Will we ever see online or distance PhD degrees that are respectable?

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Will we ever see online or distance PhD degrees that are respectable?

The only ones I see now are in education or psychology from schools that are not known to be selective. Will we ever see degrees in science, math, humanities and the social sciences which are respectable? Requiring residency for the traditional degree seems to be a medieval anachronism.

Walden University has some online ones in education that are accepted for the purposes of pay increases in many school districts. I’ve never had a professor with a Ph.D. from one though. But, it’s just a matter of time.

Is it good to do online PhD?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Online PHD. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Will we ever see online or distance PhD degrees that are respectable?”

kap Says:
November 26th, 2009 at 3:40 am

RoaringMice Says:
November 26th, 2009 at 4:28 am

There are some, but not many; and in some fields, there are none, while in others, there are a few. But I agree - the pickings are slim, and those schools that do offer distance PhD degrees either aren’t super strong schools (and thus, IMO, not worth attending for a PhD, where the rep of your program matters significantly) or else the offerings are mostly in education or related.

I’m not sure when, or if, this will change. One problem is that, of course, tradition… but more importantly, the PhD is supposed to involve intense, one-on-one work with a specific professor, and that’s hard to really do via distance.

There really aren’t even many part-time PhDs. It’s supposed to be a period of time when you are 100% devoted to research and your subject matter. I’m not sure if that’s going to change anytime soon. I’m not sure if we’ll see many respectable distance learning PhDs springing up.
References :

Prospero Reincarnate Says:
November 26th, 2009 at 5:03 am

Walden University has some online ones in education that are accepted for the purposes of pay increases in many school districts. I’ve never had a professor with a Ph.D. from one though. But, it’s just a matter of time.
References :
en

Strat Says:
November 26th, 2009 at 5:26 am

Kap is right, there are tonnes. I’m doing an MA on line but it is part of a mainstream bricks and mortar course. Mine costs me nothing except hecs but I enrolled a couple of years ago. It now costs newcomers 20 thousand dollars. I’ve been looking at online Phd’s and there are many respectable bricks and mortar universities that offer them. The problem is a lot of them cater for mature students who are working and therefore require an employer to sponsor the student. This is for phd’s by coursework that specialize in a particular employment area like management or in my case information studies. Nevertheless if you had the funds and the research topic I am sure you would be able to find a uni that would offer more traditional ph’d courses by research over the net.
References :
Prospective Ph’d student.

MS GUCCI Says:
November 26th, 2009 at 5:51 am

There are already many respectable online PhD programs out there, regionally accredited by the exact same people that accredit brick-and-mortar state schools and private schools. Also, a lot of brick-and-mortar schools offer full degree programs online. Just do your research and you’ll find them.It just takes time and the one that said Walden University they are full of crap. People are now putting them in the ranks of University of Phoenix and that’s not good at all. Capella University offers PhD’s in Business, Project Mgmt, Accounting, Leadership, Human Services, Health Care Administration, Nursing Education, Social & Community Services, Information Technology Mgmt, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Human Resource Mgmt, General Psychology, Curriculum & Instruction, K-12 Studies in Education, Emergency Mgmt, and Criminal Justice. As far as online goes it varies on the institution of your choice b/c some offer this and some offer that. University of Florida offers PhD’s in Classical Civilization, Anthropology,English, History, Religious Studies, Philosophy, Physics, and Physical Science. you don’t have to settle for less. Just like anybody else has a online division of learning so does the well known named schools. http://www.collegeboard.com will give you more info. Whatever state you reside in type it in it will populate state universities and/or colleges then select graduate degree programs and take it from there. I hope this helps ya!
References :

I luv ladies' bottoms! Says:
November 26th, 2009 at 6:28 am

Many very respectable British universities offer postgraduate degrees requiring minimal or no residence. You’d unfortunately have to pay international student tuition, but it’s worth it — in my experience most British professors truly want to educate their students. In the USA most professors seem more interested in (a) having graduate students do the professors’ research for them, (b) "correcting" the students’ writing styles because the professors think their own dubious styles are next to godliness, and (c) generally putting up silly hoops for the students to jump through. I’ve had enough of American academia.
References :
Many years of experience.