Monthly Archives: March 2011

All over America this week, students are waiting to get acceptance letters from colleges. If you’re one of them, I know about how you feel – you feel like you can finally see the finish line after running a marathon.  Over the last four years, you’ve worked to keep your grades up, taken part in summer programs, done community service work, studied for standardized tests, taken AP courses, engaged in high school athletics, visited colleges, applied for financial aid, worked on applications and application essays – and I am sure that I have left some important things out.  

On Tuesday, March 22, Vice President Joe Biden announced a new $20 million initiative to increase the number of Americans who hold college degrees. You can read about the new program in The College Completion Toolkit, a booklet that is available as a free PDF download. StraighterLine supports this initiative.

The SAT has reached its Edsel moment. The Edsel, you’ve probably heard, was a car that Ford started making in the late 1950’s. It looked like a Mercury or a Lincoln, other Ford products that nobody seemed to mind, only it might have been just a bit gaudier.  But for reasons that have never been completely understood, the Edsel became the object of national ridicule and Ford ended production. The Edsel was a tipping point, a time when American customers sent a signal that they had simply had it and that they were demanding something better and new. 

Before you sign up for an online college course or college, be sure to ask how flexible course schedules really are.  If you have a lifestyle that places unusual demands on your time – or if you would simply like the freedom to take extra time on lessons that really interest you – you’re looking for a flexible school.

People are already starting to notice that fancy campuses or athletic complexes don’t deliver an education – college courses do. That kind of thinking is at the heart of the major shakeout in American education that has already begun.  

If you stop to think about it, you may only need a few online college courses to open up plenty of new job opportunities. The key is to consider where hiring is taking place, and then add any skills that you’re lacking, so you can get in the door. 

Unless we’re missing something, the Government is still overlooking the fact that distance learning can offer college instruction to large numbers of Americans. That’s difficult to understand.  Maybe it’s because people can’t give up the traditional definition of a college as a place with dormitories, a library, a student center, an immense tuition – and all the rest of that baggage. 

If you’re having a great experience taking college courses online perhaps it’s time for you to take your education to the next level by enrolling in one of our acclaimed Partner Colleges. Today we’d like to profile one of them that merits your consideration. It’s Western Governors University, a leading university that could be your full-time college if you choose to enroll.

Tremendous news! StraigherLine’s great online college course selection just got even greater with the launch of eight new college courses this week . . .

StraighterLine has been named one of Fast Company's "10 Most Innovative Companies in Education."

Get your first online course free at StraighterLine this month!

Here are six educational ways to use your computer - five dumb and one brilliant. Which one will you choose to further your online education?