NEW YORK — Earning a degree online seems like a cheap, convenient way to expand professional skill sets. But do hiring managers take virtual educations seriously? The stigma associated with taking classes over the Internet can be a nagging concern for those about to invest serious time and money to advance their careers. Such fears may be fueled by recently released federal data that suggests graduates of for-profit schools aren’t finding as much success in the job market. These schools, which are known for their online career education programs, had lower repayment rates for student loans, according to data released last month. CONTROVERSY: For-profit colleges under fire over value, accreditation DISGRUNTLED: More lawsuits target for-profit colleges The Department of Education plans to enforce new regulations starting in July 2012 that will restrict federal aid for career education programs, of less than two years, with too many graduates who can’t repay student loans or carry unmanageable debt loads. In the meantime, here are some points to remember about online degrees. • The Virtual Elephant in the Room Before you even start looking into online programs, there’s the matter of the stigma associated with them. As unfair as it may seem, those fears aren’t entirely without base. Only about half of respondents to a Society for Human Resource Management survey this summer said online degrees are just as credible as traditional degrees. The human resource professionals also said online credentials were less acceptable for higher-level positions; just 15% said online degrees were acceptable for an executive position. That said, keep in mind that this is a highly subjective area and that your schooling is just one factor that employers look at. The field of work you’re entering and a company’s culture will also influence how online degrees are regarded, notes Lynn Berger, a career counselor in New York City. “It may be that the person interviewing you got their degree online too,” Berger said. The matter may not be as big a concern if your online degree is from a traditional college. The same is true if you earned your degree from a school that isn’t widely known as a provider of online education. That’s not to say you should hide that you earned your degree online, but you don’t have to make it the dominant description of your education. • The Cost is Anything But Virtual A common assumption is that online schooling will be cheap. That assumption is wrong. At the University of Phoenix, one of the most well-known for-profit schools, each credit for a master’s in business administration costs $685. So earning the 36 credits required for the degree would cost a total of $24,660, not including application and other fees. But keep in mind that for-profit schools don’t have a monopoly on Internet courses. The majority of community colleges and four-year public schools now offer at least some online courses as well, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. “Many for-profit schools try to create the impression that they’re the only schools offering courses online or at convenient times,” said Pauline Abernathy of The Project on Student Debt. And the average tuition and fees at community colleges last year was $2,500. Traditional colleges typically charge the same amount whether students attend classes online or in person. With loan repayment rates at for-profit schools a hot topic right now, it should be noted that the majority of students at community colleges do not have student loans upon graduation. Of those that do, the average debt is $10,000. By comparison, nearly all graduates of for-profit schools have student loans and the average debt is $17,000, according to The Project on Student Debt. • Picking a For-Profit Program A few points to keep in mind if you’re considering a for-profit school. To start, check that the school is accredited at www.ope.ed.gov/accreditation . You can also check the site of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation at www.chea.org . Even if a school is accredited, be wary of aggressive sales tactics or reluctance to disclose information about pricing. Recent undercover tests by the Government Accountability Office found some for-profit schools used deceptive recruiting tactics and encouraged applicants to falsify financial aid forms. For-profit schools also tend to do a lot of handholding through the application process to make it easy for students to enroll. Don’t let this prevent you from shopping around for other options, rather than signing up for the first school you see advertised on TV. To gauge how well graduates of a particular for-profit school are doing, check the Education Department’s list of student repayment rates . Click on the link for “Cumulative Four-Year Repayment Rate by Institution.” Keep in mind that rates may differ for particular programs within the school. Finally, talk to mentors or professionals you know in the field to get their thoughts on your plans to pursue an online degree. They may have some recommendations on a well-respected program or one that others have had a good experience with.

If community colleges were to find all the formerly enrolled students whose academic records qualify them for an associate degree and retroactively award them the credential, then the number of associate degrees awarded in the United States would increase by at least 12%. This compelling projection by the Institute for Higher Education Policy is one of the primary reasons why it is working with the Lumina Foundation for Education to roll out the three-year, $1.3 million Project Win-Win. This initiative will financially support 35 community colleges and four-year institutions in six states — Louisiana , Missouri, New York , Ohio , Virginia and Wisconsin — so they can track down and retroactively award qualified students associate degrees who, for whatever reason, never received one. It also will help these institutions identify students who have recently dropped out who are “academically short” of an associate degree by nine credits or fewer and re-enroll them to finish a degree. ON THE WEB: Movement, but miles to go MORE FROM INSIDE HIGHER ED: Why reverse transfer? “Project Win-Win has the potential to make a considerable down payment on increased degree completion goals set by state governors and the Obama Administration,” said Michelle Asha Cooper, IHEP president, in a statement. Last year, nine of the project’s institutions ran a pilot of this program during a seven-month period; they awarded nearly 600 associate degrees and identified almost 1,600 students who were just shy of earning one. The pilot, however, revealed a number of difficulties that institutions face when attempting to retroactively award degrees. “It’s not as easy as it sounds,” said Stephanie Tarver, dean of enrollment management at McNeese State University, which awards associate degrees as well and was part of the pilot program. “We were kind of bumbling around in the dark a bit. When you pull data, it doesn’t always match up like you thought it would. You have to have a lot of staff to dedicate to a project like this to keep it going.” Then, even when candidates for degrees and those just shy of them were identified, reaching them proved just as challenging. “At that point, we don’t have as much control as we do in the other areas because these students have been out for a while,” Tarver said. “We didn’t know if the contact information we had for them was accurate. We didn’t know how to get accurate information without spending lots of money to find it. Also, when we finally did make contact, some of the students were leery of us. ‘You’re calling me out of the blue and saying I’m qualified for a degree and want to offer it to me? What’s the catch?’ ” Eventually, though, McNeese awarded about 15 associate degrees, out of approximately 150 former students who met degree requirements. Officials also tracked down about 300 students who were just short of graduation and are in the process of helping those who wish to complete find a way to do so. “A lot of the students who dropped out of school didn’t realize just how close they were to finishing,” Tarver said. “The success stories we’ve had are truly heartwarming, especially for those who didn’t realize they were qualified for a degree. We made an immediate impact on their lives. Rarely have I felt we’ve impacted students as we did through this project.” Though many of the institutions participating in the project had never before made efforts to retroactively award degrees, a few of them have been doing it for a while and have found ways to integrate this into regular degree audits for current students. Anna Flack, registrar at Suffolk County Community College, in New York, noted that her institution has made it a point to search for these “lost graduates” at least once every year for the past decade. “We did this on a small scale,” Flack said. “It was really part of office procedure. {hellip} We made it part of the daily responsibilities of the degree audit staff.” With students who are just a few credits short of earning an associate degree, Flack said, the college has adopted a no-pressure approach in approaching them. “We’ve just sent letters to students, saying that can finish if they’d like to,” Flack said. ” ‘Here are the different ways you can reach that degree.’ There’s no convincing, no strong-arming, no sales pitch. ‘We just see this, and we’d like you to know about it.’ ” Those pushing the project at the national level argue that, despite some of the challenges in the degree audit process, this is a relatively easy way to boost graduation rates around the country. “This is an issue that hasn’t been raised,” said Cliff Adelman, senior associate at IHEP. “We’re saying to these institutions, ‘Hey, guys, you haven’t paid attention to people based on your criteria who’ve crossed the degree threshold. You’ve been asleep at the wheel.’ There’s all this talk about awarding these degrees, but they’re just making a lot of noise. This is low-hanging fruit.”

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