Long before the days of University of Phoenix, Kaplan University, and the multitudes of other online colleges, there were the traditional schools which slowly expanded their student base by allowing distance learning students to take their courses online. Beginning in the late 90s and continuing up to present day, major universities like MIT and Stanford appealed to a wide array of students and allowed students to take several of their courses through the internet without paying the cost of full tuition. Many of these courses were additionally “open” courses, a new concept which allowed online students to take the course notes and assignments from previous years’ classes. These top online colleges were not the online colleges we think of today, but were the original stepping stone into the online education industry.
These early forays into online education served to develop many programs into what they are today. Since that point, many of the more traditional classroom colleges have expanded their degree programs to be offered to students throughout the nation. The passing of the federal bill which allowed funding to online colleges did not hurt the expansion of distance learning either and in fact gave rise to a new type of college. However, many of these original online colleges have kept up with the new distance learning options.
Liberty University is one school that originally only offered a small amount of online courses, which eventually grew toward becoming one of the top online universities. The student population has tripled thanks to its distance learning programs that have attracted students from around the world. As one of the only larger evangelical online universities, Liberty University has prided itself on continuing its path of education even amidst a new type of technology. The passage of Congress’ bill truly opened up programs like Liberty’s to expand into true online degree programs whereas they were only allowed a set amount of online course offerings prior to the bill. After this point in 2003, the online college scene truly opened up to become the field it is today.
MIT and Stanford continue to be recognized for their amount of online courses that are offered, but have now become engulfed in the rest of the course offerings around the country. Nearly every major university now boasts some type of online program, whether it caters to students abroad, or simply students who are interested in one aspect of a degree. This has offered many students to gain a new insight into a topic that is interesting to them without enlisting in the entire university program or commuting to the school. These early top online colleges are still the original blueprints for online education today, and continue to be recognized for their strong march into the new realm of online education.
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