Online Degrees From Christian Colleges

According to the International Student Guide, around 1600 of the United States' 4000 institutions of higher learning are considered private, non-profit institutions. While around 900 of those schools consider themselves religious institutions, only 102 are members of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, a body that accepts only Christian schools that actively attempt to maintain a Christian atmosphere in their educational and extra-curricular activities. While many of these institutions have campuses that offer a variety of programs to undergraduate and graduate students, online classes are often an important aspect of the Christian college. You can find many Christian college degrees online that will not only boost your career choices, but that can also help you develop spiritually and academically.

Why choose online Christian colleges?

Quoting the National Association of Christian College Admissions Professionals, the International Student Guide suggests that seeking a diploma from a Christian college can help you grow in multiple areas of your life while interacting more with professors and obtaining a quality education. According to the Directory of Schools, a Christian education is often a quality that employers value because of its emphasis on practical business techniques, honesty, and hard work. Additionally, the guide suggests that a Christian degree based on Biblical principals can be advantageous in the work world, as it teaches traditional wisdom. Furthermore, Christian college degrees online offer individuals who don't have the chance or prefer not to to attend traditional campuses to earn the qualifications that will allow them to participate in a religious profession. Finally, Christian college degrees online may offer better programs in certain areas than other online programs. Even for those who are not particularly looking for a Christian college, Christian college degrees online can be the best option, so researching Christian colleges with online degree programs is often a good tactic.

What do Christian college degrees cover?

Like other online degree programs, Christian college degrees are available in a variety of areas. According to Baker's Guide to Christian Distance Education, there are not many programs that are not available online. From education degrees to business programs, Christian college degrees online can be obtained at the associate, baccalaureate, and graduate levels. Some advantages that Christian college degrees online have over other online diplomas are the spiritual and religious programs that are offered. For instance, Liberty University offers Associate's, Bachelor's, and Doctorate degrees in religion, as well as Master's degrees in Christian Leadership and Discipleship Ministries.

Christian colleges that have been accepted into the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities are also required to implement Christian fundamentals and ideals into their courses. This means that even the most basic and the most specialized courses offered at the Christian university are required to discuss the impact of the subject on spiritual and religious matters. This means that students who graduate with Christian college degrees appeal to employers who place a high value on ethics or spirituality. Furthermore, these online courses can be beneficial to students who are eager to see how their faith is applied to their profession. Whether your major is business or theology, you can expect to learn a great deal about the Bible, Christian faith and history, and how Christianity is relevant today in your classes. Many Christian colleges also offer courses in cultivating qualities desired in a Christian person, such as service and humility. If you are entering a Christian college with the intent of earning a ministry-related degree, you can expect to focus on the fundamental aspects of Biblical literature, as well as the practical methods of ministry.

What kind of jobs can I get with a Christian college degree?

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What are Online Students Studying?

Popular Degrees Provide Career Insight

Despite the fact that hundreds of different online degrees exist, it’s human nature that clusters of users gravitate to particular degrees and majors and that a subsequent and intriguing list of “most popular” percolate to the surface. Lists of most popular anything are commodities in and of themselves, hawked as market research by internet research firms, but it’s entirely possible to make a fairly accurate estimation of the trendiest online degrees by simply opening your eyes. Online search results and keyword analysis suggest strong trends, after all it’s these indicators that serve to direct many online economics. And online degree providers often put their most popular wares right “up front” as if in their online shop window.

Online research surveys suggest that though trends in online degrees fluctuate quarterly and within degree levels, that the main fields of interest remain:

• Business
• Healthcare
• Education
• Engineering

Further evidence suggests that students are increasingly pushing beyond the Bachelors degree level, taking advantage of the convenience of online Masters and PhD degrees.

Business Degrees

Business people are competitive so it makes sense that should a convenient avenue to a professional degree present itself, that it would draw plenty of interest. Online business degrees come in Associates, Bachelors, Masters and PhD flavors, but according to many sources, the Bachelors and Masters degrees remain most popular. The Masters in

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Paying for an Online Education

Qualify for Federal Aid, Employer Perks, and Free Money

Online degree programs were once paid for with credit cards. You could say that distance learning has finally come of age. Students engaged in full-time degrees may be eligible for federal aid and valuable grants and scholarships, not unlike their traditional counterparts. Non-traditional students—a majority of the online degree population—also may qualify for special financial aid programs, and continuing education students may apply for alternative student loans. Because many online degree seekers are pursuing career and job-related skills, they must also keep in mind that many employers offer tuition reimbursement plans.

There is a financial advantage to online degrees: students are only billed for tuition, the actual cost for the academic courses. Textbooks, the only other financial burden, may be purchased for deep discounts through online textbook warehouses or possibly even borrowed through online university library systems.

