I just read an interesting post over at The Chronicles Wired Campus blog that compares how various colleges are working to keep their online students from dropping out. Some are finding success; others, sadly, aren’t.

While it’s easy to crunch the numbers and come up with sobering stats like, “Students drop out of online classes at rates 15 percent to 20 percent higher than traditional ones,” (as reported in a Kennesaw State University study), I’d venture to say that it has more to do with the type of students that online learning attracts.

In other words, it’s not necessarily the learning format itself, but the fact that online students tend to be juggling more responsibilities, are more time-crunched, and may not have access to as much support as more traditional students.

That being said, the optimist in me also believes that many online students also have a unique advantage in that they have clear goals, a commitment and determination to follow through, and maybe even more riding on their success.

I’m encouraged that the blog goes on to state that some institutions are improving the retention rates of online students by being more accessible to students:

“You can improve retention, and the University of Illinois at Springfield has done so by assigning staff members to serve as informal advisers and advocates for online students, says Ray Schroeder, director of the Center for Online Learning, Research, and Service.”

So what do you think? Are online learners simply more challenged, and therefore victims of their own busy lives? Or do they stand just as much of a chance of making it to the finish line as their classroom-taught counterparts? Please share your thoughts below.

-Dawn Papandrea

One of the aspects to an online education is that you may never see your classmates or professor face to face. The introvert in you may absolutely love that idea. That privacy, and the flexibility, also may be what was so attractive to Charice, the 18-year-old Filipino singer who has a guest role on “Glee” as an exchange student.

Charice, whose self-titled album debuted in May and whose fans include Oprah, tells USA today that she’s a freshman in Southern New Hampshire University’s online program. The paper says her backup plan is to be an entertainment lawyer.

The school, which offers more than 50 online undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate programs, picks out reasons why it believes online learning may be a good choice for students, and here’s three of them that apply to most any school with an online component:

• You want to get ahead—but between your job, your kids and your household tasks, it’s difficult to get to class

• You know how to stay motivated and keep your eye on your goals

• You desire to join a learning community of go-getters from across the world

Charice is smart to be pursuing education while her fame continues to grow. If you’re currently employed and moving up in your career, remember that you don’t have to put that aside for school, especially with the flexibility of learning online.

-Lori Johnston

Good news for college students—employers are looking to hire you when you graduate.

Years ago, before the Great Recession, this would have been an obvious statement. But with the state of the economy and dismal unemployment numbers, even college graduates have had it rough. So it now comes as a happy—and very welcome—surprise that college graduates are back in the game.

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the employment outlook for this year’s graduating class is very positive for all four regions of the United States: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, and West.

The West is projected to see the largest increase in the hiring of college graduates, with a 23.5% change from last year. The Midwest is in second with an increase of 20.2%, followed by the Northeast with 13.1% change and the Southeast with an 8.3% increase in college hiring. The number of hires for the Class of 2010 was 19,445, and the NACE projects 22,080 hires for the Class of 22,080, an increase of more than 13%.

If you are thinking about going back to school, or have just started a program, your chances at employment after graduation might be even better, considering that there will be more time for the economy to heal itself before you start pumping out the resumes.

–Barbara Bellesi

In case you thought online learning was a passing fad, consider the growth in the K-12 online learning arena. That was the focus of the Speak Up National Research Project, part of Project Tomorrow, the nation’s leading nonprofit organization dedicated to today’s students. Its Speak Up 2009 survey collected data from K-12 students, parents, and educators last fall, and offers up some encouraging news as to how online learning is perceived by our youth. Hint: It has everything to do with us!

Among the findings:

• Thirty-three percent of parents report they have taken an online class for their own professional needs or personal interests. Parents’ personal experiences with online learning are affecting how their children view the benefits of online learning as well.
• High school students who have a parent who has taken an online class are twice as likely to take an online class or, at a minimum, research taking an online class.
• From a productivity standpoint, high school students across the board highly value the ability to earn college credit through an online class, to take a class that better fits their schedule or to have access to courses not offered at their school.

No matter what you want to infer from this survey, one thing is for certain: online education is becoming more and more commonplace for students of younger ages (especially in families where they’ve seen adults taking online courses), and they’ll likely grow up expecting it to be a learning option for them. It’s up to educators to continue their commitment to quality online education so that tomorrow’s classroom will be ready to serve the eager generation who have grown up with technology all around them.

