Many thousands of adult students have achieved associate degrees from community colleges through primary use of telecourses. Without this course delivery method, their degrees would have been out of reach. Encouraged by their academic achievements, many adults want to keep going toward a bachelor's degree. Yet most bachelors programs require attendance in traditional classrooms on a campus on at an extension site. GSU has just joined the PBS Going the Distance project and offers a new articulation option for community colleges that have cultivated a student body that prefers to learn by telecourses and other distance learning options.
Most students use media-based courses to fit school into their work and family schedules.
Governors State is an upper division and graduate university that focuses on adult students. Several GTD institutions are already participating in this national articulation project for distance learners. The BOG B.A. program enables adult students to earn a bachelor's degree using the same distance learning skills that GTD community colleges have helped them gain, without obliging them to move or significantly change the pattern of their lives. Their goals for post-associates education need not be limited by their geography. Once they reach 120 credit hours, they graduate.