But with the Internet, distance learning has taken off. Having this option is the wave of the future,'' said Jill Charboneau, a Santa Barbara City College instructor who is doing her master's thesis on distance learning through Cornell University in New York. SRJC now offers 11 classes through its Center for Advanced Technology and Education. In July, the state of California opened its own California Virtual University, a concept devised by a team of educators and nurtured in the governor's office. It is a catalog of online courses offered by 95 accredited community colleges and private and public universities.
Students pay whatever the individual college charges for a similar regular class.
There is the private University of Phoenix, owned by Apollo Group, which has 37,000 students at its traditional campuses and 6,000 students online. And not for every student, since it takes a different type of learning and a motivated, self-disciplined student. SRJC had required that courses taught online also be taught in the classroom. That failed when students filled the online version of the Global Office, but no one signed up for the same classroom course. Online courses also are more time-consuming, for the students and teachers alike, so the junior college limits class size to 20 to 25 students, about what a normal class might be.