Julie Thomas knew it wouldn’t be easy to hold down her day job at Cisco Systems in RTP while pursuing an MBA from UNC Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. For the last two years Thomas, who graduated from N.C. State five years ago, has stayed home most Friday nights to study, awakened early on weekends to hit the books and turned down any long trips to visit friends.

“There’s no way anyone could have prepared me for what I’ve gone through, just like no one can prepare you for what it’s like to have a child,” says Thomas, an inside sales account manager for Cisco who will become a newly-minted MBA in September.

Why was she willing to do through such an ordeal? She says it’s always been part of her grand plan for rounding our her resume and expanding her career options.

Everyone has their own reason for returning to school. Some professionals face changes in technology that threaten to make their current job skills obsolete. Others have had their interest ignited because of a career experience. Many feel that more education will help them climb through management positions faster and increase their earning capacity more quickly. Some students return to the classroom to begin a second career. Some just want to fulfill a lifelong goal.

Like Thomas, most graduate students aren’t able to or simply refuse to leave their careers to pursue a second degree, and therefore go back to school part-time. According to the Council of Graduate Schools, 70 percent of master’s degree and 42 percent of doctoral students are designated as part-time.

But as Thomas knows, there’s good reason to make the investment. The fastest growing jobs require higher math, language and reasoning capabilities than current jobs. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics has stated that jobs that require a bachelor’s degree are expected to grow the most quickly in the 21st Century, nearly twice as fast as the average for all occupations.

And there’s also the financial payoff. The return on investment in higher education is usually high enough to justify the financial burden of student loans and the investment of time. According to Census data, over an adult’s working life, high school graduates earn an average of $1.2 million, associate’s degree holders earn about $1.6 million and bachelor’s degree holders earn about $2.1 million. Lifetime earnings for graduate and professional degree holders are even greater.


Colleges Make It Easier

More than ever, colleges and universities are tailoring their programs to meet the needs of these nontraditional students who have the demands of work and family to contend with while pursuing another degree. Online course offerings, as well as full degree programs done entirely via computer, have eliminated an enormous barrier for many students returning to school.

Prior to 1998, any of the 16 campuses of the University of North Carolina system offering distance education courses had to charge enough in tuition and fees for those classes to pay for the cost of the alternative delivery method. But in 1998 the N.C. General Assembly approved changes that provided funding for courses taught via the Internet equal to that of courses taught through traditional means on campus, says James Sadler, associate vice president for academic planning at the University of North Carolina system. The result has been enormous growth in both the course offerings and enrollment by students.

Since the 1998 change through the fall 2003 semester, the number of students enrolled only in distance education courses has increased 250 percent to nearly 10,000 students, or roughly the equivalent size of UNC Greensboro. That’s basically a mid-sized public university population attending class entirely at home.

Students are taking individual online courses or pursuing one of 46 programs, such as nursing, engineering, business, criminal justice and public health, offered entirely via distance education.

And Sadler says the demographics of those online students bears out the notion that it’s the older, non-traditional student population that is taking advantage of the new offerings. More than 78 percent of online degree-seeking students are age 26 or older, compared to 22 percent of on-campus students who are age 26 or older.

“We’re reaching that older-age group of working adults, mothers and fathers who can’t quit their jobs and move to a college campus,” says Sadler. It was a population that was not being adequately served before the change in funding, he adds.

When Thornton Mellon, played by comedic actor Rodney Dangerfield, went Back to School in the 1980s classic movie, he was proof that even financial success doesn’t erase the desire for more education.

But unlike multi-millionaire Mellon, who endowed a building in order to buy his way into higher ed, today’s nontraditional students are finding that access to a second degree has never been easier.

The proliferation of new graduate programs in cities across the state — from satellite campuses of established colleges as well as entry in the market by proprietary schools — means students have more choices of academic institutions than ever.

And an exponential increase in online offerings means that no matter where you live in North Carolina, a graduate degree is no further than your computer.

“Technology has developed to the point where access is 24/7. It give students who are also employed unprecedented opportunities to complete degrees without going to a physical site,” says Kay Zimmerman, associate vice provost for strategic initiatives and partnerships for distance education at N.C. State University in Raleigh. “You don’t have to stop your life. You expand your life.”

While attending classes has gotten easier, so has the process of identifying programs, completing applications and learning about financial aid, thanks to the dynamic College Foundation of North Carolina web site, CFNC.org, which is now the primary route for students applying to North Carolina schools.

CFNC.org grew out of the Governor’s Education Cabinet, which was tasked in 1999 with improving college access and given funding by the General Assembly to pursue that goal. Over the course of nine months the web site was built with information and resources from all 110 colleges in the state, with information about how to apply and how to pay for school, says Bobby Kanoy, associate vice president for academic and student affairs for the UNC System.

