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opinion:
our view
Home degrees the
wave of the future?
With all of the advances
in technology in recent years, it is almost possible to live
one's life from home with virtually no human contact.
As shown here at
many colleges around the country, it is now possible to earn
a collegiate degree with hardly any human contact with an
instructor.
While that is not
the case at Cal State Long Beach yet, hundreds of classes
already utilize the Internet in some form or another to help
students.
The benefits to
students living in remote areas who are unable to attend school
in person will be innumerable. Also, the savings in transportation
costs and expenses incurred living in dorms should enable
more students to get a quality education.
Every semester
it seems the enrollment at CSULB increases, pushing the limits
of not only the school's facilities, but also its resources.
Having students able to check into the opening class would
ease the parking crunch that makes everyone's life miserable
the first week or the whole semester for that matter.
On the downside,
the main drawback for students would be missing the interactive
collegiate experience; getting away from home and making new
friends are just two of the experiences remote students will
miss out on.
Even though access
to the Internet is becoming more and more pervasive, it is
not available to every household. If schools move toward having
a significant number of classes available online, they may
have to provide some sort of free access for students.
The other sticky
issue raised would be the disparity between in-state and out-of-state
tuition. If students can attend classes here (or anywhere)
without having to set foot on campus, would they have to pay
out-of-state rates if they could not prove they live within
shouting distance of the campus?
With new technologies
making a quality education available to the greatest number
of people, the benefit will be to society as well as those
remote students.
Just as long as
we can differentiate between a CSULB degree earned online
and one purchased through a spam e-mail link, we welcome the
chance to earn a degree as a shut-in.
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