Right, so we get more corruption that further invalidates my degree for which I actually had to do a lot of very difficult actual work. As if accrediting places like University of Phoenix and IDT wasn't enough.
Beyond that I'd present the question that's already been asked: What makes you think people who get degrees online aren't working hard? Did you study 18 hours a day like the woman in the article? I suspect not.
And it was not considered a super elite school or anything. It was just an engineering degree in a school where the faculty took the subject seriously. So, I am very sure nobody in my major partied through it, in fact I was probably the biggest partier of them all but i still had to work my ass off for the difficult classes.
Of course there always are majors that can be partied through, we all know the bs majors out there.
Well it is possible that people with on-line degrees are in fact working hard, but it is very hard to believe. What is their incentive to fail people that do not learn the subject? What is their incentive to even teach the subject properly? For reputable universities this usually comes down to the personal integrity of the professor. They have academic reputations to defend and make sure that their students know what their supposed to know or don't pass. For on-line colleges the "professor" is a random badly paid employee, and the student is a customer that will stop paying if he/she gets pissed off.
The woman in the article studied 18 hours a day because the on-line school offered a flat fee per month so she just decided to take as many classes as possible to get her money's worth.
If you are truly interested in your field, you should rarely cover new material in undergraduate courses.
Keeping their job?
If a company like StraighterLine wants to be taken seriously, they'll need to ensure people that they are giving quality classes and only passing people who learn the material.
My guess is that they'll end up some how auditing the professors, maybe randomly looking at tests to see if the people understand the material, etc... Maybe they'll find some other mechanism, but as long as a good education is valued by employers, StraighterLine will need to find a way to prove it is giving one.
To be honest, my only real issue with treating these courses as accredited is the difficulty in validating who took the class (e.g. making sure someone didn't ask their friend to take the exams for them).
If your degree is all you've got going for you, you're already in trouble. A degree should be viewed as a means to get your foot in the door for your first real job. From then on, it's all on you. (Admittedly, there is research that shows that the higher up the totem pole you start your career the better you'll do for the rest of your career, so Ivy League is still a good deal for many people.)
I can't see the slightest difference between an accredited community college and accredit on-line college.
Of course, all these schools have individual reputations and accreditation doesn't immediately give a school the reputation of Harvard.
It still seems that for-profit and education is taboo in American society...
If Apple can be for-profit and dedicate itself to quality technology products and services why can't a similar company apply their focus to quality, technology, and education?
I see StraigterLine as a small step in that direction. If you don't like where this is headed, I suggest you start donating more money to your Alma Mater - to secure your family spot the old fashioned, nepotistic way.
More importantly, this is going to be a long, iterative process with some missteps along the way (UOP et al).
A case can be made that UOP and its peers invest more money in maintaining enrollment pipelines than the actual education technologies and infrastructures. Which is all the more reason for other upstarts to take advantage of an opportunity...
Online access to higher education has huge potential to redefine the status quo, and that evolution in education requires hackers to keep pushing the needle.
Can you explain in what way my earning a degree will invalidate yours?
Personally, I see StraighterLine as Netflix of online learning. Not necessarily a bad thing.
Then again, it sounds like StraighterLine is currently a PG-13 version of Netflix with a selection of 100 DVDs.