You would be right to think that online universities are recent innovations. The very channel that makes this type of learning possible is a new invention in itself. The actual start of distance learning, though, was about three hundred years ago.
Although the technology is somewhat recent, the concept of learning in an informal environment, without the need for the educator and student to be in the same room, is centuries old. For instance, one can look at the development of a lesson plan by a man back then who was teaching shorthand to people through mailed letters. Each lesson was received and carred to pupils through the regular post.
Among the very first colleges to have these sorts of offerings was the University of London, midway through the 1800s. Mailing lessons and quizzes was tried out first across the Atlantic by the University of Chicago. It was not long before Australians started to do the same.
There were some changes in the way the education was provided to distance learners when people invented things like TV. Soon, more universities got on the bandwagon for this kind of education. By 1996, there was already an accredited college: Jones International.
As for those interested in the history of the MBA relative to this subject, they have to start with the knowledge of the first institution to have a formal school for business graduate programs: Dartmouth. Back then, it was referred to by an alternative term, although the program eventually came to take the name we know it by today. Then Harvard came to the scene, providing actual masters programs for business administration.
At first, there were some concerns that the programs did not provide truly advanced studies that were useful outside of the academe. It was even stated that graduate studies are no better than completing a vocational course. For these reasons, many of the people associated with the course were shunned as unskilled ones.
This was why people in the academe started to mandate the study of even basic subjects in the graduate program. Specializing in a particular area suddenly became an option. The training was thus sharpened and enhanced for maximum effect.
Unfortunately, the critique did not exactly stop: it simply changed. There were allegations of graduates being so theoretically-inclined that they had trouble with the less-than-predictable real world. The problem too was that several schools hired professors who did not have experiential knowledge of their subjects.
Companies slowed down in their hiring of masters of business administration degree-holders. Modifications were obviously the order of the day. This is why the MBA of today is largely different from that of the past.
Education needs to reflect what people have learned and are learning in commerce each day, hence the need for such mutations in the academe. Even now,
online universities as well as offline ones are making new modifications to the MBA programs they offer. Thus, you should apply only to colleges that keep up with the times.
