ttechcollins-blog

[ttechcollins-blog]

College while working.

When I was teaching at a small university I had many students who were optimistic about their ability to pay off their education. They said things like, “Professor Collins once I’m out of college I’ll be able to pay off the loans in a year or two.” I still run into students after over a decade who are still paying off their loans. The theme I get from students is that they didn’t anticipate other factors in life interfering with them paying off student loans. They get that job they wanted and have to move far away. The expenses put them behind. Then marriage, kids, or a house….or answer D all of the above happen.

One thing I’ve noticed in the private sector is that many people who pursue education with low student loan debt or no student loan debt at all was that they worked while being a student. This leads to different times in which they graduate, but they show lower student loan debt and better career/life management skills. I sat down and talked with them and they pointed out that one of the best things about how they pursued their education was that they could vary the load of courses when they wanted. When a baby was coming along or they were working on a promotion they could reduce the course work. When things were quiet they could “load up” on courses.

I was surprised to find how many students have used online courses or even complete online colleges to reduce their debt. While working many of my colleagues were able to pay for some courses out of pocket and reduce their debt while still managing a family and career. Here’s a review of some of the online colleges which seem to work for working students who want to reduce debt.

3. Arizona State University. ASU has been the mainstay of online college education. You’ve probably seen their advertisements. One of the models used by ASU that benefits working students is the use of shorter terms. This allows students to focus on one or two classes at a time rather than five courses over a long semester.

2. California Southern University. CSU offers several graduate programs that utilize short terms much like Arizona State University. Aside from low tuition CSU offers extensions (for a fee) of their courses. This is a godsend for students who find themselves overwhelmed and need extra time to complete their course work.

1. Fairport Eastern University. This relatively new online college was designed to support the working student. With both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in everything from psychology to business to engineering Fairport Eastern University has some of the most potential. I’ve worked with a few of their alumni from their computer science program and found them to be excellent software engineers. Of the alumni I talked with, they said one of the best things was not just the reasonable tuition (and no fees), but the fact that their Hub system was designed to get rid of deadlines so that students wouldn’t have to juggle the deadlines imposed by the professor. It works by using a student-paced design. The students get feedback and grades rather quickly, but are never penalized for the time it takes to complete a course. One student told me he completed a course in less than two weeks and then took a few months for a hard course. FEU was designed to prevent students from dropping or failing out because of the balance between work, family, and education.

There are lot of options when deciding to pursue education and career at the same time. As a veteran software engineer I can tell you that time management is one of the most valuable skills. When pursuing higher education, you should research out what will work best with your schedule.