The Distance Learner

The next bailout: your adult children?

Matthew Bass — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:54:25 +0000

As Washington unfurls its financial-market rescue, more families are weighing private bailouts of their own — of young-adult children burdened by debt.

Read the full article.

OEDb’s online college rankings published

Matthew Bass — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:22:37 +0000

The Online Education Database has published their second annual online college rankings. This is a good reference if you have several distance education schools in mind and are trying to decide between them. The metrics gathered appear to be very thorough, though my own alma mater, Thomas Edison State College, didn’t make the list for some reason, despite the fact that it is fully accredited.

Some encouraging advice

Matthew Bass — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:43:19 +0000

The Teaching Home is a magazine for Christian home educators. A few years ag, they published some suggestions for parents and students who are considering higher education. If you’ve been wondering what the Biblical motivations and goals behind higher education should be, this is an excellent read.

Read the full article.

Phyllis Schlaffly: College not always necessary

Matthew Bass — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:14:47 +0000

While the price of a college education has skyrocketed far faster than inflation, many careers for which colleges prepare their graduates are disappearing. U.S. News‘ Best Careers guide concludes that “college grads might want to consider blue-collar careers” because B.A. diploma holders “are having trouble finding jobs that require college-graduate skills.”

Read the full article.

Why it doesn’t pay to get straight A’s in college

Matthew Bass — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:45:00 +0000

I worked hard to get good grades my first few years of college. My last year, I was tired of the whole college deal (and was working full time in my career field already) so I didn’t stress out quite so much about getting straight A’s.

I still got a decent GPA, but in the end it didn’t really matter since I’ve never had a potential employer ask about my grades. They generally only care about whether or not I can do the work.

Being good at book learning rarely equates to being good at any particular job.

Does studying for 60 to 80 hours a week, pulling all-nighters and not having time for socializing describe your college life? It describes 25-year-old Jon Morrow’s, and in this retrospective essay he questions whether it was worth it.

Read the full article.

Career advice for the college grad

Matthew Bass — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 00:42:28 +0000

Get Rich Slowly is a personal finance blog that I track regularly. One recent post was about how important it is to have actual job experience after graduating.

The premise of the article is that a typical college grad won’t have any experience and will be forced to take an entry-level position as a receptionist or mail clerk. Gradually, the grad will be able to work him/herself up to a more interesting position with better pay. The author gets it wrong, though, when she says that working a boring post-graduation job is inevitable.

It’s true that a grad coming from a traditional college setting typically has little choice in the matter. But by earning a degree through distance education you can get the “peon job” period out of the way while you’re studying and be ready to enter a better paying, more interesting job upon graduation (if not sooner).

Why prolong the process of securing a decent job if you don’t have to? Distance education leaves your schedule flexible enough to accommodate experimentation in a variety of job fields without suffering through the post-graduation doldrums of a boring entry-level position.

Read the full article.

Interesting quote

Matthew Bass — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 20:46:36 +0000

I was reading over a page of quotes today and came across this one from an unknown source:

“A knowledge of the Bible without a college course is more valuable than a college course without the Bible.”

How very true!

Read the full page of quotes.

Mini-revolt at Macalester college

Matthew Bass — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 01:06:26 +0000

This article by Katherine Kersten perfectly illustrates what a struggle it can be to encourage even a small amount of intellectual diversity on a college campus. If students are steeped in course material like this day in and day out, how can they help but pick up the leftist mantra?

Take the Macalester curriculum. What comes to mind when you think of an American Studies Department? At Macalester, its overwhelming focus is on race, gender and ethnic minorities. For example, you can take a course like “Black Queer Positionality: Narration, Negotiation, Identity,” which aims to “more fully understand and articulate a black queer ‘theory in the flesh.’ ”

…

“Macalester talks a good game of diversity,” said Joseph Schultz, who graduated in 2006 and is a leader of the group. “But they don’t have the kind that really counts: intellectual diversity.”

Read the full article.

Thanks for attending

Matthew Bass — Sun, 27 May 2007 16:29:01 +0000

To those of you who made it to my talk at NCHE last Saturday, thanks for attending! One gentleman pointed out to me afterwards that Baker’s Guide to Christian Distance Education by Jason D. Baker was not listed in the handout. I apologize for the oversight. Aside from the book, Baker also has a new web site that provides a lot of good information on distance learning. Finally, if you didn’t get a copy of the handout at my talk then you can download a PDF version of it. Feel free to e-mail me with any additional questions you may have.

What can distance education do for you?

Matthew Bass — Fri, 25 May 2007 21:34:15 +0000

Here’s an interesting article about distance education that was published by a news station in Madison, Wisconsin. Despite the fact that it’s targeted at adults who want to go back to school, it contains a good overview of distance education along with some valuable warnings about what to watch out for when picking a program.