The Open University is pretty well respected: http://www.open.ac.uk/
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For those interested in doing an online degree, I highly recommend the Open University. They accept international students, and their degrees are accredited in both the US and EU:
The price though..
In Germany, there is Fernuniversität Hagen. I guess it scales better than "regular" universities, so there isn't really a need for more of them to meet demand? https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/english/
The Fernuniversität has all the same hideous bureaucracy, form filling and hoop jumping of any other German university, with similar entrance requirements. It is cheaper so it has that advantage. The Open University has no entrance requirements whatsoever for its Bachelor’s and it’s not terribly difficult to get onto a Master’s with the v university of London without a Bachelor’s so if you’re not severely cash constrained at least look at those.
I've never heard about this. Can you say more about the University of London MA and their programmes?
There are a number of modules from Master’s programmes that can be studied as stand alone qualifications[1]. Apply to do one of these modules, do well, continue doing the modules as stand alone qualifications until you have done the maximum number you can without transferring to the Master’s student roll, transfer.
Only a small minority of degrees have modules that can be studied this way. You need to show some evidence that you’re capable of study at this level. For my Finance Master’s[2] a MicroMaster’s in International Law from UCLouvainX[3] sufficed. It’s also difficult to get the Master’s in the minimum two years this way because they won’t let you transfer from studying individual modules to doing the Master’s without your exam grades having been released and being satisfactory, though it is possible to do it in two years if you start with the first session of the year.
[1] https://london.ac.uk/courses/international_type_of_study/15/...
[2] https://www.cefims.ac.uk/programmes/economic-policy/masters/
[3] https://www.edx.org/micromasters/louvainx-international-law
OP is almost certainly referring to Birkbeck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkbeck,_University_of_London
It’s a well respected institution and it’s graduates are well regarded by employers.
Then why does it never make it to the top 120 university ranking of the guardian?, I never understood why.
They opted out http://www.bbk.ac.uk/news/league-tables
Would one recommend this for someone in the US who is already decades into a career and just needs the checkbox checked and their employer will pickup the tab?
Drexel is a pretty good school in Philadelphia and they have online bachelors degrees (https://online.drexel.edu/online-degrees/computing-informati...).
The Open University satisfies the requirements for US visas, so it can check some checkboxes. The cost may be higher for people outside the UK, but I haven't looked recently.
Also look into Excelsior College
Oregon state has an online BS in CS degree and also a postbac 2yr option. It’s $30k so not cheap at all though. https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/online-degrees/undergraduate...
It’s legitimate, source: I know someone who did it and is working as a webdev in PDX.
I hear OU is surprisingly hard work and surprisingly expensive.
You think you'll do an online degree in your spare time and it turns out it's a decade of work and costs thousands of dollars.
Correct on both counts (current OU student).
120 credits = full time studies, 40 hours per week. So 30 is 10 hours, 60 credits is 20 hours.
This is of course an estimate. Some weeks you have assignments due as well as course material to study. There's a two week break for Christmas and usually one week around Easter and that's it.
If you work full time and you're doing 60 credits that'll take you 6 years working 60 hour weeks, maybe more, assuming your job is just 40.
I did an FOIA request. After 11 years of study (11 picked because I wanted to confirm a comment on the guardian), of those students who have ever indicated formally they want to obtain a bachelors, around 15% have actually done so.
If the student has self declared a mental health disability the figure drops to 9%.
Last academic year 55% of students passed their modules across all modules. This excludes students who opted to defer or refund within the grace period at the start of the module.
Cost wise these days on UK or EU fees it's about £3k for a 60 credit module.
Personally if I knew what I knew now, I'd go back to full time education.
Edit to say: the course is flexible in the sense study timed are not fixed and nobody cares if you turn up to tutorials, often done online, or not.
It is not at all flexible on deadlines of any kind. On a 60 credit module you could easily have one assignment per month, plus an exam at the end. The assignments, depending on your level, aren't necessarily that challenging but they do take time.
If something comes up at work or in life and knocks you back, you either accept the damage to your grade and complete the module or you defer. Definitely don't go via the OU if you have a demanding job with unpredictable requirements.
It's almost however long you want to put into it. I completed my undergraduate degree in around three and a half years, approaching it as a mix of part-time and full-time study, juggled with periods of employment.
At the time, I thought it wasn't particularly hard - I had it in my head that bricks and mortar universities were somehow more challenging and rigorous. Having recently completed a master's at a campus university, my feelings about the OU at the time were without basis. By comparison, the master's was easier, less challenging and less valuable.
Looking back on my OU experience, I can appreciate how enriching it was. The course materials and syllabi are fantastic and are often used by other universities. Associate lecturers can be hit and miss. Fellow students tend to be engaged - because they _want_ to do the courses - and often make for a supportive and thoughtful community; I actually found it to be far less isolating than the campus experience of my master's.
I was fortunate to have undertaken my degree prior to tuition fees increases, but I would still recommend them. Compared to other UK universities, the fees were still relatively low, last time I looked.
My wife is doing an OU degree, outside the UK, but in Ireland. (So, testing centers are available, but we’re paying the non uk/ni/Scotland rates). At current prices, an undergraduate degree from the OU is on the order of $20k. It’s nominally a 3 year degree, and at a full time class load, it’s supposed to be a full time experience, I.e. 40 hrs a week.
Of that, there are probably 4x 30 credit classes in first year, 2x60 in each of second and third year. For a degree in a specific subject, these are all going to be “in major”.
My read of it is that it’s a more focused, less all around degree than what I remember of an undergrad degree, where I had 4-5 classes 2x per year for 4 years. I can’t speak to the technical level, as she’s doing languages, which are all Greek to me.
That's how I felt it, although it was 15 years ago. I started the study of CS at postgraduate because I was 50 and felt I had to catch up with the young colleagues. After two years and being only at mid course (and having already spent several thousands pounds), I drop out of it. After all I had already a good job and I could learn much more interesting stuff at work.
If you are just checking boxes, WGU is probably the way to go. My understanding is that things go very quickly for people with real world experience.
Agreed. WGU has been a good fit for me.