College Done at Home - Really! By Pam Stauter, NYS LEAH Board There is a growing field of education that may be of interest to home schoolers: distance learning. This is a fancy way of saying that you can complete courses and/or degrees by mail or internet - sometimes with on-campus time or consultations required. In this article I will review six books; but first I present a fairly comprehensive background so as to give the book choices some context. This can be a great opportunity for a community already known for "thinking outside of the box" - home schoolers! Distance Learning is not new. Fact is that the distance learning field has been available for a while, mostly being marketed to adult or mature students as a way of enhancing their current employability. But this area has come under the scrutiny and use of increasing numbers of home-schooled students. I myself incorporated a three-credit correspondence course in macro-economics to remedy a shortfall in my college degree-it enabled me to finish on time, while I was carrying full 15 and 18 credit loads my last two semesters. And the fact is that the correspondence course was easier than my 300 and 400 level courses by far. Most homeschoolers realize that by the time they have advanced their students into the upper grades the students are learning fairly independently. With care and planning, you can find or create a college degree that requires little or no time on campus. This has actually meant that young people have attained their college degrees for $5-8000 total, rather than the more usual astronomic totals. In offering this article on distance learning, sometimes called external degrees, it should be noted that I do not mean to imply that this is the only acceptable means of obtaining a college/university education. We all have Christian friends that have chosen public or private schools for their children, and at college level we know Christians that send students to trade schools, apprentice programs, Christian or private, or state system schools, or directly to work or marriage. These are all legitimate choices, to be entered prayerfully and under parental approval. Distance learning is a great and viable option, under-known and under-utilized up to this point. It might even be that homeschool moms and dads will find courses and degrees for themselves! Background on Distance Learning By flipping back and forth between a few books and websites, I was able to discern the current basics of distance learning. There are a few stand-out schools that have seriously taken on this field, namely Thomas Edison in New Jersey and Excelsior College (formerly Regents) right here in New York. But there is also the problem existence of diploma mills, and the true fear of looking like you've gotten your valid degree from a diploma mill. On Distance Learning and Reputation of the Degree What is a diploma mill? It is a sham, short and simple. These days it is quite easy to set up a web page, settle in some fictitious names as professors, name a phony accreditation agency, and set a bank account for tuition money to come in. A diploma mill can also be slightly more rigorous, requiring a minimal amount of work, and granting a degree. Basically, any course or degree program that does not require real work in exchange for credits is likely to spell trouble. Ask yourself: is it worth the future embarrassment and losses if someone finds out that this course or degree is not really legitimate? For Christians this just shouldn't be an entertained thought. Be above reproach. There is also the advisability of sticking with a brick-and-mortar education if your post-undergraduate work might be too wary of a "mail order" degree. This strikes me as more of a worry for law school, medical school or post-graduate studies. But just as homeschooling has gained in acceptability, distance learning is likely to become more acknowledged and acceptable as well. In fact, in most circumstances, no one can tell that a degree was earned by distance learning! NOTE: if you are not concerned about credit for your learning, if you are just taking a course for enjoyment or to enhance your own knowledge or skills, then you may not need to worry about official transcripts or accreditation. Generally in life, once that first job is secured most education documentation becomes a moot point -- unless you later need additional certification or advanced graduate degrees. Plan Backwards When you get past your concerns about diploma mills, how do you go about designing a college supplement or complete program using distance methods? The best advice is to plan backwards. What do I mean? Figure out where you want this degree to enable, what exact field you are looking at, and develop a rounded set of courses that will satisfy this need. For some students a fairly generic degree will work: liberal arts degree; American Lit; pre-med (name it biology or biochemistry). For other students, they may really want to exactly craft their degree: international sign language and business law; social work in missions-starved 10-40 window countries; advanced web-page design for sermon transcription dissemination; or some such thing. Determine how exact your student is and then look for the kind of institution that will best lead you to completion. The costs can be amazingly low: SUNY Morrisville near Syracuse is only $99 per credit (typical courses are about three credits each). Note on admissions Remember that one possible strategy for gaining college admissions, especially if the high school years were not carefully documented, is to earn course credits at a community college. When you have accrued somewhere in the