“Ninety percent of what colleges want is all the same information,” says Kanoy. “This site takes the student perspective and makes the application process easier.”

With the click of a mouse a student can instantly complete applications to multiple colleges and automatically have high school transcripts sent to those schools.

Since its debut four years ago, more than 430,000 student accounts have been set up on CFNC.org, and 135,000 online admissions applications have been processed, so many that Appalachian State University now receives 85 percent of its admissions applications online. “In the next five years {college admission} is going to become a paperless environment with every college expecting submissions online,” says Kanoy.

 But the site isn’t just focused on the thousands of high school seniors applying to college to pursue a bachelor’s degree. An entire section is dedicated to adult learners, who often take a non-traditional route back to school to pursue their first bachelor’s degree after years of work, return for a second degree, graduate school or professional school or to simply enroll in classes to explore personal interests or take specific courses to enhance job skills.

Even if attending classes can happen from home and finding programs and financial aid is easier, non-traditional adult students also need the support of their employer.

Pam Craver, a commercial relationship manager for SouthTrust Bank in Charlotte, found that a supportive employer made a huge difference in her drive to complete her MBA four years ago.

Craver, 36, started work on her MBA in 1994 while she was working in human resources for a radio and newspaper communications company in South Carolina. Her employer didn’t offer much moral support for the endeavor, much less tuition reimbursement. But just a few courses into the program at the University of South Carolina’s Aiken Campus, Craver joined Bankers First, a predecessor savings and loan of SouthTrust, and found a more rewarding profession and the encouragement she needed. SouthTrust provides tuition reimbursement to employees based on the grades they receive.

“It was trying at times,” says Craver. “But my bosses knew my time constraints and always supported me.”

Cisco in RTP offers employees up to $7,500 a year in tuition reimbursement for attending an accredited school and earnings a grade of C or better. For most public universities, the stipend is adequate to cover almost all the costs associated with an additional degree.

For Julie Thomas, the MBA student scheduled to finish this fall, Cisco’s tuition reimbursement program allowed her to attend a top-ranked school despite the costs. UNC Chapel Hill’s executive program, which is ranked fifth nationally, also comes at the hefty price of about $42,000 for the two-year stint. That was almost four times the cost of other local public university programs.

But Thomas was attracted to the program’s offerings as well as its reputation. “When I considered Cisco’s tuition reimbursement and crunched the numbers, I figured ‘I can do this and be OK,’” says Thomas.

Many Cisco employees in the RTP area have returned to school in recent years and the company supports ways for more to do the same, says Ruth McCullers Lee, communications director for Cisco in the Research Triangle Park.

Cisco conducted its first “Degree Fair” in December and hosted 23 colleges from North Carolina and beyond to pitch their degree programs to Cisco employees. Duke, N.C. State, UNC Chapel Hill, Elon, East Carolina, Campbell and Meredith were among the North Carolina schools. Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State and Central Michigan also came to promote their online programs.

“We had almost 200 people come out, and you could see a lot of conversations going on,” says McCullers Lee. “It’s a good time to be sharpening the saw. While the market has been in a lull it’s a good time to thing about the next step to break away and find out where you are going next.”


Proprietary Schools Grow

McCullers Lee’s attitude about the timing of furthering an education is reflected in the marketing plans of some widely respected proprietary schools who saw a mix of factors come together to make North Carolina an attractive market for expansion in recent years.

Strayer University, a 110-year-old proprietary school with campuses across the country focused on nontraditional adult learners, opened two campuses in Charlotte and one in Cary in 2002 and a second North Raleigh campus in the spring of 2003. Strayer offers courses in business and technology at the graduate and undergraduate level.

“North Carolina has been very good to us in the 18 months we’ve had our original three campuses open here,” says Jim McCoy, regional director for North Carolina for Strayer University. “The state has excellent schools, but they are heavily geared toward traditional students.”

Nontraditional students, he says, are looking for convenience, and Strayer offers predominately night and weekend classes to a student population whose average age is 34. At the same time, North Carolina’s concentration of banking employees as well as the movement away from a manufacturing economy meant employees would need new skills.

At Strayer, students have the choice between taking classes online, going to a physical classroom or doing a bit of both to meet their individual learning preferences and scheduling parameters.

McCoy would not give enrollment figures for North Carolina campuses, but says it is ahead of the school’s benchmarks. Nationally, Strayer enrolled 20,000 students last fall. “Our growth has been in the high teens over the last several years,” says McCoy.

Likewise, DeVry University, another proprietary school based outside of North Carolina, found the state — and especially Charlotte — to be an attractive market.

