It’s true – many colleges do indeed research potential candidates online, including looking at their online profiles on social networking sites such as Friendster, Myspace and Facebook. Increasingly, colleges are coming clean about the fact that they are searching students’ online profiles for any extra information which will help them make a tough decision, and for students whose profiles contain some questionable content, the answer they get from these schools might not be what they’re looking for. In essence, schools are looking at the profiles for evidence of inappropriate behavior and a lack of responsibility – photos from parties, blog entries and even comments from friends are all fair game, and are looked at in addition to the student’s application as a whole.

The majority of college admissions officers will say that they only search for students’ online profiles if something in the application piques their interest. However, in the fall of 2007, a Massachusetts-Dartmouth study of 453 college admissions departments found that 26 percent of them are actively researching students through search engines such as Google, and 21 percent are checking out social networking profiles when reviewing applicants. So how can students use this information to their benefit? First, they should know that when it comes to college admissions, their academic reputation is important – but their social reputation is becoming just as important. For college admissions reps, students’ online profiles their first and usually only look at how a student presents himself or herself socially. This being the case, students should, especially around college admissions time, take a number of steps to protect themselves. Privacy settings should be changed so that only friends can view their profiles. Students should ensure that the content on their pages is free of things which could mar their reputations, and they should monitor friends’ comments and photos as well. This might seem like a lot of work for sites which are intended to be fun social networking havens, but in reality these changes are very easy and in the long run, they could mean the difference between an acceptance letter and an unknown future.

Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education by editor
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A large number – almost 66% - of today’s 4-year undergraduate students depend upon student loans to finance their educations. For some, loans are the only way a college education is feasible. Student loans are meant to be taken out and then paid back over a long period of time, usually thirty years. Unfortunately, for many of today’s students, paying back those students loans is becoming harder than ever.

Evidence suggests that today’s Bachelor’s degree is the equivalent of what a high school education meant thirty years ago. In other words, even students with Bachelor’s degrees are having a difficult time landing competitive jobs. This situation translates into the need for additional schooling, and as Master’s and various technical degrees are tacked to already sizable student loans, the prospect of ever paying them beck becomes bleaker and bleaker. The majority of today’s students take on an average of $20,000 in student loans – for some students this number is much, much higher – and the American economy isn’t helping to pay these loans back. A sluggish economy has meant that students entering adulthood with debt already a reality are hit with slow job markets, unsecure jobs, wages that aren’t increasing much and a lot of pressure to perform on the job.

Another way the unstable economy is impacting student loans is something called the “sub-prime mortgage credit crisis.” Essentially, federal and private loans have become less profitable, and this has lead to the decreased availability of private students loans to subprime borrowers, increases in the minimum balance requirements for loan consolidation, cuts in loan discounts (especially on consolidation loans) and increases in interest rates and fees on private student loans as lenders adjust their products to compensate for the rising cost of capital. The bottom line is, the unstable economy has created an increasingly difficult situation for students, some of whom have no option other than to take on more students loans to pursue additional education, and then to enter a workforce which is very difficult to get hired in.

Tags: Career Education, Financial Aid, Online Education by editor
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Nowadays, many students are choosing to pursue practical degrees at vocational or technical schools. These degrees usually prepare the students for specific careers and fields which have a large demand for trained professionals. Examples of the many types of high-demand careers include nursing (especially travel nursing), telecommunications, theater and live events, financial services and computer programming/web site developing. There are pros and cons to choosing degrees in these types of fields.

Pros:

1.One of the pros is that there will be plenty of programs to choose from – when schools pick up on the fact that there is a large demand for trained professionals in a particular area, the number of courses being offered in that area usually goes up drastically. These types of careers usually offer training at least partially online, and in some cases, entirely online, to make earning the degree as convenient as possible for students.

2.Another pro is that, after graduation, getting a job can be somewhat easier than for other fields. Students applying for jobs as nurses, for example, usually have a wide range of positions to choose from, and they can also be selective about where they want to work, how often, and what their salary should be (to an extent).

3.Salaries are, indeed, another perk of these types of degrees – because the degrees are in high-demand, the jobs which come after are usually well-paid.

Cons:

1.The cons to choosing a degree in a high-demand field include problems with the qualities of the programs. When demand goes up for a particular degree, the number of schools offering that degree goes up as well, and unfortunately, not all schools are of the same caliber. For this reason, it is very important that the students ensure that the school and degree has as solid reputation and that it is accredited.

2. Another con, and one that’s less spoken about, is the problem that arises when students choose degrees and careers based on money and popularity, instead of focusing on their true interests and abilities. Many times, students are attracted to careers in Web Developing because the pay is so good, only to find out once they are in the job that they don’t actually enjoy what they are doing on a day-to-day basis.

