Florida to create it's own TESC

[sklineho]

Florida approves online-only public university education

But instead of it being its own school it will be a branch of UF. This could be interesting.

[sanantone]

I hate reading the comments on these types of articles, especially Yahoo articles. Someone said they wouldn't want heart surgery performed on them by someone who went to an online-only college. Do they really think Florida is trying to create an online medical school? I see this argument come up all the time. People are so stupid.

[sklineho]

I wouldn't let it bother you. Having read enough Yahoo comments over the years, I'd say most of those people probably wouldn't even qualify to be on Jerry Springer.

[clep3705]

Huff Post has a slightly different spin on the story Florida Considers Online-Only Public University Notice the discussion about STEM courses.

I wonder if they will market through StateU - Online Degrees Information and Directory like so many other state schools are doing. There are plenty of state universities offering bachelor's and master's degrees completely online. Generally speaking, they are not as liberal on CBE as TESC, COSC, or Excelsior. Stateu is like applying a DeVry or University of Phoenix marketing campaign on top of a brick and mortar state university.

Some of the brick and mortar state university online degrees are quite affordable.

[ryoder]

Rick Scott is having a profound and positive effect on educational outcomes here in Florida. I support his goals. This is good news.

[sanantone]

Huff Post has a slightly different spin on the story Florida Considers Online-Only Public University Notice the discussion about STEM courses.

I wonder if they will market through StateU - Online Degrees Information and Directory like so many other state schools are doing. There are plenty of state universities offering bachelor's and master's degrees completely online. Generally speaking, they are not as liberal on CBE as TESC, COSC, or Excelsior. Stateu is like applying a DeVry or University of Phoenix marketing campaign on top of a brick and mortar state university.

Some of the brick and mortar state university online degrees are quite affordable.

This article was much better researched. The person who wrote the first article is almost completely clueless about the history of distance learning colleges. By the way, that StateU site sucks and I never use it. Gradschools.com is the best website to search for graduate programs. Geteducated.com, eLearners.com, and SACS' electronic campus website are also pretty good. The Sloan C catalog used to be amazing, but they shut it down for a few reasons for whatever reason and restarted the whole thing from scratch. I also liked that Onlinedegreereviews.org had a unique database of online programs, but they got rid of that and their search function is linked to eLearners.

The HuffPost article did bring up a really good point. If you want more STEM and trade graduates, online may not be the way to go. Online is fine for information technology/computer science (maybe not so much when it comes to teaching pc repair however) and probably mathematics depending on how much 1-on-1 students need with a professor. Science and engineering labs are difficult to do by distance. There is also a limit to how much you can do online for healthcare fields. Maybe that's the reason why WGU offers a very limited selection of degree programs in mostly business, education, and information technology. We have enough business majors in this country.

I cringed when I read a comment on a local education article. Someone said we need for students to major in more practical subjects such as criminal justice instead of English literature because we will always need jails. What that person does not know is that most corrections jobs do not require post-secondary education. Most police officer jobs don't require post-secondary education. For most of the ones that require at least an associate's degree, a degree in English Literature or anything else is perfectly acceptable. For the small percentage of jobs that want specific majors, the behavioral science-related majors that he would probably call fluff majors are just as acceptable as criminal justice.

[jmichelle79]

I also read the comments from yahoo . These people do not know what we do or how online credits work. There was mention of online degrees not requiring a proctor (ahha I wish, just for the time factor). Another poster stated they didn't want a RN from a online school.. hmmmm I'm tempted to send them a link to Excelsior, but I won't because I really don't care about changing their minds.
I have had a theory that people who disregard online education (testing included) do not understand it and/or are bitter that they spent so much money.