Do you know any high schoolers? What’s their perception of online learning?

-Dawn Papandrea

One of the great things about becoming a registered nurse (RN) is there’s more than one way to get there. Whether you’ve earned a bachelor’s degree, associate degree, or diploma in nursing, you’ve got the education you need to become an RN.

But here’s the well-researched truth: lower mortality rates, fewer medication errors, and quality outcomes have been linked to nurses with bachelor’s and advanced degrees, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN).

Plus, many professional practice settings, including academic health centers and Magnet hospitals, require that nurses have a bachelor of science in nursing (BSN). Even if a BSN is not required for your current job, earning it will make you a stronger candidate for promotions and other job openings. Some nursing career paths, such as administrative nursing, are only open to RNs with a BSN; advanced practice nursing specialties require an MSN (master of science in nursing).

This doesn’t mean you can’t be a good nurse without a college degree – but it does mean that, with higher nursing education, you can boost your clinical confidence and go even further in your nursing career.

Higher Nursing Education
Enter the ever-popular RN-to-BSN programs, which build on previous learning and prepare RNs who have a diploma or associate degree for higher levels of nursing practice. From 2008 to 2009, enrollments in RN-to-BSN programs increased by 12.8 percent, marking the sixth consecutive year of increases, reports the AACN.

Unfortunately, the demand for these nursing bridge programs exceeds available openings. But you can bypass nursing school waiting lists by enrolling in an RN to BSN online that’s fully accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education.

According to the AACN, of the 634 RN-to-BSN programs available nationwide, more than 400 are at least partially online. Contact the individual program coordinator to determine if the online nursing degree program you’re pursuing is fully online or if some campus work is required.

RN to BSN Online Curriculum
RN-to-BSN programs take between one and two years to complete, depending on the nursing school’s requirements and your previous academic achievement. When you enroll in an RN-to-BSN online program, you can arrange your coursework around your busy nursing schedule.

The RN to BSN online builds on prior nursing education with coursework that upgrades professional communication and leadership skills and enables RNs to develop stronger analytical and clinical reasoning skills. These online nursing degree programs expose you to a broad range of nursing subjects, including critical care, community health, research, and assessment, as well as general education subjects such as anatomy, nutrition, and physiology. RN-to-BSN programs also offer more clinical experience in non-hospital settings.

When you enroll in an accredited online nursing degree program, you’ll increase your clinical competence, level of patient care, and career opportunities – all on your own schedule.

- Robyn Tellefsen

At last month’s Technonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, said, “The self-motivated learner will be on the Web. College needs to be less place-based.”

Thank you, Mr. Gates. I’m going to take that quote and run with it.

I earned back-to-back undergraduate and graduate degrees through traditional, on-campus programs. We had email, we had Internet, but using technology in the classroom was only starting to get going, let alone having classes or programs that were conducted online. In order for me to go to class, I had to leave my dorm or my apartment and walk or take the subway to a classroom on campus.

Some would argue that showing up to class is half the battle. With online education, I would say that showing up is more than half; when your classroom can be accessed from a laptop on your coffee table or the iPod that’s tucked away in your pocket, it’s all too easy for that classroom to be forgotten. Show up late (or not at all) to a class on campus, and you’ll be subject to smirks from your professor or fellow classmates. But when it comes to online programs, you’ve got nothing to encourage to log on but your own motivation—and again, Gates believes there’s a lot of it to go around.

Many college professors and administrators may lament the perceived laziness of traditional-age, on-campus students—notably the ones who often show up to class in flannel pajama pants and who would much rather send a text than open a text. Of course, this is a generalization—many traditional college students still view a college education as a privilege, not an entitlement, and will work and study as though academics were an Olympic sport.

But for online students, there is rarely the need to make this kind of distinction. Enrolling in an online class is already a huge step forward towards reaching your personal and professional goals, and to complete that class, with an A or B to prove you completed it well, shows a remarkable kind of motivation that we are only just starting to enjoy.

When Bill Gates talks about technology, people tend to listen. And when he talks about technology coupled with education, we tend to listen a little more closely–and are very, very excited with what we hear.

