Ease of online education allows many to get degrees - PETER CAMERON, Citizens-Voice

When Maj. Chris Costello of the Pennsylvania National Guard received his fourth overseas deployment in a decade, this time to Kuwait in 2012, he decided to go back to school — in the Arabian Desert. Along with 20 other soldiers at Camp Buehring, about 10 miles south of the Iraqi border, Costello enrolled in an online MBA course through Marywood University, more than 6,000 miles away. Camels would roam the outskirts of the base. Most of the servicemen and -women lived in tents. And sandstorms sometimes knocked out the basewide Wi-Fi and sent some of the soldier-students scrambling through the stinging wind for a better connection in the recreation hall. As an officer, Costello had the benefit of living in an air-conditioned apartment on the base with his own Internet connection. http://citizensvoice.com/news/ease-of-online-education-allows-many-to-get-degrees-1.1687840