Tuition Reimbursement Programs May Pay All or Part of Online Tuition

Working professionals often seek online degrees and specialized coursework for career reasons:

• Job requirements
• Career changers
• Promotions and better salaries
• Career specializations

In at least a couple of the above cases many employers, large and small, may pay all or part of a degree or coursework. Terms differ among employers; some require you pay tuition up-front and submit bills for reimbursement, others only provide compensation up to a particular dollar amount, or for particular types of courses. Reimbursement plans may or may not cover textbooks and other course-related materials, and almost

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Distance Learning Providers: A Diverse Crowd

Online Learning Bubble

Gains in the types, volume, and legitimacy of online degree programs have been significantly measurable within the last few years, with no indication of slowdown. When the distance-learning pioneers first broke on the educational scene in the late 80s and early 90s, few took the programs seriously. Now it’s impossible to keep track of the number of distance learning environments being launched online, many as integral parts of elite college and university academic models.

Distance learning degree sources typically are either:

• Online universities
• Traditional colleges and universities
• Specialty schools

Online Universities Pioneered Specializations and Adult Learning Paradigms

Online universities have struggled the hardest to earn legitimacy, and rightly so. The business of online degrees and diplomas has been marred by the ubiquity of degree counterfeiters and fake online colleges that go to great lengths to appear legit. However, in return for years of persistence and non-stop modifications, technological advances, and curriculum improvements, online universities now have overwhelming enrollment and dozens of degrees. In fact, there are plenty of higher educational sources that now report little difference in learning outcomes between online and traditional coursework.

Since online universities specialize in distance learning degrees, most have perfected the art of teaching for a primarily busy, adult audience. With this demographic comes slews of career-centric customers seeking targeted and relevant degrees and curriculums. The increased demand for micro-specialized degrees may be directly attributable to the modifications in educational paradigms made in the name

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Learn to Spot a Phony Degree Mill

These Degrees Are a Fraud

Distance learning has become too much of a good thing. Illegal diploma mills have, in the past, figured prominently in the undermining of high-quality e-learning. Consumers shopping for online degrees have a volatile combination of career zeal and lack of know-how when it comes to online degree scams. What’s legitimate and what is not is often alarmingly misunderstood. Perfectly reputable professionals have been duped into believing they could buy a degree in return for very little work. There is no reason to remain ignorant to the diploma mill business.

Life Experience Degrees

Avoid, like The Plague, any online business selling you a degree based on your “life experience.” Hard sells such as this come from organizations that sound like reputable colleges or universities—names like Randford University, Harrington University, and Hamilton University—all illegitimate. The associated website may look the part as well. This smoke and mirrors game has been played over and over again and is responsible for the sale of hundreds of illegitimate “degrees” to supposedly ignorant individuals that actually believed their job and personal experiences qualified them for any type of real college degree. Alarmingly enough, a few of those duped individuals have worked in high-level government jobs.

The marketing jargon is certainly convincing—why shouldn’t your past job experience count for something? Unfortunately, higher education in the U.S. has very specific metrics assigned to college degrees: course credits, GPAs, and hands-on

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Continuing Education Comes Packaged in Various Forms

Required CEUs and Professional Certificates Deliver Necessary Know-How

Online degree programs seem especially well equipped to administer continuing education programs designed for professional adults with career benchmarks to achieve. Undergraduate certificates, post-baccalaureate, and post-graduate certificates may all satisfy continuing education requirements. However, special online continuing education providers develop unique and targeted material specific to professionals in particular fields:

• Healthcare
• Mental health
• Education
• Business

Continuing education, in its strictest sense, is a job requirement for many professionals, particularly those in service-oriented careers, such as nursing, teaching, and social work. Professionals must fulfill a set number of units annually, often called CEUs or continuing education units. Before the birth of useable, online learning environments, CEUs were earned by attendance at annual conferences, and industry-related seminars and lectures, not always convenient and not always effective methods for the conveyance of contemporary job-specific information.

Online CEU portals are usually under contract from businesses and industries that track employees’ continuing education. These services supply specially developed continuing education products for particular types of professionals in certain fields, and with particular credentials. Online quizzes or short exams serve to measure knowledge retention of key concepts and may figure significantly into an employee’s performance record.

Global Demands Increase Need for Widespread Workforce Education

Nurses and teachers are no longer the only professionals required to bend to the demands of continuing education. Almost any career specialization requires employees to logon and learn fresh job-related skills and concepts. Technological turnovers and workplace globalization have acted together to drive this need forward. Moore’s Law may be easily applied to many types of technical jobs, which are outdated as quickly as next generation computer chips can be developed—every one-and-a-half to two years. This is the boiling point, and most career-motivated professionals know when they need a career tune-up.

In situations like this, many professionals, including business execs, electrical engineers, computer programmers, paralegals, technical writers, and slews of others, seek high quality brands of continuing education for their own career goals: to remain as current and competitive as possible in business arenas where younger upstarts come out of school already armed with cutting edge technical savvy. This is where online degree providers gain traction with certificate programs.

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Planning For an Online Degree

Distance Learning Checklist

Consumers that shop for online degrees typically are over the age of 30, and have less than an undergraduate degree. Many have partial degrees, but few understand the components necessary to assemble a complete college degree plan. What do you need to know before you apply for a degree program? A checklist that outlines the major components of a college degree search can help enormously with organization. Keep track of websites you’ve visited; scholarships applied for, and keep to-do items organized.

