Talk to a million people and you will get a million different answers as to how helpful college is but taking to the next level and going the route of teach yourself online courses will really make you wonder if your money is well spent.
The first thing you have to understand is there are definite reasons that someone perusing a career must attend college. If your career requires a degree such as an Architect, Lawyer or Doctor. There is no question here that these careers require a degree but remember there are different levels of education that will put you in the same place as everyone else.
You can get your law degree from the University of Delaware located next to a mall or drive 25 miles north to the University of Pennsylvania where Donald Trump and a lot of other well known lawyers attended. So what is the difference? Well President Obama attended Harvard and supposedly he did well but he did not submit his GPA or degree to get elected it was his friends he met at college that made him President.
Now you can attend college online at Major Universities you get full credit just like you attended but you must attend the college for a year or so to complete your bachelors. This is not a bad deal and when I attended college I took a few Teach Yourself courses so I could Test Out of Math classes.
But if you attend a degree mill online program believe me every Human Resources Manager knows before you walk in the door that the college you attended provided you an education that is basically useless for the real world.
On the other hand you could attend Harvard and not be the popular one and never make it to be President ... you may not even accomplish developing your own practice to be able to pay back the $200K you spent to have them hand you a piece of paper.. however you should be able to file the bankruptcy papers when you and your family are so far in debt you have lost everything.
There are a lot of choices and there are reasons to make them but you have to understand up front why you are making that decision.
Do you live in the middle of Wyoming with a family that needs you and you can't move or commute to college so Online is your only option? Then look for the best school and like I said LOTS of schools now allow you to take online courses... heck you can take courses at a few colleges to build up your credits for final graduation but you need to know which school you will graduate from and how many credits they will accept... usually the most transfer credits a school will accept is about half or 60% of the credits needed for a bachelors degree and Masters or Professional Degrees they accept less unless there is a hardship case which you have negotiated...
It takes a lot of work to get it done but it can be done... only attend accredited schools online that is the big thing. And the accreditation must come from the same organization that accredits the brick and mortar schools or your credits and degree is worth nothing....
Now with that said
You miss out on making connections when you work beside people day in and day out when you attend online so you will need to work much harder to find people you can count on. ... you can do that online anyway but... it can be difficult to really count on anyone you meet online to back you up...
And finally no matter if you are attending online or in class you really need to understand what your degree can offer you. A degree in History, Art heck even computer science today ... there are millions of qualified people looking for work.. Hell I am one of them.. or at least I am looking for better work and you have to say is it worth 4 or 6 or 8 years of your life to study something... will it put a roof over your head and food on the table? No matter what philosophical questions you may learn to answer with your degree... food in your kids mouth is always #1 and if you can make more money being a plumber or electrician then do it... and if you can make an iPhone Ap that sells 20 million copies at $3 a pop with yearly upgrades at $1 a pop DO THAT.... and you don't need a degree and you don't need people around you that will make you president ... but you will be able to live quite a nice life....
