Many members of the military have the commitment and self-discipline it takes to succeed with online college courses. In the case of the military, online college offerings allow flexibility that can translate to stability, allowing studies to continue uninterrupted even in instances of transfers and deployments. College studies are conducted during off-duty time. Continuing education is not mandatory, but is often often free, and military experts see several advantages to it.
“Voluntary education programs help members improve their mission performance, prepare members for greater responsibility and enhance their professional, as well as their personal, potential,” Education Technician Lori Popp of the Lifelong Learning section of Marine and Family Services aboard North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune told the Jacksonville Daily News in July 2009.
Anyone who served in uniform in 1944 began to have the opportunity to obtain a college scholarship as part of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, more commonly known as the GI Bill. Nearly half of all college students in the nation by 1947 were veterans, according to a Time Magazine article.
Military training and experience can translate to academic credits, and more than 1,900 community colleges and online universities that have reportedly partnered with the U.S. Army accept these credits from soldiers during or after service. Many bases are said to include satellite campuses of local accredited universities.
Many bases are said to feature satellite branches of local, accredited universities and, for many members of the military, online college offerings might be the only option. Online classes involve obtaining 80 to 100 percent of a course’s content online, according to the Sloan Consortium, and distance education typically attract students who otherwise might not be able to attend classes at a traditional campus.
Lori Popp told the Jacksonville Daily News that technological advances in distance education now make it easier for deployed service members to continue their education. The consortium, comprised of organizations and institutions committed to quality online education, recently released the results of a study entitled “Learning on Demand: Online Education in the United States.” Between the falls of 2007 and 2008, the study noted, the number of online students increased by 17 percent, to 4.6 million.
Taking advantage of tuition assistance these days are more than 1,000 deployed marines and sailors, Popp said. Online courses, according to an October article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, are a “boon for soldiers who want to participate in college despite geographic displacement.” The Chronicle article told the story of a professor and National Guardsman whose deployment to Iraq didn’t interfere with her ability to teach online classes in economics. Soldiers between the chaos keep busy by working, reading, exercising, playing video games and watching movies, the article noted. Many also enroll in online college classes while they’re deployed, according to The Chronicle.
Corporal Dakota Berg was reportedly doing just this when the Jacksonville Daily News told his story in July. Berg graduated high school in 2006 and joined the U.S. Marines for the online degree program benefits. The military’s tuition assistance program alleviated a lot of financial and mental stress, Berg told the Daily News. He’s using them to pursue his college courses online and degree on line in accounting—an endeavor that his deployment from Parris Island, S.C., to Iraq hasn’t interrupted.