Is online college easier now?

[Vle045]

I am curious about online undergraduate college, particularly from the perspective of those who attended in person years ago and again more recently.  Are the online programs easier than college years ago - like in the 90’s or so?  I’ve taken graduate courses from a couple of schools now and the format has been pretty similar.  And it seems much easier than what I recall from my undergrad years. The big difference that I see are the capstone/cornerstones.  I never had to do anything like that.  My son is a HS junior and still has no idea what he wants to do.  Like, not even a slight clue.  He doesn’t like school, but hasn’t completely written off going to college.  He also hasn’t expressed interest in any trades either. When I talk to him about college, I don’t want to be too “out of touch” with what it’s like now.  I would also be interested to hear from anyone who has done online and in-person recently.

[NotJoeBiden]

Difficulty is pretty subjective. The only thing I have seen with data is that grade-inflation across educational institutions has made it easier than ever for more people to achieve higher grades.

Grad classes tend to be less work than undergrad. More often you are not studying as much for tests as undergrad and instead are mostly working on applying knowledge to projects or reports or a final thesis.


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[ss20ts]

I am curious about online undergraduate college, particularly from the perspective of those who attended in person years ago and again more recently.  Are the online programs easier than college years ago - like in the 90’s or so?  I’ve taken graduate courses from a couple of schools now and the format has been pretty similar.  And it seems much easier than what I recall from my undergrad years. The big difference that I see are the capstone/cornerstones.  I never had to do anything like that.  My son is a HS junior and still has no idea what he wants to do.  Like, not even a slight clue.  He doesn’t like school, but hasn’t completely written off going to college.  He also hasn’t expressed interest in any trades either. When I talk to him about college, I don’t want to be too “out of touch” with what it’s like now.  I would also be interested to hear from anyone who has done online and in-person recently.

I have found courses much easier today than they were in the 90's. There's far less reading and coursework overall. Exams and tests are often open book or open notes today. I never had that back then. Even some grad courses I've taken I've been surprised at the level of work involved - definitely didn't feel grad level.

[bjcheung77]

Classes now are much easier, quicker, simpler than before, way back when, there were correspondence schools, everything was done with snail mail and video recordings, cassette tapes, physical text books, and the whole nine yards. Having said that, it's the medium that has changed, mostly the same subject information, but placed online instead of print/video recordings. Subject matter also depends on the student previous knowledge, class content seems easier, shorter, and there are so many more resources online to help students...

[LevelUP]

Before, if you were, say, a Jeopardy champion, those people were considered the smartest people. 

Today, intelligence is a commodity.

There is a lot of grade inflation that makes college easier than it was in the past.

[NotJoeBiden]

Before, if you were, say, a Jeopardy champion, those people were considered the smartest people. 

Today, intelligence is a commodity.

There is a lot of grade inflation that makes college easier than it was in the past.

What does intelligence have to do with how easy college is?

-
Joe

[Vle045]

Difficulty is pretty subjective. The only thing I have seen with data is that grade-inflation across educational institutions has made it easier than ever for more people to achieve higher grades.

Grad classes tend to be less work than undergrad.  More often you are not studying as much for tests as undergrad and instead are mostly working on applying knowledge to projects or reports or a final thesis.


Sent from my iPhone using DegreeForum.net

I've wondered about grade-inflation and how much of that is going on.   And that's a good point about applying knowledge to projects.

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I have found courses much easier today than they were in the 90's. There's far less reading and coursework overall. Exams and tests are often open book or open notes today. I never had that back then. Even some grad courses I've taken I've been surprised at the level of work involved - definitely didn't feel grad level.

Interesting thing about open book/open notes.  On the one hand, we all have the internet at our fingertips now.  For some types of work, you could definitely figure things out as you go along - to an extent.  Although, back when I decided to get a paralegal certificate, I felt like my classes were too easy since everything was open book and I got straight A's.  So I switched schools where the work was harder and I had decent grades, but not straight A.

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Classes now are much easier, quicker, simpler than before, way back when, there were correspondence schools, everything was done with snail mail and video recordings, cassette tapes, physical text books, and the whole nine yards.  Having said that, it's the medium that has changed, mostly the same subject information, but placed online instead of print/video recordings.  Subject matter also depends on the student previous knowledge, class content seems easier, shorter, and there are so many more resources online to help students...

The resources and delivery are definitely different.  I think I was on the very end of a time where we had microfiche for research.  I remember having email and some sort of very basic online access, but nothing even close to what we have now.

[mancheseter24]

I graduated last year, getting a bachelors degree from a state school (a SEC school), and now currently working on an online masters, and applying to a new masters for later this year.

From my perspective, both in person and online classes can be hard or easy. At my SEC school, there was no grade inflation, you studied or studied... I had tons of Cs, Bs and so on. That is probably something that happens at the very top of the list, more into the Ivy category I assume. Most of my friends preferred online classes, but I had no preference.

Now, doing my online masters, I can tell that doing it all online is way easier, in my opinion than in person. But I am also at a different school, so that may be the reason.

Basically: no real difference. In person you do get the in person challenges that may be important in life, and I really appreciate that.

[Duneranger]

I am curious about online undergraduate college, particularly from the perspective of those who attended in person years ago and again more recently.  Are the online programs easier than college years ago - like in the 90’s or so?  I’ve taken graduate courses from a couple of schools now and the format has been pretty similar.  And it seems much easier than what I recall from my undergrad years. The big difference that I see are the capstone/cornerstones.  I never had to do anything like that.  My son is a HS junior and still has no idea what he wants to do.  Like, not even a slight clue.  He doesn’t like school, but hasn’t completely written off going to college.  He also hasn’t expressed interest in any trades either. When I talk to him about college, I don’t want to be too “out of touch” with what it’s like now.  I would also be interested to hear from anyone who has done online and in-person recently.

Yes,  much easier. The CBE programs like UMPI were ridiculously easier

[ReyMysterioso]

It really depends on the student and on the class. My ex's in-person college work in the 90s from what I remember seemed much more rigorous than anything I've experienced in the modern erea.

My high school teachers always gaslit us with horror stories about how hard college supposedly was and how we were not nearly prepared for the amount of work it would take to even pass English Lit 101. "You'll have to read Chaucer for 6 hours every day just to make a B! You have NO IDEA what you're in store for!"

I've taken probably 15 credit hours worth of lit. I hold an English degree. Never had to reach Chaucer once. To this day I don't know if they were just gassing us up or if the rigor of my HS teachers really was significantly harder back in their day. The truth may be somewhere in the middle.

But I remember high school being more actual writing/homework/labor than any college class I've taken. My significant other did undergrad before there was such a thing as Google Docs and was FURIOUS that I could just write into an APA or MLA template and not have to manually set the margins, fiddle with other formatting at all, and can just use bibliography citation generator plugins. All of which they had to do manually in Microsoft Word at the time they were in community college.

I suspect think in the really broad, high-level view, college education has probably gotten significantly less rigorous over the last several decades.