Currently, the University of North Carolina offers more than 90 different online degree programs. However, until recently, these programs weren’t organized into one working space. Now, UNC has developed an online school that they hopes competes with the University of Phoenix with slogans like “All of our online degrees come from universities your prospective employer has actually heard of.” According to The Charlotte Observer:

UNC system officials said their goal is to extend education to those who can’t get to a campus. Admissions standards for online programs will be the same as those for traditional students.

At East Carolina, which offers 60 online degrees, the majority of the MBA students are online. The students, who hail from 61 countries, are often older, more likely to be female and more likely to take the courses at a slower pace to balance work, family and school.

“We don’t force people to do things on our schedule,” said Rick Niswander, dean of ECU’s College of Business. “This notion that you’ve got to physically come to a place and that’s the only way you can learn, that’s baloney.”

He believes ECU’s online students get the same quality of education as those who participate in traditional classes, partly because faculty who teach online are also required to teach other classes in a face-to-face setting.

Online classes at UNC will initially be more expensive than campus-based classes due to the high cost of the online program’s start-up fees. However, administrators at UNC hope that tuition prices drop when the program becomes more established.