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For those of you who are reluctant to admit that online degrees are maybe, just maybe, as useful and as valuable as the degrees that students earn in actual classrooms, humor me and read this. It seems as though a lot of people are loving distance learning these days, and honestly, what’s not to love? It’s accommodating, it’s convenient, and it’s a necessary alternative for busy, budget-conscious adults who want a professional degree.

The article I linked to above is from the online edition of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, so it includes specific references to colleges and universities based in the New York area. Aside from that, this article is relevant to all potential online learners.

Some of the primary statistics cited in the article are from the Sloan Consortium, which is an online education advocacy group. According to a report from the organization, 3.5 million students in the U.S. were enrolled in at least one online course in the fall of 2006. Based on these numbers, the country’s participation in distance learning has more than doubled since 2002. The Sloan Consortium’s CIO, Jeff Seaman, explains that whereas online education was still being proven as a valid learning method a few years back, it is now just another reliable tool that colleges and universities use to educate and assist their students.

The Sloan Consortium also found that two-year schools have the highest growth rate among online institutions, already accounting for more than half of all online enrollments in the nation. For the most part, distance learners are undergraduate students, while schools with more than 7,500 students account for 63 percent of all online enrollments. Despite these majority numbers, smaller schools continue to gain strength in this industry, and online master’s and doctorate degrees are offered in hundreds of fields.

The availability of degrees over the internet and the number of students who opt to learn this way are both expected to trend up in the future. With more and more children being exposed to online resources and virtual learning at an earlier age, experts predict that the newer generations of students are going to expect to be taught in non-traditional ways.

What’s more is the fact that employers are reacting differently towards online degrees than they were a few years back. According to the Boston-based education consulting firm Eduventures, 62 percent of the 500 employers it recently surveyed considered online learning to be equal to or better than face-to-face instruction. With the quality of online education improving dramatically over the past decade, companies are now encouraging their workers to earn a degree over the internet. Many employers view distance learning as a way for employees to work a normal schedule and better their skills at the same time, and some organizations are even collaborating with local schools to create online programs specifically geared towards their employees.

Overall, the Democrat and Chronicle’s article says only good things about online learning. We all know that there are some cons to bypassing the campus experience, but for those students pressed for time, an online degree is the easiest (and probably the smartest) solution to their dilemma. It is beneficial to do a little research in your field before you commit to a specific program, as some online institutions are better for certain professions than others. Collegecourses.com links to a variety of online schools with hundreds of degree programs, so if you want to learn about what’s out there in terms of online education, be sure to request more information from a few of these colleges.

The results from a national survey that was released last week suggest that students who participate in “high-impact” activities while in college experience greater success when thinking critically, solving real-world problems, and working cooperatively with others. According to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), high impact activities include undergraduate research, involvement in learning communities, studying abroad, and the completion of internships and capstone projects.

This is the eighth year that the NSSE has been conducted, and its purpose is to provide colleges with broad insight into how to improve undergraduate education. The 2007 report was based on information from 323,000 randomly selected first-year and senior students at over 600 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada. This year’s NSSE study is titled “Experiences that Matter: Enhancing Student Learning and Success.”

Other significant findings from the report are as follows:

Students who frequently talk with their parents and take their advice report being more satisfied with their college experience.

Students who meet with an advisor at least twice a year are more engaged and gain more from their classes.

The majority of students say that they feel more satisfied and benefit more when faculty members provide guidance and feedback on projects and papers.

Students who study abroad report greater gains in intellectual and personal development than students who do not.

An internship or some type of field placement is the most powerful form of a culminating senior experience. Only 29 percent of seniors at public institutions participate in a culminating senior experience, compared with 42 percent of their private college and university peers.

I thought it would be beneficial to post this information because it applies to anyone who is currently attending college or who plans to in the future. If you want to gain more from your education, it is your responsibility to become involved in your school’s community and the direction that your studies are taking. This could be as simple as arranging a meeting with your advisor (approximately 10 percent of students never even do that).

