes for free. Support groups allow you to divide the cost of field trips, science projects and fairs.

Whatever the cost, advocates of homeschooling say that the benefits far outweigh these considerations. When you are able to
decide what knowledge your child receives and when he or she should be taught and to what extent, it gives you a lot of freedom and a lot of power. Both the children as well as the parents benefit from this mutually enriching experience.