If you're a working adult, the obvious benefit of earning your college degree online is the flexibility and convenience of class schedules. However, online degree programs offer other benefits. While the price of the education might be the same as traditional courses, you'll save money on transportation, since you can complete coursework anywhere you have an Internet connection.
To cater to working adults who may have family responsibilities, colleges and universities often offer part-time versions of their online degree programs. This means that you can take only one or two courses each semester as opposed to being saddled with a full course-load. While this will place less of a day-to-day burden on you as you go through the program, earning a degree on a part-time basis may take several more years than with a full-time course-load.
Colleges and universities that offer online programs know that convenience and flexibility are their main marketing tools. Thus, they often strive to provide the most convenient and flexible class schedules possible. For convenience, online programs will often offer live courses in the evenings, during traditional lunch times and on the weekends. For flexibility, online programs often post a recording of each class meeting online for later viewing by people who were unable to attend the live broadcast. Whether a specific program is able to offer evening, lunch, or weekend courses will depend on the availability of its instructors, so specific schedules will vary by program.
To take advantage of online degree programs, you will need to have a reasonably high-speed computer with a reliable Internet connection. To attend live courses, you will at the very least need to stream audio data and may need to stream video data as well. Watching class recordings may require downloading large files.
The U.S. Department of Education's website maintains a list of accredited online programs. Your state’s education department likely keeps a similar list to inform state residents of programs that can legally operate and bestow degrees within state boundaries.
Be aware that illegitimate online "diploma mills" abound. These dubious operations will accept your money and give a degree after you complete a few simple online courses. However, the degrees they bestow are not valid and your money will have been wasted. A program may be a diploma mill if it: