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President-Elect Barack Obama Holds out High Hopes for Distance Learning

Published by Sheila Danzig | January 8th 2009 | Views:

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America's business and scientific, future rests on the education of today's higher education students, as well as tomorrow's secondary school students. These students are choosing distance learning degree programs in exponentially increasing numbers. But does the next president of the United States support online degree programs?
In fact, President-Elect Barack Obama is very much behind technological and conceptual developments that support secondary and higher education throughout the U.S. His campaign platform strongly emphasized enhancing the role of online learning. One of the ways in which he intends to achieve this goal is through getting Internet access to schools nationwide, as well as to enhance the availability of broadband Internet access to children at home as well as in the classroom.
This strategy is part of the president-elect's plan to stimulate economic growth. Mr. Obama intends to use federal funds to make these goals a reality. In addition, he plans to lower the penalties for school districts whose students don't earn the test scores expected by President George Bush's No Child Left Behind education reform.
Even this, however, may not be enough. Many school districts already have adequate access to broadband Internet, but have not successfully implemented Internet technology into the classroom and learning experience. The successful use of technology depends not only on its availability, but also on teacher attituded in non-traditional degree programs. If he does advocate this choice, he will offer tens of thousands of students the ability to work while they earn a degree online.
The president-elect also announced plans for simplifying the Free Application for Student Aid (FAFSA). While this is needed, merely simplifying the application will not be enough. Students who earn scholarships for college ought to be able to use these for any accredited traditional or distance learning degree program in the United States. Scholarships ought to be made available to anyone enrolled in any accredited college or university, traditional or otherwise.
Furthermore, President-elect Obama plans to offer $4,000 to any college student who performs at least 100 hours of community service sounds very appealing. It remains to be seen, however, whether he will extend this gracious offer only to students who attend traditional college degree programs, or if non-traditional students will receive these benefits as well.
While Mr. Obama states that he is a proponent of distance learning, he criticizes for-profit schools (many online degree programs are for-profit) by declaring that these programs drain money from non-profit institutions of higher learning. Therefore, although he states that he supports distance education degree programs, it's difficult to know with certainty that he will support them both financially and verbally.
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