I am currently a M.Ed. student & have completed 2/3s of the program. I am pretty much taking my own time with only 1 course at any one time, & 4 courses per year.
The pros:
– low cost. The whole degree program will cost me <USD4k.
– can be done at my own pace & time
– provides a structured way to learn (rather than ad-hoc online courses which I tend to discontinue after a few sessions)
– courses are facilitated by volunteer faculty.
The cons:
– quality of fellow classmates' work may not be up to scratch. Unfortunately I see a lot of
– depends a lot on peer assessment, which may not be done properly by all classmates (related to earlier point)
– every course has a group work component, & you can't do much about it if a member plays dead.