twenty to thirty credits range, many institutions will take the student as a transfer. After all, by this point you have shown that the student is able to do the work. But this is always up to the institutions - do your research! Transferability problems and a strategy Just as with traditional brick-and-mortar institutions, it is possible that your credits may not transfer from one university/college to another. In many cases you will pay less per credit-hour in distance learning than when you attend on-campus, but if your student may be changing their plans often, you might want to go with more flexible institutions, such as Thomas Edison or Excelsior - which have outstanding reputations and will keep a "credit bank" for a nominal fee; you can later apply the credits to a degree plan with them if you matriculate. On getting academic credit What is the difference between "education" and the existence of institutions? The ideal goal of education is to learn something. The general goal of education institutions is to prove that their students have spent enough time or can pass an exam or demonstrate somehow that they have learned something. The distinction between the two: education is actually about the learning, whereas institutions are about the "proving" of some learning. As skeptical as that sounds, it will help to explain some of the mindset of some of the tougher education institutions as they challenge your admission into the institution, and then challenge the validity of giving you any credit for the learning that you have done. Freedom and Flexibility Now let us consider what kind of education documentation is least invasive, least likely to impinge on the Christian worldview and any expressions of beliefs. Why is this a concern? A generally quoted statistic is that half of evangelical students will essentially drop out of church during their college years. Scripture tells us (Mt 18, Mk 9, Lk 17) "that anyone [who] causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." As parents and adults we have an obligation to assess what each of our children is going to be able to withstand. The world is full of sin - and secular colleges can have some of the most liberal environments of any place - especially since they often tout the fact that they are a microcosm of society, or what society "should be." Find a sample course on-line and see for yourself: http://sln.suny.edu/courses/observation/2001fa/ln01fawp.nsf/web?openview The least invasive means of getting credit for work is by exams, totally unconnected to a particular textbook. You can find Advanced Placement exams, Excelsior College's exams, DANTES Subject Standardized Tests (DSSTs) at military bases or Prometric sites (twenty-six within New York), and some colleges offer their own exams (this takes sleuthing, try Ohio and North Carolina first) and others. The next level of invasiveness upon your attention is taking a distance course using a particular textbook - they have told you what you must master, but there is typically little added to the actual textbook, so a student and parents can determine early if the course is going to lead them to content that they don't really want to cover. More invasive yet: take a course that includes live or asynchronous online video/audio time interacting with the teacher and other students - there is a higher level of needing to please others, and higher likelihood that non-textbook things will be brought in. Interaction with other students can bring in any kid of remarks in "off topic" discussion threads, and you cannot count on a moderator to "censor" these postings. Arguably the highest level of subjectiveness comes in when you must individually work with an educator to pursue credit for life-work, or a portfolio assessment for credit, in guided studies or an internship. Some of this subjectiveness might be overcome if you know for sure who your evaluator is (through contacts or prior experience) so that your comfort level is better about the directives this mentor might give about future work, or additional "rounding" that the student will be advised about. BOOK REVIEWS: First of all, with the exception of Brad Voeller's book which is in a class of its own, many of these titles are practically interchangeable. Treat yourself to a leisurely visit to the local mega-bookstore, and browse their amply supplied college prep shelves. You will find a mind-boggling sample of distance learning materials, including books on how-to set up and teach distance courses (but that is a wholly different subject!) There are a couple of stand out names/series that jump out: Peterson's/Thomson Learning, John Bear, Barron's. There are new books coming out all the time, also. I rejected a couple of smaller books, but you might browse and discover that you really like a book's index or their criteria, or another aspect of information offered. Accelerated Distance Learning: The New Way to Earn Your College Degree in the Twenty-First Century, by Brad Voeller, Dedicated Publishing, Hinsdale, IL 60522, 2001. www.GlobalLearningStrategies.org, $19.99. Can you say "paradigm shift?" This book can be life-changing. In the heart of the book, Mr. Voeller walks a student through the process of finding distance learning options and getting signed up for courses or credit-exams and/or credit for real-life learning. In the next part he walks the student through the idea of accelerated learning - incorporating speed reading and comprehension skills, memory work and writing. Families could do much of this system without the speed reading, if that is a problematic for you. Mr. Voeller marks out a month of schedule showing how to run more than one