A Thousand Free Online Courses Now Available for Students Whose Studies Have Been Interrupted by Hurricane Katrina; UMassOnline Joins Sloan Consortium to Assist Displaced Students.

SHREWSBURY, Mass. -- UMassOnline, The University of Massachusetts online education division, joins The Sloan Consortium, an international association of colleges and universities committed to quality online education, in offering students whose studies have been interrupted by Hurricane Katrina an opportunity to continue their education tuition-free.

UMassOnline will deliver twenty online courses from four UMass campuses: Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, and Lowell. Courses range from Introduction to Music to Sociology of the Law. "We are proud to join Sloan in this laudable effort to help students affected by the hurricane get back on track," states UMassOnline CEO David Gray. "Offering students access to courses online enables them to continue their studies regardless of their location. We hope our participation helps displaced students in some small way," Gray concluded.

According to Sloan, more than 1,000 students have already requested courses for this special 8-week accelerated semester, beginning October 10, by signing up at www.SloanSemester.org. "There are now more than 1,000 courses available for students to choose from," said Frank Mayadas, Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "There are more than 200 institutions, from marquee name universities to community colleges who are waiving tuition and fees." All courses carry degree credit from regionally accredited colleges and universities.

Mayadas says that support is also being offered to institutions who are not directly impacted by the hurricane, but that are struggling to meet the needs of students who have relocated to their campuses. "If a student can't get a full load or if their host doesn't offer a specific course, Sloan Semester is a great resource."

About UMassOnline

UMassOnline, the University of Massachusetts' system online education consortium, delivers accredited, online programs from UMass Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell and UMass Medical School via interactive, Web-based learning systems. Online programs are closely coupled with their face-to-face counterparts enabling UMassOnline to offer fully accredited (NEASC) and nationally-recognized programs online. Today, UMassOnline delivers 52 graduate, undergraduate and non-credit degrees and certificates, as well as 300 online courses annually, to diverse, geographically disparate learners. Online programs span the broad range of academic disciplines that UMass is known for: education, IT, nursing, public health, management, criminal justice, hospitality and tourism, and the liberal arts. Introduced in early 2001 by the University President and Board of Trustees to serve community educational needs and increase access to a UMass education, UMassOnline supported more than 17,500 enrollments and generated $16.5 million in revenue in 2005

The Sloan Consortium (www.sloan-c.org) is the nation's largest association of institutions and organizations committed to quality online education and administered through Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and Babson College. Its mission is to help learning organizations continually improve quality, scale, and breadth according to their own distinctive missions, so that education will become a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines.