Students from across North America will be able to graduate from

the College of Engineering at Iowa State without ever attending a

single class on campus.

The ISU Engineering Distance Education program allows

students to enroll in engineering courses without ever having to

leave home.

The EDE program has students enrolled in fall 2001 courses from

locations as far away as Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and

Puerto Rico.

Rebecca Kellogg, program manager of EDE, said she expects a

record 500 student enrollments this year.

Kellogg said the EDE program allows for the pursuit of an

engineering degree or further education in the engineering field

without any interruption to a person’s life.

Iowa State has been a pioneer in the distance education field,

beginning in the late 1930s with telephone and correspondence

courses, she said. Kellogg said as a land grant university, Iowa

State has an extension and outreach mission to help people

further their education.

“It lets people out in the workforce pursue their bachelor’s degree,

and also lets engineers pursue their master’s degree, without

having to leave their jobs or lives,” Kellogg said. “Sometimes, it is

just not feasible to leave a job to come back to school.”

Kellogg said the EDE program at Iowa State is just one of more

than 50 technical programs at different universities offered as

distance education in the United States. Iowa State is involved in

distance education through the National Technological University.

The NTU is a consortium of universities with technical programs,

Kellogg said. It allows students to choose courses and degrees

from any of the affiliated universities.

Ted Okiishi, associate dean for research and outreach in the

College of Engineering, said the EDE program allows students to

take classes by a variety of methods, ranging in expense and

interactivity.

“We have entire degree programs that are offered at a distance,”

Okiishi said. “In addition to degree programs, we also have

courses for credit offered online.”

Students in the EDE program can take courses through the use of

VHS video or text-based basic Web sites. They are able to take the

courses on their own time, e-mailing questions to the professors.

Through the use of the Iowa Communication Network, or ICN, and

by two-way video conferences, students are able to view the class

as it is happening and can ask questions of the professors during

an actual class meeting. However, by using Web CT – an online

learning tool designed to enhance communications – and

streaming video via the Internet, the distance student is able to

work either way.

Distance students pay in-state tuition. Graduate students pay $206

per credit hour, and undergraduate students pay $130 per credit

hour.

On top of tuition, distance students pay a delivery and service fee

for their courses of $120 per credit hour for graduate students and

$160 per credit hour for undergraduates.

“[The fee] goes to support not only the direct cost of shipping, but

also to support the cost of having this service available to the

students,” Kellogg said.

A distance student will pay around $1,000 per three-credit course,

Kellogg said.

She said the more interactive method the student chooses, the

more expensive the course will be.

Currently, Iowa State offers five degree programs through EDE.

Electrical engineering is the only field offered through EDE for a

bachelor’s degree. Four masters degree programs in electrical

engineering, computer engineering, mechanical engineering and

systems engineering are offered. The university also is beginning

work to offer a masters degree in information assurance.

Including the EDE program, the College of Engineering at Iowa

State now is the ninth-largest in the country in enrollment.