The world of nontraditional education is evolving much more quickly than the world of traditional education. It seems that every year the schools pioneering this movement are inventing new flavors of nontraditional degree attainment. More and more, you can find schools that mix asynchronous learning, live online classes, intensive classroom experience, and destination learning. Although you’ll need to shop around to find which mix is right for you, it’s important to understand the basic variations of what is available.

The number of students pursuing legitimate, fully accredited associate’s, Bachelor’s, and graduate degrees online is booming! These programs were initially confined to a few innovative schools, but more and more well-respected and long-established colleges are offering degrees that can be earned entirely online.

In my experience from both taking and teaching online classes at a variety of colleges and universities, these classes are every bit as rigorous as their classroom counterparts. The biggest reason for this is that active participation is required from every student during every week of the class (usually in the form of short posts on message boards). This requires students to both fully study the material, as well as actively engage their fellow classmates. In other words, there is no way to simply show up and hide in the back of the class for 16 weeks, like some students do in brick-and-mortar learning environments.

Online classes are like many other nontraditional settings in that students take only one or two classes at a time, focusing all their attention on these couple of classes. Often, due to the intensive nature of these classes, they are substantially shorter, ranging from 5 to 10 weeks.

Most of these classes are offered in an asynchronous format, meaning that there is no specific time the student has to be online, as long as she meets her minimum requirements for each week of the class. This means that there is usually not a live lecture or classroom discussion; instead, instructors and students exchange thoughts, ideas, and assignments by posting them to a secure online message board. However, more and more online classes are also being offered in a hybrid of flex format, where the students attend a few classroom sessions for each course, with the balance being done online.

I was in my early thirties when I went back to a brick-and-mortar school to get my Master’s degree and became a marriage and family therapist. As much as I would have liked to attend some of the traditional programs in my area, which took two to three years to complete, I had a family to raise and was interested in beginning my new career. All that led me to choose an accelerated program at National University, which had me in and out in 18 months.

In my accelerated program were all kinds of people with a similar need to get their schooling done sooner rather than later. Some of them were much older than me and had even less interest in wasting time before they began working in their new field. Others had a wedding coming up, were planning on moving to accommodate their or their spouse’s job, or only had enough savings to make it through a shorter period of schooling.

Regardless of the reason, if you need to get schooling done as soon as possible, an accelerated program might be right up your alley. From a “paying for college” point of view, cutting six months to two years out of your undergraduate or graduate education can save you big bucks on room and board and other annual expenses associated with a traditional college, even if the tuition remains the same.

If you’re considering an accelerated program, here are a few things to keep in mind:

One of the easiest times for students with other commitments to go back to school is during the evenings or on weekends. Classes offered in this nontraditional format greatly reduce the conflicts students have with their ability to earn a living or find childcare. The downside, of course, is that these programs tend to cut into relationship time, even if the classes are only one or two nights per week.

The biggest thing to consider with night and weekend programs is your ability to run your body and life at a more frantic pace for an extended period of time. Not having your weekends or evenings to recoup from the workday and to devote to family life can lead to a serious case of exhaustion, substandard grades, and rocky relationships.