More schools connect with students via internet

It's often cheaper, and certainly more convenient, but you might wonder whether you get what you pay for with an online MBA.

A few top-flight business schools have entered the online world, bringing cachet to the field. But skeptics abound. Access to the best professors and the bonds formed with B-school peers are key elements missing online, they argue.

For-profit schools including DeVry University's Keller Graduate School of Management and the University of Phoenix offer online MBA programs. The University of Phoenix is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools &
Programs, and DeVry is in candidacy for that accreditation, said Steve Par-scale, the organization's director of accreditation. Neither school is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, which has accredited only about half of Illinois business programs..

Despite the "cachet gap" with the elite schools, Michael Kaley, territory vice president for University of Phoenix, said the online learning format is booming and that it may be brick-and-mortar schools playing catch-up in the end.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Keenan-Finagler Business School last year launched MBA@UNC, an online program touted as having "the same world-class faculty, rigorous curriculum and top-caliber student community of our on-campus programs."