Online Education a Growing Feature of Military Service

Distance learning has become a widespread activity in the United States military. While all four service branches offer guidance and financial assistance to their men and women on active duty the, the highest level of distance learning activity is found among the Army’s troops. Just three years after the United States Army started its GoArmyEd program, there are about 96,000 soldiers taking one or more online courses. That amounts to 34% of all eligible Army personnel.

The program was quickly adopted by accredited online schools. According to South Carolina’s largest newspaper The State there are 145 schools for Army students to choose from offering in excess of 200,000 classes. A few of these are traditional brick-and-mortar schools that have expanded their educational role to the online environment – the University of South Carolina is among them. For the most part however, the participating institutions are the same established distance learning institutions found in the Get Degrees directory.

Army participation is high because active soldiers can find internet access while they are posted to offshore bases in Iraq, Afghanistan as well as in installations within the fifty states. The Navy currently has about 17% of its eligible personnel participating in distance learning; Internet access is much more limited at sea.

The stories told by Army participants suggest that the biggest challenge can be keeping up with homework assignments while moving around. Internet access at the more remote bases in Afghanistan can be limited, while it is more freely available in the larger installations such as those adjacent to Kabul and other population centers. The same can be true for Iraqi troops who find themselves stationed in cities far from Baghdad.

The troops who were interviewed about their online studies praised the format, finding that the flexibility was not only critical for their military assignments but often more comfortable than a classroom setting. One soldier whose Afghanistan assignment caused him to be traveling constantly would ask his University of Phoenix instructors for homework assignments in advance.

That same South Carolina soldier completed his associate’s degree while he was abroad. When he returned home in May of 2008 he went to Arizona so he could go through the graduation exercises that the University conducts for its students each year. “I got plane tickets and took my wife out to Phoenix for a vacation,” he said. “I was determined to walk the stage.”

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