【新东方绿皮书】真题同源时文泛读004

新东方《考研英语历年真题详解及复习指南》同源泛读

『由于在线教育的方便、低廉、高质量，所以如今很多大学

的网络学校正在蓬勃发展』

The WiFi Degree

网络学校的学位

April 29, 2011 | from The Newsweek

Luis Figueroa lives down the street from UC

Merced, the newest campus in the

University of California system. So it’s not

surprising that the 21-year-old studies from

the comfort of his own home. But he’s not

enrolled at Merced: from his living-room

computer, Figueroa is earning his bachelor’s

degree in business administration at

Columbia College in Missouri, some 2,000

miles away. At $630 per course—about

$1,800 per semester—his online degree will cost far less than even in-state tuition at UC. Not only that, Figueroa is able to continue working full time in a management-training job with AT&T in Merced, a job he feels lucky to have in the current economic climate. “Once I realized I had time constraints, I knew the traditional classroom wouldn’t work,” he says. “Courses online are open 24 hours a day, and I’m able to go there any time I want.”

That convenience is one of the main reasons nearly 4 million American students took at least one online course in the 2007–08 school year, according to a study by the Sloan Foundation. The same study found that online enrollment is growing at a rate more than 10 times that of the higher-education population at large—12.9 percent vs. 1.2 percent for traditional “in seat”students. Nowhere is the growth faster than among younger students like Figueroa who are opting for online learning, even when the traditional classroom is—in his case—right outside the front door.

Once targeted at older, working adults, distance learning has moved into the education mainstream at stunning speed over the past couple of years, as technology allows ever-richer, more-interactive learning experiences online—and as college costs continue to rise and classrooms are packed to capacity. For traditional brick-and-mortar institutions, that has meant a scramble to enter a lucrative market that used to be the exclusive territory of for-profit institutions such as the University of Phoenix and Kaplan University. Established brand-name educators now offer extensive online learning options and are competing with the for-profits for students.

新东方《考研英语历年真题详解及复习指南》同源泛读

As the largest generation since the baby boom attends college at a time of shrinking budgets and soaring costs, many educators believe that online learning holds the greatest promise for expanding the capacity of the U.S. higher-education system. And digital classrooms will surely play an important role in helping the Obama administration pursue its goal of raising the percentage of college graduates in the U.S. to first in the world by 2020.

Another important factor that has closed the prestige gap is the tight integration of online programs into their host institutions. When UMass launched UMassOnline in 2001, it used the same admission standards, the same faculty, the same curricula—and it awarded students degrees indistinguishable from those given to campus-going counterparts.

Despite the popularity of online learning, there are shortcomings. Students may save money and time, but they give up college social life. Chat boards are hardly a substitute for the camaraderie of the dorm—or the richness of cultural life on campus. And while it’s easy to move ahead in an online course, there’s no one looking over your shoulder in a virtual classroom. “You have to be good at planning your time,”says ASU’s Holleran. “If you don’t you’re going to fall behind.” Then again, help is only an e-mail away.(552 words)

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