**5.2 Student participants**

In addition to Len and Juanita, four other students participated in the study.

*Sarah* is a 44-year old single white female. She attended a California community college to study nursing after high school, but left a semester before graduating because she decided she didn't like it. She continued her full-time job at Montgomery Wards after leaving school

*Program Director.* Paula, a white female in her early fifties, is the program director of Southwestern ESO. She is married with a young daughter. Her introduction to online learning began when her daughter was three-years old. At the time, she was an instructor at a college in a town about forty minutes from her home. Her eldest son, who taught online at the time, encouraged her to try the new form of teaching because it would eliminate her commuting time and give her some flexibility in her teaching. Paula holds a doctorate in

*Program Assistant Director.* Nathan, a Native American male in his early thirties, serves as the assistant director of Southwestern ESO. He's working on a graduate degree in higher education administration. He was introduced to online learning through his work at

*Program Tutor and Student.* Juanita, a 29-year old Hispanic female, is a military spouse with a young daughter. She holds associate degrees in general studies with an emphasis in business administration and in liberal arts. Both degrees were attained at a New Mexico community college while she was working full-time as a bank teller, and both included online courses. She is now a full-time advisor for Southwestern ESO. Her major job functions include performing client intake and providing translation services to program staff and students. She also does all the data processing. Prior to becoming an advisor, she served the organization as a student worker for two years. Before she enrolled in her first online class her computer and Internet experience consisted of playing games on her home computer, which had Internet access. She considered her familiarity with the computer and the Internet as "basic." She is working on her bachelor's degree through on online program

*Program Tutor and Student.* Len, a 31-year-old Native American male who resides on a reservation about 50 miles from the Southwestern ESO main office, is a full-time student and part-time student worker for the ESO. His primary work location is an office on the reservation, which works well for him since he is the primary caretaker for his 70-year-old mother with whom he resides. He's spent one year in college in Utah and one year in Nevada before dropping out for 8-9 years. Now he is back to finish his degree. His major is business administration with an emphasis in management information systems because he loves working with computers. After he gets his degree, he wants to work on the reservation as the Management Information Systems (MIS) specialist. Presently, that work is handled by companies 50 miles away whose services are expensive and not very timely. He has had a home computer and Internet access for about three years, but he does most of his schoolwork in his office on the reservation. Len has taken a number of online courses at Southwestern County Community College and is now taking online and on-campus courses

In addition to Len and Juanita, four other students participated in the study.

*Sarah* is a 44-year old single white female. She attended a California community college to study nursing after high school, but left a semester before graduating because she decided she didn't like it. She continued her full-time job at Montgomery Wards after leaving school

**Program Staff Participants** 

history.

Southwestern ESO.

at an out-of-state midwestern college.

at Southwestern Flagship University.

**5.2 Student participants** 

and work there until Wards closed. For the last eleven years, she has worked as a telephone customer service for the same company. She does not like her work so she is going back to school to prepare for a job that will take her into retirement. She wants to study psychology and start a private practice. She has dial-up Internet access at home and her Internet experience consists mostly of conducting transactions on eBay.

*Omar* is a 38-year old career military (17 years in) Black male. He has an associate degree in personnel administration and munitions systems from the Air Force. He is a noncommissioned officer (NCO) working in personnel systems, where he maintains training records of Air Force personnel. After retiring from the service in three years, he knows he will need a second career and wants to become a teacher and maybe get into radio. While he knows a lot, he feels he needs the credential of a degree to enable him to get a "good paying job" when he gets out. He wants to have that degree in hand when he retires. He has dial-up service at home. His wife is taking online classes through the University of Phoenix.

