No, I don't think online classes are free. Many of them are a lot cheaper, though, especially when you compare them to living on-campus. My guess is that this girl lived at home while taking her classes, which probably saved her family a lot of money. Not only that, but the expense of travelling back and forth for school breaks (driving and/or flying)....everything adds up. A quick search of the internet and I found a brick-and-mortar university in PA that offers online Bachelor's Degrees for $7,000 per year vs $24,000 (at the same school) to actually live there and walk into school to take your classes. That's a huge chunk of change to most people. From Oregon, I could earn a Bachelor's Degree from that school without ever setting foot in Pennsylvania. That's amazing to me....in a good way.

Times are changing. With the internet we have more ways to communicate and learn than ever before. One way isn't better than the other, in my opinion. Anybody with an internet connection has access to tons of FREE classes from real universities--all you need is the desire to learn. It sounds like the girl from this story has that desire, and that's what makes her miles ahead of many college graduates.

I think the haters are just mad because someone has found a way around the inane system most people have to go through. She didn't have to spend the extra tens of thousands of dollars to get her degree. Congrats to her! By the way, you DO have to be able to communicate when taking online classes, through email and over video chat. (I don't remember a lot of deep conversations with my fellow college students at my brick-and-mortar college though. Most of the people I met were on automatic pilot to get that piece of paper.)