Roy Thurston enrolled in college right after high school, but struggled with direction and ended up dropping out after a few years. Decades later, he got a second chance to finish what he’d started, earning an online degree in quality management from the University of Minnesota Crookston in 2019. "As I got older, getting a degree became an important personal goal for me,” says Thurston, a quality manager at New Flyer, the largest transit bus manufacturer in North America.
Though he lives and works near the Crookston campus, he says the online program gave him the flexibility he needed to earn a degree while working full-time. “My job is very demanding, so I couldn’t have done this if I had to go to on-campus classes,” he says.
Thurston is one of approximately 1,000 students who enroll in the University of Minnesota Crookston's 16 online degree programs (there are also 13 minors and seven certificate programs online) each year. In 2019, 57 percent of UMC students pursuing a degree were doing it online instead of on campus.
Most of them are older adults who didn’t earn a degree when they were younger. “Perhaps their studies were interrupted by medical condition or their financial situation changed,” says Chancellor Mary Holz-Clause. “There are so many things that can interrupt progress toward attaining a degree.”
In fall 2019, 80 percent of online degree-seeking students at U of M Crookston were 25 or older. Almost 70 percent are from Minnesota, and the rest hail from around the nation—and the world. They bring their life and work experiences to class with them, Holz-Clause says, enriching the discussions and assignments.
The Crookston campus, known as Laptop U, began delivering classes online in 1993—one of the first in the nation to do so. “It’s a great stereotype buster for us as a campus,” says John Hoffman, vice chancellor for academic and student affairs. “Sometimes folks think of Crookston as the ag college up there in northwest Minnesota, but of the five campuses in the U of M system, this was the one that really became the leader in online learning.”
Learn more about the University of Minnesota Crookston's online degree program and watch video testimonials from students.
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