This is an interesting fact that where Chinese students studying in US colleges outnumber other foreign students, American students also prefer China for higher studies more than any other Asian country. Nonetheless, the Chinese students going to America is ten times the number of Americans coming to study in China. J. Adam Ereli, principal deputy assistant secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, feels that the reason for this lies in the fact that American campuses are very supportive, in terms of facilities and scholarships.

Reports released by the Institute of International Education and the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs reveal that the number of Chinese students studying in US is the highest and about 22 percent of the total international student population. Next in row, come countries like India, South Korea and Canada.

There has been an increase of 23 percent in the number of students which China sent to US compared to the previous year. Again, there has also been an increase in the number of American students coming to China. Where there were nearly 14,000 American students in China in 2009-2010, there were only 3,000 or less in 1999-2000.

More than 40 percent of international students are studying business management or engineering in 2010-2011, which are the two most popular fields for Chinese students.

“The continuous and increasing interest for students from the US and China to study in the two countries reflected an equal effort made by both governments to host students from each other’s countries,” said Peggy Blumenthal, senior counselor at the Institute of International Education, a non-profit organization.

“The trend of China hosting more and more American students is a reflection of China’s rising power and its increasing economic impact,” said Rajika Bhandari, vice-president of research and education at the Institute of International Education.

“Our earlier survey of employers showed that students with international study experience, especially in China, are more likely to get the job as there has been more and more economic cooperation with Asian countries, especially China, in recent years,” Bhandari said.

Ye Feng is a doctoral candidate at Shanghai International Studies University and has a scholarship through the Fullbright Program for Foreign Students, which is backed by the US government and invites top students and scholars to study in the US. He is participating in a one-year exchange program at the University of Delaware.

“What impressed me the most about American education is that the professors are emphasizing your ability of independent thinking and creativity; teaching skills are more instructive,” Ye said.

Article Source: China Daily

Therefore it might be time for you to consider applying for an online degree since this option is now available for those who didn’t have the possibility of attending a land based college due to several reasons. Now having a job and a family is even harder to attend physical classes of a college. This is why the solution of getting an online degree seems the most approachable one.

The following values of this type of degree will convince you of its necessity:

• Together with the working experience that you already have can propel you on higher peaks of career having more chances to advance than one with the same years of experience but without a college education.
• Online degrees gives you the feeling of being better prepared for the job that you are employed, so you can always be entitled to ask for more by applying for better paid jobs. The chances that you have in getting an improved position are way numerous than the candidates who do not have the same educational background.
• Another value that comes with getting an online degree is the possibility that one can have by keeping the job he is employed for and continue their education through specially designed online degree programs. Before this opportunity was offered, many of the employers wanting to pursue higher education were forced to quit their jobs to be able to attend land based colleges. This was frequently the reason why many working people were held back from getting a college degree.
• Online degrees can be as well sped up since you are offered the possibility of compressing the studies in such a manner that in a matter of 1 to 2 years you can obtain your degree although this might come with sacrificing a lot of your free time.
• Through the opportunity of getting an online degree, many other favorable circumstances can come in your way that you can grab at, now that you own that degree. The chances of advancing in your career are more than doubled, thus you can consider of getting a promotion within the company you work for or move on to a better paid position with another employer.

• One reason would be the financial aspect that through online education brings more savings than with the on-campus education. If you reach to compare the money invested in obtaining an online degree with that money paid merely for college tuition you will see that the amount is almost half than with the second option. For instance, if you need around $80,000 to go to a traditional university or college, then with the online courses the amount is merely $20,000. Well, as you can see, this is quite a difference.
• Another reason of online degree preferences over the offline version is the busy life that many people are involved in. There are people who have a job that takes a lot of their time as they need money for their daily needs, while others need to feed their families as well. Not to mention that there are many who have got already their bachelor’s degree but want to go further into getting their master’s online degree for having better chances with the future of their career.
• The other reason, which is not less important, is the flexibility of the studying hours. You can do this activity at your own pace, making your own program that you can stick to according to your own lifestyle and job requirements. Thus you do not need to quit your job for attending the college classes. There might be as well, online lectures recorded live that you might have to listen to, but these do not happen so often. Besides you can easily have someone recording them with the nowadays technology in case you won’t be able to listen to them in the live version.
• Online degrees come with plenty of choices for online student. There is a vast range of courses that is offered to you to choose from, therefore it may be impossible not to find the one that suits you and your needs the best. Many diplomas can be as well obtained in the online alternative, such as web-based psychology degree program, law online degree program, engineering degree, just to name a few. We shouldn’t omit mentioning the others that are not that demanding, but are definitely very sought after by many employers both nationwide and worldwide: physics, nursing, nutrition, accounting, chemistry, and many others.
• Finally, last, but not least, the reason for getting an online degree is also reflected by the possibility of getting not only a bachelor degree, but, as mentioned above, master’s degree and achieve also a Doctorate education.

