The Pros and Cons of Online Education
Earning an Online Degree as Alternative to Classic Academic Environment
Apr 17, 2009
There's a rapidly growing interest in online education, as it has some noticeable advantages; but it also has some serious disadvantages, which are usually ignored. In fact, online education is an opportunity for some people who have some limitations, but in general it cannot replace the classic education in any circumstance.
Advantages of Online Education
Flexibility: The first interesting feature of online education is its flexibility. It is quite ideal for employed people who have a limited time for study, and they can easily manage their schedule.
Cost: Affording the education cost is an important issue for most of students. Thus, low cost of online education is a major advantage over the classic education.
Accessibility: Online education is indeed a part of globalization, and provides the possibility of education without geographical and distance limits. This provides a practical opportunity for everyone to participate in the online classes from anywhere around the globe. This is a golden opportunity for the students in developing countries who wish to study in the universities of developed countries.
Disadvantages of Online Education
Cost: Yes, although the cost is considered as an advantage for online education, it is also a disadvantage for the following reasons:
- Most of students in the classic education system gain various supporting funds from different sources (e.g. scholarships, university, government, etc), but there are only few source for online students.
- A significant part of the classic education expenses are related to the student life (e.g. accommodation); whereas, online students may pay some additional expenses (which are not part of education or everyday life) like high-speed internet, software, shipping, etc.
Academic Life: Another purpose of higher education is living in an academic environment, and this assists the students to experience a new life in an educated society (devoted to education and study). In fact, the students do not participate in technical classes only, but also they actively participate in various social activities in the community. Even from the technical education point of view, informal discussions out of the class significantly help them to improve their problem-solving skills.
Social Issues: For online education, people need to spend much time on computer and have less connection with the society (not only the academic society, but also the public society).
Controversial Issues to an Online Degree
There are also some controversial views on online education as well. For instance, academic accreditation of online degree is an important controversial issue, and indeed the main obstacle of online education development. Contrary to common belief that the accreditation of is a constant problem related to the nature of online education, many problems are due to the fact that online universities are quite young. Several old universities which have launched online campuses offer online degree with the same accreditation as their traditional degrees.
On the other hand, launching an online campus is not difficult and expensive; thus, many online universities without qualified education systems, have been established during the past years. Moreover, for some of them, this is a kind of business for making money rather than for education purpose. The existence of such examples had made a bad reputation in the public (as some employers do not accept online degrees).
The main aim of the present article is to emphasize that online education is not to replace the classic education in any circumstance, as the traditional universities have some vital services, which cannot be missed in the realms of education. In addition, according to some serious limitation of online education, it cannot be used for all disciplines.
Ideally, online education is an opportunity for those who needed such service, particularly for the purpose of earning a degree. If someone wishes to learn a discipline or enjoy all facets of the education experience, it is not an appropriate way. When someone is at work, doesn't have enough time to attend the classic classes, and needs a degree with an overall knowledge about the discipline, then online education may be a perfect solution.