Demographically, most online learners have been ten years or so out of school and many have never gone to college. The idea of “online” seems convenient, affordable, and even easy. But as attractive as distance learning may seem, it’s not for everyone.

Time Commitment

Online learners in hot pursuit of a full-blown degree must first be aware of the time commitment. Yes, online degrees are designed to afford the most flexible environments; online curriculum environments are available 24/7; and there is some freedom to self-pace assignments. With these advantages in mind, learners must have a high-degree of self-motivation. After the dishes have been done and the kids have been put to bed it’s typically study time.

• Can you maintain a busy schedule of work and family, plus add in a couple hours study time each night? Can you do this for possibly two years?

Choosing an Online Provider

There are a number of online degree providers from which to choose: online universities, traditional colleges/universities, or specialty schools. Weigh carefully your career situation, career and educational goals for the short-term and long-term, as well as the type of degree or coursework you wish to pursue. Are you looking for an undergraduate degree, baccalaureate completion, graduate, or postgraduate degree? Or are you filling in career blanks with standalone courses and/or professional certificates? Do you want the prestige associated with an elite school, —as well as the cost—or are you satisfied with a large online university, or a regional provider?

• Choose an online school.

Degree and Requirements

Online degree providers offer varying numbers and types of degrees. Large-scale online universities may have dozens of degrees: certificates, Associates,

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Online Degrees Offer Strong Benefits: Convenience and Flexibility

Online Degrees Offer Strong Benefits: Convenience and Flexibility, But Come Bundled with Some Drawbacks

Know the Advantages and Disadvantages to Distance Learning

Brainstorming the advantages to an online degree provides no degree of difficulty. The evidence to suggest that distance learning has now reached an enviable higher education threshold has come to pass. Maybe it’s the collection of institutions now offering their online wares—institutions the likes of Yale and Harvard, University of North Carolina and Boston University. Let’s not leave out online pioneer University of Phoenix. This institution may have instilled as much doubt as it did promise in its zealous pursuit of legitimate and online, university-caliber degrees.

Not very long ago “legitimate” and “online degrees” were not in agreement. But the fact remains: there are very good, even excellent, distance degree programs, and remote, busy, and talented professionals are seeking them out.

Number One Advantage: Convenience

Before any other pro may be weighed, the leading belief is that online degrees offer convenience and flexibility. Do they?

Quality and accredited online degree programs make distribution of higher educational opportunities a mainstream reality. These online products, then, may be more carefully defined as valuable commodities marketed to learners without accessibility to college campuses or with stacked work and family schedules. They are convenient, however, when matched with the right learner. Not everyone is suited to the academic demands imposed by a virtual environment. Degrees demand time, professionals tired at the end of a day may simply not have the desire, in the end, to spend two hours or more in front of a computer and immersed in online coursework; and this, for a year or two at a time.

But for the right individuals online degrees bend to personal schedules, are available 24/7, and may sustain the student that simply has no other choice.

Self-Pace Perk: The Idea That No One’s Breathing Down Your Neck

Self-pacing is a key reason many working people seek online degrees. Work and family schedules impose long hours, so it makes sense that curriculum with built-in flexibility and loose time constraints is a big benefit. Again, in the hands

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What Accreditation Means to Online Education

The Value of Legitimate Accreditation

Accreditation of higher education institutions typically indicates an official, Department of Education-sanctioned, review of each academic model. The privilege to advertise one’s accreditation means a general curriculum, or specialty curriculum, has undergone a rigorous review by one of a handful of DOE sanctioned accrediting agencies.

Consider a higher educational plateau of colleges and universities running maverick curriculums, sans checks and balances for quality, conciseness, and with faculty anybodies dispensing “wisdom” in immeasurable quantities. Accreditation aims to corral the academic metrics and apply them to higher educational institutions. But not every college and university is accredited. Accreditation remains a voluntary process. Most that value their reputations now sport the brand, and students seeking online degrees are absolutely encouraged to seek out those programs with the proper accreditation.

Why Accreditation is Important for Online Education

Accreditation has become an important rite of passage for online degree providers that value their products and believe that they offer a high-quality program. Distance learning has been marked by more than just quality issues, but with a general negative image of Internet academia. Pioneers to the realm of online education value the distinction of accreditation more than any others—in some cases they have fought uphill battles to overstep the qualifications necessary for accreditation and to prove worthy of educational products equal to brick and mortar institutions.

Accreditation Criteria

Accrediting agencies have general criteria by which they measure an institution’s academic worthiness. Online colleges and universities undergo a multi-faceted process of accreditation that does not take place overnight. Accreditation agents typically visit a physical campus and/or administrative offices, examine institutional infrastructure, and make certain that credentialed faculty and academic processes are legitimate and in tact. Each institution is also held accountable for its own self-evaluation. Criteria used to measure academic worth include:

• Institutional mission.
• Ability to evaluate and modify academic models to accommodate future growth.
• Effective curriculum, qualified faculty, and

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