Thursday, July 21, 2011

Online College for Ease and Convenience

I got an email yesterday telling me that my student's bill was ready for viewing/paying.  Since it's summer, and school doesn't start again for at least a month (when does it start, anyway? I must look that up.), I wasn't sure what the bill was about.  So I looked it up.  Thankfully there's no payment due for a while, but he does have a balance on his account - for room and board next school year.  I never saw a break-down last year, so I wasn't sure what was room and board, what was tuition, and what was for books, so it was interesting to see.  Housing and food for next year at college - almost $3000.  If only he wasn't a theatre major who takes hands-on classes and needs interaction with other people to learn what he needs to learn, we could maybe research the best online colleges and save some money...

We live close enough to campus that I suppose he could live at home and commute, but when you consider the cost of buying him a car, the gas to get back and forth, and all the extra time it would take him to get back and forth to classes and all his extra-curricular activities, it's really not worth it.  Also, he'd still have to have some kind of food plan because he'd be on campus so much, and he'd still need to eat.  So, living on campus it is.

Now, if I decide to go to college, I don't think living on campus would be an option!  Or commuting either, because why should I?  There are so many online options available.  Being able to get a college education at my own pace and from the comfort of my own home definitely appeals to me.  I'm not going to be a theatre major.  I don't know what I'd like to study, but it's not theatre, so I don't really need that personal interaction, either.

There's a really handy site called DegreeJungle that ranks the top 65 online colleges in the United States that should make it easier to find the college, if I ever figure out what I might like to study.  Because I'm not going back to school just to go back to school - even though I always really liked school - even if it is easy and convenient to study online.  If you're thinking about online college and would like some help choosing the right college for you, check out the rankings at Degreejungle.com.