You don’t need to stress out about spring semester. In this issue of the Financial Aid Newsletter, we’ll give you the resources you need to start off 2012 right. Read the December Newsletter: $10,000 Drawing and Preparing your FAFSA at FinancialAidNews.com!

For many, the fall is a transitional time- September goes by too quickly and with October, the Autumn weather sets in fast, reminding us winter is around the corner and summer is officially over. While as an adult we don’t follow a traditional school calendar, I still find that this is a time where I slow down, and start making a plan for the year to come. I am taking this time to remind you of the benefits of online learning, because maybe enrolling in an online degree program should be part of your plan this year.

A few years back we wrote the post Online Education, A Cheaters Paradise? where we examined what it meant to “earn a degree” despite the fact that many undergrads admit to cheating on online-based tests. New technologies, according to a recent USNEWS article may limit student’s online cheating.

PhD graduate of Capella University, an accredited online university, appointed Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Buffalo Division
Christopher M. Piehota received a PhD in Education from the online university

In this month’s issue, the featured article is the upcoming $10,000 Scholarship drawing from ScholarshipPoints.com.

A while back we posed the question in this blog – “Should government funding be available to for-profit colleges?” and we got some great feedback!

Paying for school is not easy task. Whether you attend an online school or traditional university, funding your education can be tough. While there seems to be a plethora of scholarships for traditional students, what about the non-traditional ones? Luckily, many online colleges offer their own scholarships. Plus, there are even outside scholarships for online students, you just have to do a little research.

There may be points in your academic career where you need to share large files or access documents on the go. This is where file-sharing and storage applications come in. While online classes do have spaces to upload files, sometimes you need a little extra space. Here are a few noteworthy sites and applications to help students manage their files.

This Saturday July 30, 2011, in sunny Los Angelos, sixty-two students will graduate from the nation’s leading fully online law school. Thirty-one professionals will proudly get their Juris Doctor degree, and thirty-one will earn their Executive Juris Doctor degree. Concord Law School of Kaplan University will proudly honor the class made up of doctors, engineers and business professionals at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

This sub-headline from the recent U.S. News blog post, Online Education May Change Higher Ed., sheds light on the growing maturity in online education programs.

The article asks experts, “Can online education be the rock that disturbs the placid waters of American higher education?” Interestingly it seems the feedback is both positive and negative to the increased enrollment at top online schools such as Kaplan University and the University of Phoenix. One expert, Louis Soares, director of postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress, says: “Much in the way cell phones disrupted the traditional landline-based model or discount retailers like Wal-Mart revolutionized the nation’s retail market, the for-profit sector—though a subject of intense scrutiny in recent years—has driven changes that could greatly affect the world of higher education.”