Distance Education

Class topics have thus far have covered the importance (or lack of importance) of education and the role it plays in economic growth. The focus has shifted towards the access and cost of distance education. Since we're going with the theory that education can help to stimulate economic growth, we then move forward to discussing how we access education and training as well as the costs of doing so. While there is the option of traditional education, distance education is increasingly becoming a viable option for advanced education and training.

So just what is distance education? As its name suggests, it's learning via distance. The instructor and learner are typically separated by space and time. Now, learners usually access distance education courses via asynchronous and/or synchronous technology. Asynchronous technology allows learners to access course materials on their own time, such as using discussions boards or email, while synchronous technology allowing learners to meet at the same time, such as web-conferencing. Now of course there are many more ways to access distance education courses but attempting to list them all would not be beneficial to this post.

Accessing distance education courses seems to be the relatively easy part. Yes, I know I shouldn't call it easy but let's not focus on that part. LOL. The hard part, for the learners, comes in financing this education/training. And this is where it gets tricky. Higher education can be financed through grants, scholarships, federal and private loans. For some of these options, it can a simple process, filling out your FAFSA for need based aids, completing applications for scholarships and grants. While the task can be daunting, learners don't typically encounter many problems in securing financing for their education.

Oh no, the problem comes after these funds are disbursed, specifically federal and private loans. Learners tend to take out these vast amounts of loan even when they don't need the full amount offered), creating vast amounts of debt in which they hope they will be able to repay once they receive their higher education degree. After all, one of the many reasons learners cite as why they pursue higher education degrees is to increase their income. Now what happens when a learner finishes their program and does not secure employment with an income to support those loans that were taken out to finance the education? Should learners only pursue programs with higher averages of incomes such as math and hard sciences?

Not all programs come with the guarantee of higher incomes (such as being a Liberal Arts major). Do we abandon those types of programs because they don't generate high incomes and which according to research, won't increase productivity as higher incomes are supposedly the cause for it. I could go more into detail but then I'd have to do another post (which I may have to!).

These are reasons as to the question education being a good or bad thing was put forth. While I certainly believe education to be a good thing, it does leave me to question why certain programs are more favorable than others.