3.Finally, choosing a degree in a highly popular and competitive field makes it even more important to get the proper education in order to stay competitive – because so many people are applying for the same job, the candidate who eventually gets the job really has to demonstrate something extra special. On the flip side, though, there are many other jobs to go after in high-demand fields.

Tags: Career Education, Online Education by editor
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Today, students who earn degrees or take classes online enjoy the advantage of participating with their classmates and professors entirely online through the help of various interactive technologies. The technologies are both being introduced and improved upon rapidly. One of the most common interactive technologies is blogs, which stands for “web log.” Blogs are essentially simple Websites where students can contribute their thoughts on a regular basis.

Blogs are perhaps most famous for their use in social contexts, but with respect to online learning, professors often use blogs to post assignments and open ended questions students must respond to within a time limit for grading. Online learning students are often required to start up their own blogs to demonstrate that they have thought about assigned reading and course content, and their writing ability is considered by professors.

In some courses, students must sign in to an online “chat room” in order to converse in real time with their fellow classmates or their professors. Many online learning courses also require students to thoughtfully respond to weekly postings posed by the professor, as well as to respond to classmates’ thought s and responses through email and message boards.

In many online learning courses, students can watch video-taped lectures, which they can watch and respond to online. The advantage to these video-taped lectures is that they can be watched and re-watched at the student’s leisure, and confusing portions can be played again until they become clear.

Other interactive technologies that are used a lot in online learning are programs professors can use to post a course syllabus online, create an online Gradebook which their students can use to check their grades online as well as to track their assignments, create online quizzes & tests, and use online communication tools - including email and discussion boards, offer online office hours and provide additional online course materials.

Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education by editor
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A large number – almost 66% - of today’s 4-year undergraduate students depend upon student loans to finance their educations. For some, loans are the only way a college education is feasible. Student loans are meant to be taken out and then paid back over a long period of time, usually thirty years. Unfortunately, for many of today’s students, paying back those students loans is becoming harder than ever. Evidence suggests that today’s Bachelor’s degree is the equivalent of what a high school education meant thirty years ago. In other words, even students with Bachelor’s degrees are having a difficult time landing competitive jobs. This situation translates into the need for additional schooling, and as Master’s and various technical degrees are tacked to already sizeable student loans, the prospect of ever paying them beck becomes bleaker and bleaker. The majority of today’s students take on an average of $20,000 in student loans – for some students this number is much, much higher – and the American economy isn’t helping to pay these loans back. A sluggish economy has meant that students entering adulthood with debt already a reality are hit with slow job markets, unsecure jobs, wages that aren’t increasing much and a lot of pressure to perform on the job.
Another way the unstable economy is impacting student loans is something called the “sub-prime mortgage credit crisis.” Essentially, federal and private loans have become less profitable, and this has lead to the decreased availability of private students loans to subprime borrowers, increases in the minimum balance requirements for loan consolidation, cuts in loan discounts (especially on consolidation loans) and increases in interest rates and fees on private student loans as lenders adjust their products to compensate for the rising cost of capital. The bottom line is, the unstable economy has created an increasingly difficult situation for students, some of whom have no option other than to take on more students loans to pursue additional education, and then to enter a workforce which is very difficult to get hired in.

Tags: Financial Aid, Online Education by editor
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The answer to this question is simple – definitely not! Many adults in their 30s, 40s and 50s are going back to school, and for lots of different reasons. Some schools report that their average online students are between 24 and 50, and working. Online learning has created a whole new subset of students who had wanted to go back to school, but couldn’t due to family and work restraints.

Online learning especially has opened up the doors for these students, who can now pursue degrees at their own pace and on their own time. These students, whether they take classes online or at physical campuses, are sometimes referred to as re-entry, non-traditional or adult students. Their ages generally range from 25 to 69 (though online students tend to be under 45), and while they are very often female, more and more men are also going back to school to improve upon their professional skills and to give themselves better chances for advancement.

Some of these students may have never gone to college, may have started college but had to stop due to personal, family or financial reasons, or they simply want to go back to add an additional degree or to completely change their career path. In fact, The Department of Education recently reported that 13 percent of students now enrolled in college were single parents, up from 7.6 percent in 1993. Which begs to ask the question – are these older students really as “non-traditional” as the name implies?

The U.S. Department of Education has put out many articles as of late reporting that adult students are the fastest growing educational demographic. As of 2007, over 20% of college students are over the age of 35. People are living longer, economic futures are more unstable than they have been in the past, and older adults are thinking about how they want to secure their futures, and many of them are choosing college. Whether it’s to start a new business, to finally fulfill a lifelong dream or to simply investigate an interest they never had an opportunity to explore, older large numbers of older students are heading back to school in droves.

Tags: Non-Traditional Students, Online Education by editor
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