Receiving Your Education Online Is A Growing Option For Students

The Federal Communications Commission in March presented the U.S. Congress with a plan to expand access to broadband networks and speed up the Internet. This would be good news for students pursuing college degrees online, allowing them faster Internet access. This, coupled with new technologies, would allow school assignments to be delivered in even more creative, sophisticated ways.

The National Broadband Plan is reportedly intended in part to encourage online education and online education tools as well as to enhance education connectivity. And Congress reportedly required it as part of a federal stimulus bill known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The Internet is the biggest platform for commercial innovation and business success this country has seen, Virginia Congressman Rick Boucher told CSPAN. Creating distance learning degrees that combine high quality subject expertise with the latest technological advancements is mentioned in the Strategy for American Innovation report, which was prepared by the National Economic Council's Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The federal government over the next 10 years intends to invest as much as $500 million to create online college classes at community colleges that would be freely available to students to extend their learning opportunities and complete coursework, according to the American Innovation report. Colleges, universities, publications and others would be invited to compete in creating state-of-the-art online courses, the report notes.

Many students already take part in online school programs, access a broad array of online databases and link up with worldwide scholars, a broadband plan news release noted. But while reports show that students in online college classes do at least as well academically as students in traditional college classes do, a pilot program at one university suggested that online school work might take more time to complete.

Students enrolled in online school offerings and pursuing online degrees can access their class work through wireless services, dialup and high speed DSL services that telephone companies offer and by broadband services with wireless and satellite options. With broadband service a transmission "pipeline", as the FCC calls it, carries content. Broadband also provides quality access to high-tech Internet features such as streaming media, Internet telephone services, interactive offerings and games, the FCC's broadband Web site notes. And many have expressed a desire to move toward HD video, Boucher noted. The federal government would continue to give money to local telephone companies, which have been expanding their DSL services, until broadband becomes more widely available and even telephone service is carried through the Internet, Boucher said.

President Barack Obama has cited a desire to make higher education more accessible to many students. And online college classes and bachelor of science provide flexible formats that allow many students with work and family responsibilities to fit studies into their schedules. Obama in March signed an education bill into law that's designed to increase federal loans and grants and can help students pursuing distance degrees pay the tuition.

The broadband plan calls for increasing download speeds from what Boucher said is as few as 5 megabits per second to 100 megabits per second by 2020 and for achieving upload speeds of 50 megabits for second. Expanded network connectivity is still needed, the FCC reported. Some 7 million people in the United States don't have access to broadband network services, Florida Congressman Cliff Stearns told CSPAN. According to Stearns, 95 percent of households have broadband access, and two-thirds of them use high-speed Internet services. Proposals within the broadband plan would reportedly require establishing new laws and agency rules.

It seems that a lack of time is one of the reasons students obtain college degrees online as this allows them to take care of real life responsibilities as they go to school. A faster connection will make getting an online bachelor degree, an associates, or even a masters, quicker and easier for all students.