Online Degree Programs

Online college work might come in even more creative formats and be quicker to complete, since the Federal Communications Commission in March provided Congress with a plan to expand broadband network access and speed up Internet services. This very change may allow even more students to obtain college degrees online as services speed up.

The National Broadband Plan is required as part of a federal stimulus bill known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It’s reportedly intended in part to encourage online education and online education tools and to improve education connectivity.

Virginia Congressman, Rick Boucher, in a CSPAN interview called the Internet the biggest platform for commercial innovation and business success this country has seen. A Strategy for American Innovation report, prepared by the National Economic Council’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, recommends creating online bachelor degree that combine high quality subject expertise with the latest technological advancements.

The federal government over the next 10 years intends to invest as much as $500 million to create online college classes at community colleges that would be freely available to students to extend their learning opportunities and complete coursework, according to the American Innovation report. Colleges, universities, publications and others would be invited to compete in creating state-of-the-art online courses, the report notes.

Many students already take part in online school programs, access a broad array of online databases and link up with worldwide scholars, a broadband plan news release noted. But while reports show that students in online college classes do at least as well academically as students in traditional college classes do, a pilot program at one university suggested that online school work might take more time to complete.

Students enrolled in online school offerings and pursuing online degrees can access their class work through wireless services, dialup and high speed DSL services that telephone companies offer and by broadband services with wireless and satellite options. With broadband service a transmission “pipeline”, as the FCC calls it, carries content. Broadband also provides quality access to high-tech Internet features such as streaming media, Internet telephone services, interactive offerings and games, the FCC’s broadband Web site notes. And many have expressed a desire to move toward HD video, Boucher noted. The federal government would continue to give money to local telephone companies, which have been expanding their DSL services, until broadband becomes more widely available and even telephone service is carried through the Internet, Boucher said.

President Barack Obama has expressed a desire to make higher education more accessible, and he recently signed an education bill into law that provides more tuition assistance to students pursuing associate degree on line. For students with work and family responsibilities, higher education often becomes more accessible as a result of online college classes and online degree programs with flexible formats.

The broadband plan calls for increasing download speeds from what Boucher said is as few as 5 megabits per second to 100 megabits per second by 2020 and for achieving upload speeds of 50 megabits for second. Expanded network connectivity is still needed, the FCC reported. Some 7 million people in the United States don’t have access to broadband network services, Florida Congressman Cliff Stearns told CSPAN. According to Stearns, 95 percent of households have broadband access, and two-thirds of them use high-speed Internet services. Proposals within the broadband plan would reportedly require establishing new laws and agency rules.

As more and more people are returning to school, many of those students are getting their college degrees online. Classes and the funding for education are allowing everything from an online bachelor degree all the way to a masters to fit the student’s schedule and their life responsibilities.