The Future of Accelerated Education and the Pros and Cons

In a modern world that stresses the importance of post-secondary education and individual expertise, online learning can provide a fast track for completing post-secondary education in a shorter amount of time than traditional brick and mortar schools. Many sites that offer online educational services often boast the amount of time it takes to complete a course, and it can be assumed that by 2020, the average degree program will take no more than 3 years to complete through accredited online schools. This, of course, will all be made available through the use of social media tools to collaborate virtually with peers.

Already, many school are offering online equivalents for post-secondary education, and allow students to progress at their own rates. Some sites even claim that degrees are possible, with a lot of hard work and initiative, in less than 2 years. In Canada, there are also many options for online degrees.

Below is a list of the pros and cons to an accelerated online education, mostly sourced from this article, which also provides an interesting take on accelerated online learning as a whole.

Pros

• much shorter time than traditional methods
• costs significantly less overall
• easier policies regarding enrollment 
• doesn't require students to commute
• set your own schedule

Cons

• miss out on the "college experience"
• difficult to handle the constantly heavy course load
• hard to stay independently motivated
• historically, not as credible
• lack of "team building" and "people skills" development

Over the next 10 years, as more schools digitize at the primary, secondary and post-secondary levels, it can be assumed that the ability to fast-track one's own education at an early age will be made possible well before the post-secondary level. To refer to my earlier post about MOOCs, college and university level education is already being made available to students in high school. By 2020, it is very possible that even secondary school education will also be available online for students at the primary level. In theory, based on the future of accelerated education, students will be able to finish a post-secondary education by the age of 16.