Other people are already involved in an activity that offers them satisfaction, but they are always looking for something better to prove themselves that they can do more. For them and all others who wish to continue their higher education there is now an option opened to them as online courses that can help them reach the peaks of success in the activity they pursue having. But let’s see what online degrees are there available?

If you do some research in this matter, you will realize that almost everything you can imagine can be obtained through online courses, from Associates degrees, to bachelor degree up to master degree. The fields are as well numerous: business administration, nursing, accounting, graphic design, chemistry and many other more.

The beauty of these online degrees is that they are for real although the system of attending the classes is based on a virtual reality. These degrees do not come as a result of paying money to an educational institution which will issue the diploma in exchange of a certain fee. Not at all; this online degree is the same with the one that you can get when studying for real in a land based university or college. More than this, online degrees work as well as diplomas that are recognized by employers.

Attending online courses is even harder than the traditional college attendance where you physically take part in. Your attendance and commitment is more guided from the outside, whereas with the online courses your attendance has everything to do with the way you stay focused and dedicated to the course. This is a type of dedication that any employer would want to see for their employees, therefore an online degree is highly regarded by potential employers while applying for a new job or needing to accede with the old job position.

Apart from this aspect, employers would always want to see how their employees take attitude in front of the tasks they are handed and wouldn’t like to check upon every move they make, especially with the new un-experimented ones. With an offline degree many students reach the outcome they are expected to reach at by their families and friends, whereas the online degree can only reflect one’s drive to progress and become more professional in whatever they are doing.

But as with any other thing that comes as a novelty that changes an already set system, online degrees have given birth to all sorts of myths that we will try to present underneath:

1. The quality of online courses is lower than that of land based classes.

This fact may have been true in the past, but since these courses have increased in popularity with many people applying for them, educational institutions have done their best to come up with qualitative online degree programs. Apart from this, all the accredited institutions can lose their status if they do not come with programs of education that have adhered to quality standards. The curriculum of many of these online courses is the same with that of offline classes. But when you choose the online course for you make sure that is comes with reputable educational institutions, not the ones that offer little in term of academic value and substandard teaching materials.

2. It is said that online degrees are not recognized by employers as being the real thing.

Once your online degree is obtained through a reputable and accredited educational institution, then there is no reason for which your degree is not accepted. Employers are more aware nowadays of the effort that an online student is ready to undertake in having both a job and needing to attend the online courses. This proves to them of how dedicated and focused the employee can be when setting goals to achieve, this making them be very reliable and loyal employees for the specific job or for even reaching higher in the career.

3. Through online courses you do not get too much help from the outside.

It is true that through online education there is mostly up to you and your own power to keep on going and do the assignments. But this doesn’t mean that you can not ask for assistance from your instructors. There are so many ways to approach your professors, via e-mail, telephone, all these being within your reach while studying online.

4. It is said that through online courses you have to study less as they are easier than the classroom degrees.

This is not at all true, since the curriculum is the same, and besides you have to do the study on your own without any physical guidance from your professors whom, in the real life, they can be way easier to approach.

5. For online degrees one can study whenever is convenient for them.

This holds true for most of the cases, except for the situations when you need to log in at a certain hour for any live lecture that is broadcast online and you need to listen to. Apart from this, there are some deadlines you need to submit your assignments, so your program of study will have to depend on them.

First of all, you should know that the admission process evolves in the same way as with the traditional institutions, but before applying with one, you should check for several aspects:

• Do some research to locate the suitable college or university offering that degree that you are after. Through internet surfing you will be able to find a large number of websites to deliver you the necessary information. As you already know by now, it is not important any more the location of the college but at least this one should be a reputable one.
• After locating this college, make an accurate assessment of what the course contains, the material, the subjects, along with the costs involved and the way you can pay. This last aspect can be easily compared with other colleges that offer the same online degree but at lower rates.
• Look for colleges that have as well compressed programs though which you can complete a course within a period of 1 year or 2. In this way you will get your degree way faster, although this should be decided well after you decide on the program you have and what amount of time exactly you dispose of.
• Speaking of which, it is better to plan ahead the time for your study, and after enrolling, make your daily program to which you stick to until this one becomes a habit. Thus you would know that between these hours you will be studying and until the time comes you can schedule better all the other activities that need to be attended to.
• Most of these online courses are divided in modules, needing to finish each one of them within a certain period of time. If this thing is not taken into account, you might confront with the delay in getting the online degree.
• You might want to check whether or not there is a ceremony that your online college or university offers with the graduation. The majority organizes these sorts of ceremonies and a good idea would be for you to attend to this one as you would feel the reward in a more realistic plan than with the virtual choice of online courses.

