Best Online Colleges For 2014 Announced

The best online colleges for 2014 have been announced.

The annual ranking of colleges and academic programs is conducted by U.S. News and World Report. It rates the best online master’s degree in education programs, and it reaches its conclusion by examining five categories. These include student engagement, student services and technology, faculty credentials and training, admissions selectivity, and peer reputation.

A huge increase in the amount of online students means that picking the right institution has become harder and harder for people that are looking to study from home.

Individuals have started to seek their education in this format because they are able to work from the comfort of their own abode, and in their own time, plus they also don’t have to go to a campus.

Karen VanGorder, the director of online learning and credit programs at Indiana University-Purdue University-Fort Wayne, stated, “Students today are doing more than one thing. It’s just not possible to fit on campus courses into their schedules and online learning helps them fit it in.”

According to USNews.com, the best online graduate education programs are:

(1) Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, Illinois

(2) Indiana University, Bloomington, Bloomington, Indiana

(3) Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan

(3) University of Houston, Houston, Texas

(5) St. John’s University, Queens, New York

These results were generated after over 1,000 distance education programs completed a U.S. News questionnaire. This was an increase from the 860 programs that submitted it in 2013.

Experts and online students have confirmed that it is harder to complete an online degree, than it is when actually attending a college.

Billie Jo Parker, a 45-year-old student attending Central Michigan University, stated, “People say it’s easy, but that’s so far from the truth. You have to be so disciplined and organized. I am tired of coming home, doing dishes and doing homework.”

This year’s results differed from 2012 and 2013’s calculations, because the six rankings included peer review data based on school’s evaluations of each other.

The Huffington Post reported:

“The new rankings also give greater weight to one-year retention rates, graduation rates and required time to graduate. Selectivity has less weight in some of the master’s disciplines and again is not a ranking factor used in the online bachelor’s programs rankings, since most online undergraduate programs don’t require standardized test scores or high school transcripts.”

Indian University’s Bloomington Kelley School Of Business were also recognised for their Business Master’s, as was Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science division for their Engineering Master’s.

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