course at a time, since mailing and evaluation can well be a time-consumer under "mapping a course." There is also a section on funding education. A nice feature of this book is that it is geared to the student as a high school or college student. Global Learning Strategies does sell Mega-memory, mega-speed reading and more as adjuncts to this basic volume. In fact, they sell a guide for home-school students that is only $5; there is an order form at the back of the book or on their website. The book is not overtly Christian, though many of the student vignettes throughout the book are Christian. Mr. Voeller offers testimonials from students who earn their bachelor's degree in one to two years for $5000 to $8000. Distance learning does take self-initiative, and accelerated speed certainly means tenacity and determination. The Greater Rochester LEAH chapter will be hosting Mr. Voeller at their spring curriculum fair. His experience was earning a fully-accredited degree in six months for the total of $5000. College Degrees by Mail & Internet: One Hundred Accredited Schools That Offer Bachelor's, Master's, Doctorates & Law Degrees by Distance Learning, 8th Edition, by John Bear and Mariah Bear, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA 94707, 2001. www.degree.net, $14.95. This is my second favorite title here because it made me feel confident about distance learning! The authors pick from accredited schools and whittle down to one hundred of the best. The indices at the back are very good: pick a major, pick a degree, pick an institution, and find if there are short residency periods or none required. The first forty-four pages cover accrediting and the nuts and bolts of applying and ways of earning credits. Barron's Guide to Distance Learning: Degrees; Certificates; Courses, by Pat Criscito, Barron's Educational Series, Inc., Hauppauge, NY 11788, www.barronseduc.com, $18.95. The general information pages are in large print. This book has a personality profile to assess if distance learning is for you. There are several pages of internet resources, many metasites. This book works well as a side-by-side companion with Bears' book. The last section of each profile seems to be written by the institution - I'm suspecting this because they are uneven and some entries are written in the first-person. Nearly 400 pages double column of profiles. It is disappointing that neither Barron's nor the Bears managed to explain the consortium in the SUNY Learning Network: http://sln.suny.edu. Students need to take care of which institution they matriculate with as their home institution as they have differing "home credit requirements". Of the SUNYs, Empire State College in Saratoga Springs has the longer more esteemed reputation for distance learning - but shop for yourself! And keep in mind, that with distance learning, it really doesn't matter so much about where the campus is located. Baker's Guide to Christian Distance Education, by Jason D. Baker, Baker Book House Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2000, $13.99. This book is limited to Christian courses, had very brief explanations of degrees offered. It does list Master's level degrees as well as bachelor's degree, and even k-12 (Bob Jones University Sat-Link, Alpha Omega On-line). If you need a source for Christian institutions, this is a good starter. How to be a Successful On-line Student, by Sara Dulaney Gilbert, McGraw-Hill, New York City, 2001, $16.95. This is in big print, has common sense information, a very good glossary of technical terms for all kinds of hook-ups that classes may offer; but generally this book doesn't have much information that isn't offered better in other places. Get a Jump 2002 New York: The High School Student's Regional Guide to College planning and Career Exploration, by Peterson's Editorial staff, Peterson's division of Thomson Learning, Stamford, CT, 2002 $9.95. This book/magazine of 170 pages is mostly about traditional college applications and attendance. Why is it included in this review? There are many suggestions for summer jobs, internships and a "school to work" section that touts partnering with employers, educators and community figures (using government grants). This is a secular book, although they do include Word of Life Bible Institute in one of their listings. Really to the point, there are long lists of two-year and four-year New York schools - which can be useful for taking courses and then sending to a credit bank (remember?). There is one page for homeschoolers that refers to Cafi Cohen's book, and points out that homeschoolers need to show two things for admission: that they can do the work, and that they can pay the costs. There are two pages specifically on distance learning. Peterson's/Thomson Learning publisher run a myriad of titles that cross reference each other. On a cautionary note, this book is written directly to students for several chapters, giving advice on handling social pressures, study habits and more; parents should skim this for content and decide how to address this content with their students. Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to research a little MBA degree for myself for a little free-time filler. OK, I don't have much free time. But I think that I will work out a P.R. program so that our future college students might be content to stick with mom's home cooking and leave all the commuting to the mailbox! Distance learning web sites SECULAR BOOK http://www.homeschoolteenscollege.net/ cafi cohen's college site ©2002 Pam Stauter. This article may be used in its entirety. Please send copy of published work to NYS LEAH, PO Box 438, Fayetteville, NY 13066.