We did a little research about online colleges and universities, to find out which ones seem to be the most conscious of the fact that adult learners need flexibility in their graduate degree programs. After all, grownup students usually have jobs, spouses and often even kids to take care of. Here’s a look at which schools have masters and other advanced degree programs designed with the adult learner in mind.

If you’re going to school online, Congress wants to horn it’s way into your living room, bedroom or wherever else you take your tests. Hidden deep in the new bill that renews the Higher Education Act for next year is a provision that requires schools to prove that the person who signs up for a course online is the same person who does the work. While this sounds reasonable, and could conceivably provide relief to some online students who must now travel to schools to take tests, it kicks the door open to all sorts of potential invasions of privacy. Not surprisingly, Congress is once again flaunting how utterly clueless it is about the Internet and technology in general. Although several vendors are developing cameras or fingerprint technologies meant to authenticate test takers, none of them are really proven, and it hardly seems desirable that their little devices should be forced into your home. Welcome to another federal education law requiring something — and providing zero financial help or technical instruction from the government on how to actually do it. Read More

One of Wikipedia’s co-founders, Larry Sanger, is making noise about the need to make online learning more available to K-12 grade children all over the world. Writing on his “Citizendium Blog,” Mr. Sanger offers a petition that everyone in the world is invited to sign, and send to a philanthropist. If you don’t happen to know who your local major philanthropist is, you may have trouble figuring out what to do with this. If you do, however, you can use the petition to add your voice to Sanger’s call the people donating money to improve education should seize the “low hanging fruit” by funding the transfer of textbooks and educational videos into high-quality, easy to use digital formats so that kids all over the world can have equal access to information. While there is free educational content available online today, Sanger says, most of it “lacks either detail or high quality.” Copyright owners may not agree with his assertion that rich philanthropists can digitize any content they want without asking anyone’s permission, but his passionate call for making the best information available to all school kids worldwide sounds pretty good. One can’t help but notice his comment that other things than a lack of digital content may, at times, be to blame for the sorry state of American K-12 education: “Perhaps it has to do with teachers being low-paid, or parents not being involved, or something else. We do not offer an answer to that.” Read Citizendium Blog & petition here

Arkansas ranks next to last among U.S. states in the number of college graduates (only West Virginia lags behind it). The numbers are a bit shocking: Right now, just 12 out of every 100 ninth graders in the state earn a bachelor’s degree within six years of finishing high school.

A big problem is that many students in the state start college but never finish. Arkansas Higher Education Director Jim Purcell wants to respond with a $30 million dollar education program that has a strong online learning focus. By offering distance learning courses to people who’ve failed to complete their college degrees, he hopes to boost the number of graduates and make the state more attractive to employers.

It’s interesting that online learning is being called to the rescue here, since a common criticism of it is that students often take an online course or two but never finish a degree. Check out this interesting article about the tough conditions in Arkansas higher education, and how the state hopes to fix them, partly through online learning.

Read our overview here at “The Distance Learner.”

An interesting study shows that a certain kind of person will do particularly well as a distance learning student. Being self-directed and capable of putting aside distractions are two of the key traits. Read More

Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has found a way to the social messages in that good old rock n’ roll to teach history more effectively to high school students. Through it’s videoconferencing program, the hall has brought a program called “Ball of Confusion: Rock Music and Social Change in the 1960s and 1970s” into live classrooms in over 25 states to stimulate discussions about women’s issues, the war in Vietnam, the cold war and more. Teachers report that students are tremendously engaged by classic rock music, and enjoy debating how the issues raised in it are playing out in this year’s presidential election. Read more.

Whether you’re looking to get a degree online or at a traditional school, it’s a sure bet you’re doing it to get into a better career. But does real satisfaction lie there waiting for you in the career you are now training for? Here’s a list of jobs that don’t seem to be as wonderful as people expect them to be. Police officer, teacher and chef are just a few of America’s most overrated careers.

Unfortunately, at this point a good deal. After burning through the mortgage, auto loan and credit card markets, the national credit squeeze is starting to have a serious effect on student loans. The government is getting nervous about backing up banks and loan associations who give Stafford loans, which is making the lenders alot tougher on students who need money to pay their tuition costs. Here’s an overview of the tough times in the student loan market.

Alot of bright lights of the business world have dropped out of school to do their own thing, and reaped huge rewards. But other self-starters rely on the business knowledge they learned in school to help them with management issues they must understand to create a real profitable. Here’s an interesting article on whether or not you can study to be an entrepreneur.