According to an UNESCO report America has the second largest number of higher education institutions in the world, amounting to total of 5,758, with an average of more than 115 existing in each state. The US also has the highest number of higher education students in the world, 14,261,778, that is about 4.75% of the entire American population.

In an American Community Survey done by the United States Census Bureau the facts emerged that 19.5 percent of the population in US have attended college but has no degree, 7.4 percent has an associate’s degree, 17.1 percent have a bachelor’s degree, and 9.9 percent have a graduate or professional degree. The survey further stated that the best percentage of people 25 years and above with percentage in states in America follows as below.

• District of Columbia (45.9 percent),
• Sates of Massachusetts (37 percent),
• Maryland (35.1 percent),
• Colorado (34.3 percent),
• Connecticut (33.7 percent).

And the lowest percentage states are:

• West Virginia (16.5 percent),
• Arkansas (18.2),
• Mississippi (18.8 percent),
• Kentucky (20 percent),
• Louisiana (20.3 percent)

Another projection from Massachusetts Institute of Technology state U.S. universities grant 2,142 licenses yearly and options to license patented technology. The licensing of university-research spin-offs adds more than 150,000 jobs to the American economy every year. The American university system, similar to primary and secondary education system, is to a greater extent is decentralized. American universities have developed into independent accreditation organizations as to determine the quality of education which t they offer.

However, for proper regulation of Universities there are the accreditation agencies that rate universities and colleges on criteria like as  academic quality, quality of their libraries, the publishing records of their faculty, and the degrees which their faculty hold. Whereas non-accredited institution and agencies are considered to be as lacking in quality and providing better educational opportunity thus are named as diploma mills.

In U.S the first step to the climb the education ladder is kindergarten. It is mandatory to begin with kindergarten at the age of five or six. This is the first grade of the twelve grades of schooling. Unlike Canada and Australia in U.S, ordinal numbers are used for grading. The age for beginning the school is decided by the state law and therefore it varies slightly from state to state but mainly children are supposed to begin with the kindergarten when their age is 4-5 years. Students must regularly attend the classes till the 12th standard during which they turn 16-18 years old.

There are public as well as private schools in America. According to the government data, one-tenth of the students study in private schools, nearly 85% of students go to the public schools and 1.7% children study at home. Education in private schools is expensive in comparison to that provided in public ones because the latter are funded by the government. The schools are mainly for six hours per day and there are 175-185 working days in a year. The American schools provide the longest “summer break” for three months (June to August). Mostly in the public and private schools education is divided into three levels- elementary, junior high or middle school and senior high school. In these levels, the children are divided on the basis of their age.

The education after the high school is pursued at the American university. It is a four years study which provides you a bachelor’s degree on its successful completion. But getting through a university and passing it with good grades is a daunting task. The admissions are generally done on the basis of grades earned in high school, the student’s GPA, class ranking and standardized test scores such as SAT and ACT tests. Many times active participation in extracurricular activities also helps in getting through a good college or university.

The Bachelor of Arts (B.A) and the Bachelor of Science (B.S) are the two most desired degrees from the Universities in United States. The other popular degrees are Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A), Bachelor of Social Work (B.S.W), Bachelor of Engineering (B. Eng), Bachelor of Philosophy (B.Phil) and Bachelor of Architecture (B. Arch) degree which is given after completion of a five year professional architecture program. A degree in medicine and law is not offered at the graduate level in U.S. These degrees are only given in post graduation.

Post graduation in U.S also has bright prospects. You can obtain a Master of Arts (MA), Masters of Science (MS), Masters of Business Administration (MBA), Masters of Education (Med), and Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from universities in America. In addition there are valued doctoral degrees such as Doctor in Philosophy (Ph.D.), Doctor of Arts, Doctor of Education, Doctor of Theology, Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Pharmacy, Doctor of Jurisprudence etc.

However, usually students face problems in managing finance for their higher education. This task is difficult but not impossible especially in the present scene when there are numerous banks and financial institutions ready to fund a student for his/her bright future.