Online colleges and for-profit schools originally created their curriculum with the intention of matching up with major public universities, but since this point, they have also become intertwined with community college classes. Since the recession, many people have chosen to go back to school and attend college classes, whether that be community college classes, for-profit college classes, or traditional university classes. However, students appreciate the ease of online classes, although they like their community college courses as well, which has resulted in Kaplan University’s new program that incorporates California community college classes into their degree offerings for students who can’t get a seat in the class for a 42 percent discount.
Kaplan’s accommodations for the demand of higher education comes after other for-profit institutions have helped out similar community college students, all while increasing the price of tuition. The higher tuition prices of online courses has brought with it many critics of the programs, since most classes cost less than $100 a credit hour, and online courses can skyrocket to several hundred a credit. This is mostly explained by the overhead costs the online colleges are forced to spend when they implement the programs and the “university” status they have achieved in comparison to community colleges. Regardless of the cost factor, online colleges have helped lessen the burden that so many students in community colleges have felt over the years.
Online colleges have endless amounts of space available within their degree programs, which is quite different from the offerings that most community colleges have available. Similar institutions, such as the Princeton Review, are helping community colleges out on the East Coast by covering many of the costs of degree programs and signing agreements so that students are able to get their community college credit through online education. However, once again, this does lead to higher tuition rates as Bristol Community College has discovered, but it also leads to the ability to accept many more students to their health care program. In this economy, workers in the health care industry are needed in large quantities, and any way they can earn their degree will be a blessing for the area.
The California Community College system remains hesitant to sign any contract with Kaplan that guarantees full transferability of their credits to the for-profit school, but if Bristol is any indication of a sign of things to come, it is that more community colleges will partner with online colleges in order to save their programs and offer more students the opportunity to attend classes.
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