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OVERVIEW A Meaningful Higher Education Alternative for the Mature Learner. Honolulu University offers alternative independent study paths leading to academic degrees. Its programs are designed primarily for career professionals and other self-educated learners whose work and life experiences have given them knowledge and skills ordinarily taught in college degree programs. We, at Honolulu University, recognize that the educational needs of mid-career professionals and other mature learners are different from those of adolescents and young adults who are still preparing for careers and family and civic responsibilities. Mature learners are more often seeking advancement in careers for which they are already trained and credentialed, or seeking to improve the quality of their lives through career changes or new uses of leisure time provided by retirement. As a result, they possess a wealth of knowledge and skills at the time of enrollment which young learners usually lack. Most of this, however, has been acquired outside the classroom and has never been educationally credited or credentialed. Because of this, we evaluate all prior learning and, where it can be satisfactorily documented or tested, grant Honolulu University credit for it. This means that each learner enters the degree path at a point appropriate to his or her level of educational attainment. Further since the career and family responsibilities of mature learners are often incompatible with intensive on-campus classroom attendance, we utilize modern methods of distance learning to take education to the learner rather than requiring the learner to make on-campus attendance the center of his or her life. In this way, busy adults can complete their remaining degree requirements through independent study at home or on the job at times, and on a flexible schedule, which they select rather than being required to meet rigid class schedules and instructor's pre-determined office hours. Honolulu University makes full use of modern communications technologies such as cell phones, voice mail, fax, E-mail and the Internet to bring quality education to its students under the mentoring of highly qualified professional educators and to facilitate student-mentor interaction. In eliminating traditional campus and classroom facilities, it is able to pass on tremendous savings on tuition costs to its students. In giving them credit for prior un-credited learning it also passes on tremendous savings in instructional time. In this way, the busy adult can earn a needed college degree, representing quality education at an exceptionally low cost and in a much shorter time than would normally be required, for the corresponding degree earned through traditional on-campus study.
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HONOLULU UNIVERSITY
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IN SUMMARY: Honolulu University offers undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degrees, credit for career and life learning experiences, and allows the mature learner to control his/her own rate of learning at affordable costs without any classroom attendance.
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