–Barbara Bellesi

There’s a lot more to be learned in school than reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. Look closely, and you’ll find all sorts of take-aways from your education experience. Online education in particular provides fertile ground for lessons that can benefit you in all areas of life, for the rest of your life.

1. You have to work for what you want.
Anyone who has chosen online education in an attempt to take the easy way out has learned the truth behind the saying, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” In other words, you can’t get something for nothing. Challenge is part of life, whether in friendship, marriage, parenting, or your career. If you deem a relationship or aspiration worthwhile, you must invest yourself in it. But if you make no sacrifice for the sake of the goal, you will get exactly what you put into it: nothing.

2. You can accomplish more than you realize.
Have you ever noticed that the more you have to do, the more you get done? It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when you use your time wisely. It makes sense, then, to parlay the incredible multitasking skills you’ve developed in your online courses to all areas of life. You can pay bills while your kids are doing homework, respond to e-mails while dinner is cooking, fold laundry while you’re watching TV, etc. With good time management, you could even block some time to just relax.

3. You do not have because you do not ask.
Online learning may seem like a solitary venture, but it doesn’t have to be. Student services and other resources are available – you just have to ask. And if you don’t ask for help, you’re crippling yourself and your opportunities for success. No matter what the situation, the stoic notion of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” is a lonely and unnecessary way to go through life. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness; rather, it’s a sign of resourcefulness and strength.

4. You are responsible for yourself.
As much as you need the support of others in your online learning endeavor, however, the only one truly responsible for you is you. It is not your professor’s job to keep you from failing; it’s yours. It’s wonderful when others can anticipate your needs in all areas of life, but that’s an unrealistic expectation to place on anyone, even those closest to you. Don’t rely on other people to make your dreams come true – that’s your job.

5. Your path may be different from others’.
Your online education choice may go against the flow of your friends’ and family’s expectations. Maybe their experience has been limited to the traditional classroom and they don’t understand your higher education journey. That’s OK. In fact, your life in general may not look at all like the lives of those around you. You may have different ideas, different dreams, a different kind of career. But, as you’ve already learned, different is just fine – especially when it’s the right path for you.

-Robyn Tellefsen

There’s so much negativity and bad press about online learning these days, specifically regarding some for-profit schools who took their sales pitches, shall we say, a tad too far. But there’s no reason to let the shady practices of a few overeager salespeople take away from the fact that online learning can offer a quality education that’s no less intense, legitimate, or enlightening than a classroom-based one.

So thank you, rotten wormy apples of our industry, for bringing to the forefront a renewed commitment to online learning’s best practices. After all, for every scandal there are hundreds of success stories. And here are a few more positives to come out of this whole mess…

Less of a chance you’ll be harassed by quota-driven recruiters. You’re doing the smart thing by researching your online school options — that doesn’t mean you deserved to be harassed. Take advantage of the free resources, and be sure to address any questions or concerns you may have before you start applying for loans. It’s your right to be informed, but know that a school representative has an agenda, and that agenda is to enroll you. Because of new regulations being put in place, recruiter quotas should be a thing of the past, making them a little less likely to go for the hard sell, but still… buyer beware.

You won’t have to be exposed to so many cheesy ads trying to entice you to go back to school with promises of huge payoffs. The fact is, no school can guarantee you a huge raise, or promise that Google will come knocking on your door to hire you. Kind of like how no diet shake can guarantee you’ll lose 10 pounds in 5 days. Like anything else, what you do with your degree is up to you. Take post-graduation promises with a grain of salt, and know that your new skills will simply put you in a better position to pursue your career goals and connect you with industry leaders, not entitle you to riches. That being said, there are campus resources to help you get a job, usually a career center. But again, it’s on you to be proactive and take advantage of its services (like resume review, on-site interviews and job fairs, alumni networking events, etc.).

Rotten apples aside, at its core (get it?), online ed still makes learning accessible to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to swing it. I’ve been privileged over the years to meet or speak with so many adult learners who’ve literally changed their lives through education. Success stories are out there, and it’s OK to be inspired by them. There is no black and white when it comes to the value of a degree. You have to weigh a particular program’s cost against what its value means to you.

What are some other lessons to be learned from the for-profit school scandals? Weigh in below…

-Dawn Papandrea