While DeVry is known more for its technical training, in North Carolina the institution offers more business programs. In February 2002 DeVry opened its Keller Graduate School of Management in Charlotte, offering graduate courses leading to an MBA or a masters in project management, telecommunications management, human resources management, health services, information systems management, public administration, accounting and financial management.

DeVry offers all of its programs online as well as at the campus, so students can take a statistics class on campus if they think they will need the one-on-one help, but can in the same semester take an e-marketing class online, says Jonelle Niffenegger, manager of corporate communications for DeVry University, based in Chicago. “Online is not better or worse than traditional classes, it’s just different,” says Niffenegger. “It all depends on how you learn.”


Community Colleges Ready

Every student with the drive to return to school isn’t in pursuit of another diploma. A full 80 percent of the students enrolled in continuing education classes at the state’s 59 community colleges are employed full-time and have returned to class to upgrade their skills or pursue a job change.

They aren’t looking for a degree, says Peggy Graham, director of continuing education for the North Carolina Department of Community Colleges, but they want to gain new skills. “Our colleges will tell you we train the whole array of the workforce, from entry level employees to managers and business owners,” says Graham.

Skill-seeking students often wind up at the community college because they are lured by inexpensive tuition — $50 to $65 per continuing education course, quality instructors and the accessibility of a college within 50 miles of every geographical point of the state.

And while accessibility always has been one of the hallmarks of the state’s revered community college system, even the community college system has eliminated the need to come to class.

The community college system offers more than 500 courses online through a program called Ed2Go. The course content is provided by a California-based company with which the community college contracts. Students don’t have to pursue a degree but can take courses in such areas as magazine writing, medical terminology, accounting courses to a multitude of computer skills training in such programs as FrontPage, A+ Certification and Visual Basic.

Graham says college administrators found that while students could go directly through such online providers to participate in online learning, the community college was often the first place a student turned when looking to upgrade skills. “And this way if students have a problem they can come to a campus, see a face and have a local access,” says Graham.

Getting another degree isn’t always desired, even when successful business people recognize that they need a boost in job skills. Small business owners who don’t need to earn a professional degree to climb the ladder and they don’t have a boss they are trying to impress, often still need to better understand how to manage their small business, their computer network or manage employees, says Gayle Harvey, state director of the Small Business Center network for the North Carolina Department of Community Colleges.

The 60 small business centers located at every community college around the state serve some 65,000 students each year offering everything from a core series of seminars for people considering starting a business to how to manage the taxes and record keeping once the business is successful. Most of the courses are free or offered for a nominal fee.

“A lot of people go into consulting as their industry is down-sized and often go back to work for the same companies but on a contract basis,” says Harvey. But those successful engineers, computer scientists or other well-educated professionals may be good at their jobs but they are new at the challenges of running their own business.

No matter the ultimate goal, those students who have returned to school see it as an investment that may lead to more exciting career options, a better understanding of their industry, and possibly greater potential for leadership roles.

Craver, of SouthTrust, now credits returning to school with moving her on a new career path into banking and commercial lending. “I just don’t think you can ever have enough education,” she says. “It’s an investment and a wise place to spend your money.”

Eight months from graduation, Cisco’s Thomas has a sober but optimistic view of the return she’ll get on her investment in MBA school. “It’s not like buying a stock where you immediately wait to see it go up,” she says. “Six months afterward I won’t have seen it yet, but five years down the road we may see where it has taken me.”



Why an IT Degree May Not Be Your Best Bet
The ads promising high-paying careers in computer technology used to be everywhere — on the radio, television and popups across the Internet. But as the tech sector fell on the stock exchange, tech layoffs became more common than tech training school ads.

According the Information Technology Association of America, demand for hiring IT workers reached a historic low of only 493,000 positions during the year ending in December, down from 1.6 million at the start of 2000 and less than half of the predicted 1.1 million positions needed at the start of 2002.

Companies are moving more positions overseas where IT help is cheaper and staffing more flexible.

Employees with pink slips weren’t the only casualties of the tech fall. A number of computer training schools in the state closed, sometimes leaving students wondering where they would finish the program.

The latest casualty was Tech Train, a Charlotte-based computer training school that closed in October, leaving as many as 200 students out of school. Unlike some schools that popped up during the late 1990s when thousands of students rushed toward training for lucrative IT jobs, Tech Train held a state license, which means that students will be reimbursed for tuition and they will be able to earn certificates in courses at other schools.

Students at other defunct computer training schools have been less fortunate. In March 2002 Durham-based MCJ Solutions Inc., a computer training and career placement school, shut down its 10 schools in Charlotte and Durham, as well as in Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. MCJ Solutions was not licensed and therefore not bonded, giving little protection to students.

Those reputable computer training centers and universities with long histories of producing quality graduates with degrees in computer science say while the market has dipped, IT training has remained a relatively steady market. -- Laura Williams-Tracy