The NSSE was created to help students and educators understand everything that contributes to a successful college experience. The survey moves away from the traditional rankings that place Ivy League schools on a pedestal and measures more abstract areas of performance like collaborative learning, student and faculty interaction, and how supportive a campus environment is.

This NSSE study provides valuable advice to all college students, including those who are earning their degrees online. Some students assume that receiving an online education will limit the high-impact activities that they can participate in. Over the past few years, online schools have made tremendous progress, and many now arrange internships for students, help outline capstone projects, and have complex support and student resource systems in place. The University of Phoenix, AIU, and Westwood College Online are just a few of the online schools that offer students an educational experience comparable to the one found on traditional college campuses.

This past Monday, Florida Metropolitan University joined a bigger (and supposedly better) brand of colleges by ditching its old name in favor of a new one. FMU will now be known as Everest University, and this change will affect all ten of its Florida-based campuses, as well as its popular online school. The name change was initiated by FMU’s parent company, Corinthian Colleges, Inc., as part of a rebranding effort for the organization’s collection of career-focused colleges.

With the addition of FMU as another branch of the Everest brand, Corinthian Colleges now runs over 75 Everest campuses in the United States alone. The corporation also operates colleges in a handful of Canadian provinces. Other divisions of the brand include Everest College and Everest Institute. Everest College has 15 campuses just in California, with additional locations in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Washington, and several other U.S. states. Everest Institute operates out of Massachusetts, Georgia, New York, Texas, and a few other places.

Even though many students are accustomed to the the Florida Metropolitan name, representatives for FMU and Corinthian Colleges, Inc. are confident that this will be a positive change for the schools involved. Because Everest institutions span so much of North America, graduates from Everest University will open themselves up to many more career opportunities. By adding reputable FMU locations to the list of Everest schools, the brand will gain more national recognition as well.

The curricula that was in place at the school before the name change will not be affected, and FMU’s former site emphasizes this idea with the following statement: “We offer the same great instructors, staff and classes — just with a nationally recognized name.” Therefore, Everest University still offers programs in health care administration, accounting, homeland security, computer information science, business administration, medical assisting, criminal justice, paralegal studies, and various other in-demand disciplines.

Everest College Online will also continue to provide students with internet-accessible programs in accounting, business, and criminal justice.

In my defense, I know that the title of this post is cheesy. But it’s kind of clever at the same time, so I’m leaving it up there.

Continuing on with the topic at hand, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with our country’s job market, or our economy for that matter, but we generated pretty impressive payroll growth last month. According to the BLS employment report released this morning, 166,000 new jobs were created in October.

Now we all know that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics likes to play tricks on us. Remember in September when they told us that the country had lost 4,000 jobs? That was pretty funny. Ok…maybe not. But at least we were preparing for the worst.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to rejoice over today’s employment situation report and the fact that we might have gained more than 150,000 jobs in October. But I’m a realist, or maybe a pessimist. Either way, I can’t devote valuable time to picking apart numbers that I think might be revised within a few days. So if it happens that by next month the 166,000 figure is still standing, I’ll make my post on the BLS report for November extra long and insightful.

That being said, here are some of the basic findings from the October report:

The unemployment rate for the country is holding steady at 4.7 percent, and total employment has topped out at 146.0 million citizens.

The health care industry created 34,000 jobs last month, food services and drinking places added 37,000, and professional and business services increased by 65,000 positions. (I will admit that the last number is unusual and worth a second look/some minimal research on a Friday afternoon.)

The manufacturing sector cut 21,000 jobs in October and construction lost 5,000, which is a big improvement over previous months.

Also, the average workweek remained unchanged at 33.8 hours, the average hourly earnings of workers increased by three cents to $17.58, and the average weekly income in the U.S. rose 0.2 percent to $594.20.

So there you have it, the bare essentials from October’s employment situation report. If the payroll numbers make it through to next month without being dramatically revised, I’ll eat my words (and probably look pretty foolish at the same time). But I suppose it would mean good things for our economy, and for that reason, I’ll cross my fingers and hope that they stay the same.