How Online Learning Is Creating Diverse Entrants
Just 20 years ago, online learning wasn't taken very seriously. At best, it was seen as the modern equivalent of a mail-in correspondence course—convenient, maybe, but not quite legitimate. That perception has changed dramatically. Today, online education is not only accepted but widely respected, with many accredited programs offering the same level of rigor and recognition as traditional brick-and-mortar institutions.
The shift is largely thanks to the rise of digital collaboration tools. We now live in a world where it's completely normal to work, meet, and even provide healthcare without being in the same room. It turns out higher education—including fields like law and criminal justice—is no exception.
Now, students across the country are completing law enforcement and legal training programs either partially or entirely online. The result? A broader, more diverse candidate pool is entering fields that were once limited by geography, time, and access. In this article, we explore how online learning is reshaping the legal landscape in America, opening doors for new voices and changing who gets to sit at the table.
Can You Get A Law Degree Completely Online?
The answer to that question is yes, though only as of relatively recently. Online law degrees, like so many other digital education programs, really took off in 2020. Obviously, during the pandemic, many schools had one of two options: they could close down completely, suspend all of their students' degrees, and miss out on an entire year of revenue, or they could find a way to stay open using digital collaboration tools. Obviously, we know which option most universities chose.
Out of this chaos emerged online law degrees, something now offered by major universities all over the country. These programs are every bit as comprehensive as their brick-and-mortar alternatives. If you are interested in pursuing a virtual law degree, it is important that you do your due diligence. Make sure that the program is accredited, at a bare minimum. This simply means that the degree you earn from the university will legitimately allow you to work as a lawyer in the United States.
Don't stop there, though. Also, learn about the format. Are the lectures live or prerecorded? How much access do you have to your professors, or your classmates, or even past graduates? These resources are often more important than people assume they would be at brick-and-mortar universities. They can be replicated easily enough in an online format, but they aren't always.
Also, look at pass rates for the bar exam. How do people do in the real world after they've graduated from this online law program?
People still worry, even if less than they used to, that online schools have an element of shadiness or illegitimacy. Here's the thing. Any school, including those owned by presidents, can encounter accreditation problems. It happens much less frequently for brick-and-mortar institutions because the amount of effort it would take to create a fake university is almost more expansive than the requirements of simply developing a real one. All of that overhead—the buildings, the staffing, the dormitories—you don't go to hundreds of millions of dollars of trouble to offer a fake degree.
Online, it's a little different. The overhead requirements are very small, and the materials are all virtual. Because the barrier to dishonesty is lower, it's more important for students to do their due diligence. If you're interested in an online law degree, make sure to spend ample time doing research before you commit to a program.
Why Does Online Learning Diversify Access?
That's a bit of a nuanced question. In the next few headings, we'll take a look at why that is. One of the unifying concepts, though, is that online learning tends to open a door to college that is otherwise closed for people in low-income situations.
Obviously, that doesn't mean it's creating opportunities for any specific racial or religious group. However, in the United States, it's also impossible not to discuss racial disparity alongside economic disparity.
This is all to say that the benefits that are about to be described below are not specific to any group, except maybe those who currently feel excluded by the environment of higher education. Of course, many fall into that category, and for a wide variety of reasons.
Financial Accessibility
Online programs are not always more affordable than a brick-and-mortar alternative. It really depends on where you go. If, for example, you enroll in an online curriculum at Harvard, guess what? You aren't paying digital prices. You're paying Harvard prices—minus the expense of room and board.
On the other hand, if you find a digitally native university—one that doesn't have all of the incredible infrastructure and overhead of physical learning environments—then you might experience discounts on your tuition, sometimes as significant as 50–70%.
Obviously, it will also depend on what school you're comparing the prices to. Either way, online learning is typically the most affordable option, particularly when you optimize your research process with a priority on finances.
Don't forget also that you can still take advantage of grants and scholarships for online programs, which can further compound your savings. Many of the people who have been previously excluded from the higher learning process are also eligible for a wider pool of grants and scholarships.
If you fall into that category, be sure to spend two to three months researching scholarships and applying for as many as you can. It might sound like a lot of work now, but it could mean tens of thousands in savings down the road.
Online Law Degree Programs Tend To Be More Flexible
This is another consideration for which "it depends on the program you pick" is the operative phrase. Some online programs are every bit as rigid as physical ones in terms of scheduling and meeting times. You still convene regularly with your teacher and classmates—you just do it through Zoom instead of in a singular building.
Other programs allow you to work more at your own pace. In these cases, you might deal with prerecorded material. Instead of live lectures, you have a dense pool of conversations and reading materials to wade through. As long as you're hitting targeted benchmarks, you can work at your own pace.
This format is more inviting for people who have other considerations to balance. Maybe they have families of their own, or they are still pitching in to help with younger brothers or sisters back at home. In any case, they simply need to work a full-time job while going to school. In which case, the ability to work on their degrees in bits and pieces is very important to them. In these cases, online learning has the benefit of creating more options, which, for many people, is the same thing as saying more opportunities.
Cultural Components Have A Different Meaning
Here we wander into somewhat more abstract territory. Here's the thing: every university has a sort of culture. Sometimes it's one that can be easily recognized, or maybe even put into a few simply stated sentences on a brochure. In other cases, the university's identity is a little harder to pin down, but still palpable when you're living at the school.
Unfortunately, these cultures have tended to be racially and financially monolithic. In America, that means Caucasian students who are the offspring of college graduates—people who grew up in middle-class or above lifestyles and probably never even considered not going to college. If you don't fall into that category, you may feel uncomfortable or unwelcome at a traditional brick-and-mortar university where you're more sparsely represented.
Online, identity is less important because you're not entrenched in your school's community. You can focus more on the work itself.
How much does this really matter? The figures tell a complicated story. Universities haven't even really begun thinking this way until relatively recently. Now, the efforts of doing so operate in a legally dicey territory thanks to the current administration's position on DEI.
Nevertheless, it is true that marketing materials that feature inclusive language and depict a diverse student body tend to be perceived as more welcoming than those that do not. This at least indicates that prioritizing diversity and inclusion can, in fact, benefit a wider range of people without ever harming members of the majority group.
The extent to which physical universities can prioritize these considerations is currently questionable and in flux. Online universities, on the other hand, don't need to wrestle with the question as much. While culture and community can exist within virtual learning environments, for many students, it's just about getting the work done, accomplishing the degree, moving on to their eventual career. This framework may not directly address the racial and economic disparities that are currently playing out at traditional universities, but it at least offers an alternative for people who would like to sidestep the conversation entirely and just work on getting a degree.
