Connected Despite Distance: Higher Education Degrees Online

Didn’t get the grades you needed to get into your course? Are you an employee wanting to study but can’t get time off work? Or are you living internationally and looking to study for an Australian degree?

At Open Universities Australia (OUA) you can graduate with a degree from an Australian university as if you had studied on-campus. OUA offers 900 units and 60 qualifications at vocational, undergraduate and postgraduate levels from 15 leading universities and other tertiary providers in Australia through online and distance education.

OUA has become Australia’s largest online and distance university education service provider as more and more students discover the convenience and flexibility that it offers.

Units offered by OUA are conducted primarily online so students can study in their own time and work around other jobs and personal commitments. These qualifications are open entry, so acceptance is guaranteed even if students don’t get the academic grades required to apply directly to the university.

What about the cost? All Australians are entitled to FEE-HELP, the Commonwealth scheme which is an interest-free government loan for up to $83 313 over a student’s lifetime. As students, you can repay the loan through the taxation system once your income exceeds the minimum threshold.

When you study by distance, you will have plenty of academic support from OUA and the hosting university. OUA is committed to assisting students overcome the traditional barriers to university education.

‘We set up a support network to compensate for the face-to-face interaction that people studying by distance miss out on. OUA’s support staff deal with everything that we offer and there are also support staff at each particular university that just handle OUA students’, says OUA Student Advisor Blake Roberts.

And studying by distance doesn’t mean you miss out on interaction with other students.

‘There are general discussion boards on the OUA website and also boards for most individual subjects, and even live messaging, so you can have direct contact with other students,’ says Roberts.