I've earned three Master's degrees through online education, all accredited programs. MBA, MA in Secondary Education and then MSS from the Army War College. Two degrees were from Touro University International which changed names recently to Trident University. The MBA and MA were from Touro/Trident and not that hard. MBA sucked because I had no business background and I hated the subject. The Army paid for the degree and it helped get me promoted so I gutted it out. I would be lousy in the business world so it truly was completed to help with promotion points.
Now my MA in Education was good, in fact I was very impressed with Touro/Trident. They cater to the military crowd and were very, very helpful to me while I was enrolled. I took a few classes while in Afghanistan, and where I was working was well of the grid, no internet, computer access, no power in the village except the generator on our firebase etc...Once a month I could usually get to Kandahar for a day or two and download papers, articles, comments etc to the school. The school recognized and worked with me way more than I expected them to. I was prepared to drop out of the program until I got back to the States, wrote to my Profs and explained where I was and what I was doing, they in turn said just write about your experiences etc and submit by mail or email when you get a chance. I was working with Non Government Organizations and my team was responsible for building/helping to build two new schools and refurbish/repai r one all but destroyed by the Taliban. That was one of my proudest accomplishments, to build schools and help with education in Afghanistan. I taught high school history for 13 years before going back into the Army full time so to be able to combine my two loves, the military and education was awesome. Touro was very, very good to me and I will speak very highly of them for what they allowed me to accomplish.
My third degree was from the Army War College and it damn near killed me and all my classmates. When you tell a colleague that you are a graduate of the distance version they look at you like you are crazy. I turned down a resident seat to be with my family rather than spend another year away from them so I did the distance learning version and it was extremely hard. It wasn't impossible, but truly brutal. The benefit of online education is that you can work the classes/assignments into your schedule as best fits you. For me it was Monday through Thursday, 7pm-11pmish, that would free up my weekends for my family. Work all day, class all evening , home to family on the weekends. Very, very painful existence for two years but it's over now and it was a fascinating look at government and decision making levels of DOD. Typical War College session was 6-8 weeks averaging 1100 pages of reading if you read every assignment, approx 10 video sessions to observe, some as short as 2-3 minutes others up to a hour in length, one paper of approx 1500 words, and a two week on-line lab session with rotating leadership positions culminating with a 5000 word thesis at the end of the two years. My small group was spread across the globe and through at least 9 different time zones. I had classmates in Korea, Frankfurt Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan, Moscow, Ft. Bragg, Nevada, Oregon, Ohio, DC, and one or two other locations.
So my experience with on-line education has been very positive. Much of it is what you put into it. You cannot troll the classroom discussions with 2-3 yes/no answers and expect to pass. You have to do 2-3 meaningful responses to the group discussion to pass in my experience. For me on-line education works, but I can discipline myself to knock out the classwork. I watched others start the course with me, but not participate and eventually drop out. Too much work with civilian jobs, family and not enough time to follow the academics. It was a tough two years in the Army War College. Wouldn't trade it for anything though, and it made me stronger and smarter! I was asked to teach on-line English class, did the prep work and lesson plans for a small Tech Ed college. Unfortunately not enough students enrolled for my class and it was dropped from the schedule.
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