*Martha* is a Caucasian female senior citizen, who refused to give her age because people "make assumptions when they learn your age." She retired to her current state 12 years ago with her husband of 40 years after living in California for more than 30 years. Her husband died five years ago leaving her alone and confused. After about two years of grieving, she decided, "He ain't comin' back. And so, I had to get on with my life." She decided to go to school to learn Word and Excel "just to keep myself busy," but taking a class turned into getting a degree when one of her teachers encouraged her to take a Math class. She's almost finished with a database programming degree at the community college and has started a degree in business at the local university. Before she graduates, she would like to get a job at the university so that she can begin working her way through the system to a full-time permanent position in the computer department as a database person. She is concerned about age discrimination. Before she started school she owned a Mac, but purchased a PC recently because "that's what all the school people were using." She has cable Internet service and goes online when she needs information, but she is not "sitting there, clicking all the time."

*Paul* is a 40-year old Caucasian male. He graduated high school in 1982 and spent about two years in a California community college in 1991-92, where he left before attaining any credential. In Spring 2003, he decided to quit his full-time job, take a part-time job (20 hours/week) and go back to school full-time. He is in a nuclear medicine program and plans to go into radiation therapy. His primary mode of Internet access is cable modem service for \$29/month, including a \$10/month discount offered by the community college.

*Wendy* is a 28-year-old Caucasian female. She graduated from a Washington college in 1997 with a degree in speech communications with a minor in technology. Life situations brought her to her current state where she "fell into social work" by taking a job as a resource manager and case worker at a non-profit organization that helps the working poor get the basic education they need in order to get those higher paying jobs that have opportunities for advancement. Because she enjoys her work so much, she decided to pursue a master's in social work. After she gets her MSW, she wants to pursue a career in social work administration where she can shape social policy at the national and state level. She is now taking her first online class. She does not have a home computer, nor does she have Internet access, but she has both at her parents' home and at her job.

and a decision is made about whether to pursue online options. Second, the program provides an introductory computer course to get students comfortable with using a

In addition, the participants were provided additional information about online learning

Four of the participants (Juanita, Wendy, Paul and Len) were financing their study with a combination of grants and loans. Martha, a senior citizen, was exempt from tuition and fees. Omar, an army man, was eligible for tuition assistance and the GI bill. Sarah was using her company's tuition assistance plan for her core courses. However, she will need loans when she starts taking courses in her major area, because the courses she's chosen are not covered by her employer. Interestingly, the grant/loan participants found that grants could fully support their community college coursework, while loans needed to be added to continue study at the four-year school because of the difference in tuition and fees. These loan amounts escalated for participants who were unable to get the online coursework they needed to complete the four-year degree at an in-state school. These students found themselves enrolling in out-of-state schools and paying out-of-state fees or enrolling in

expensive, for-profit schools like the University of Phoenix and Education Direct.

clients to obtain postsecondary education. He explained:

don't like to see that for our low-income students.

Nathan was concerned about the financial burden associated with attendance at out-of-state and for-profit institutions, but he had to balance those concerns with the needs of ESO

Juanita, who wanted to obtain a bachelor's degree, could not find an appropriate online program at Southwestern Flagship University or any other state school. Though concerned about the financial burden she would incur by attending an online program at an out-of-state

I personally don't limit our students from considering the University of Phoenix if they're able to pay for it. That's the big, big questions there. I think it's a good alternative if they're able to do that, especially the ones who are working full-time and have a family. And that's exactly who the University of Phoenix caters to. . .So we don't usually track our students in that direction unless they have some type of financial aid, or are able to pay for it, because they're going to be looking at a lot of loan debt. . .We

The community college where I came from, they actually had [a face-to-face] orientation, and actually when you enroll for an online class, you have to attend a [a 30-minute] orientation class. It was in a classroom setting. And everyone that was enrolled for an online class had to attend. And sit through their orientation on how you get on their blackboard, how you contact the instructor, how the syllabus and everything was located in there. And so, that was a requirement in order to go through with the online class. The other participants described online sessions completed in their homes. For Paul, it was "a virtual tour thing that you can do on the computer," while Martha "went into WebCT. . .and just went over a few of the guidelines on how to access your assignments, how to look

computer prior to enrollment in any online course.

up different areas."

**6.3 Financing** 

after enrolling in an online course. According to Juanita,
