(FORTUNE Magazine) – DEAR ANNIE: Is it really possible to get a college degree over the Internet? I never went to college, opting instead to start my own business about ten years ago. Now that it's doing well, I'd like to get a formal education. But the nearest halfway decent college would be a two-hour commute each way. How can I choose a good Internet degree program? And what are the disadvantages, if any, of getting a degree this way? ASPIRING FRESHMAN

DEAR A.F.: It is indeed possible to get a degree on the Net from plenty of good schools, including Duke, Stanford, MIT, and about 250 others now operating "virtual universities." People who have studied this trend expect the online student body, now about 750,000 worldwide, to double by the year 2004. Some universities, like Duke's Fuqua School of Business, even offer MBAs over the Net. To get a good idea of what's available, take a look at the new book The Best Distance Learning Graduate Schools: Earning Your Degree Without Leaving Home (Princeton Review, $20). It includes detailed profiles of the top 195 schools offering virtual degrees and will tell you exactly how you need to proceed. Vicky Phillips, the book's co-author (with Cindy Yager), is CEO of Lifelong Learning, an adult-education consulting firm in Waterbury, Vt. You might also want to check out Lifelong Learning's website, www.geteducated.com, which posts a free monthly newsletter called the Virtual University Gazette.

Phillips says the chief drawback to Internet schooling is that it demands more self-discipline than a traditional in-person course of study: "If you're very busy and you're already having trouble finding the time to do everything you need to do, this might not work for you, because each course takes three to five hours per week of study and homework, and a high level of online participation. Having to show up in person for classes effectively builds structure into a traditional college program. Online, however, you must create the structure yourself. Many people are too busy or disorganized for this, so the dropout rate is high." If you're good at managing your time, however, you should have no problem.

As for whether an electronic sheepskin is as good as the "real" kind, says Phillips, "Some skeptics overlook the fact that learning is not a place; it's a process." Much current research bears her out. For instance, Thomas Russell, director of instructional telecommunications at North Carolina State, has analyzed studies from 248 separate sources on the effectiveness of online degree programs. His conclusion: People learn just as well at home with their PCs as they do by spending hours sitting in lecture halls--although (or perhaps because) they miss out on extracurricular perks like, say, fraternity parties.

DEAR ANNIE: A couple of months ago you quoted several high-powered businesswomen as saying that having a mentor (or more than one) has been crucial to their success. But how does one find a mentor? I work for a small company without a formal program, and I don't see anyone here I'd like to emulate. ADRIFT IN ATLANTA

DEAR ADRIFT: You happen to be in luck. Menttium, a consulting firm that helps companies start formal mentoring programs, recently launched an innovative project called Menttium 100, designed to help fast-track women hook up with mentors outside their own companies. So far this is happening in six U.S. cities, and Atlanta is one of them. (The other five are Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Minneapolis, and San Francisco.) For details, go to www.menttium.com or call 800-863-5127. In addition, some national industry and trade associations are making a real effort to help their members connect with mentors, especially in businesses that are traditional macho strongholds. The National Association of Home Builders, for example, in mid-January launched a mentoring project called Cornerstone, aimed at matching up experienced female construction executives with women just breaking into the field. Your industry may well have something similar going on. But let me throw out one other thought: Are you really intent on staying in your current job? Think about it. Why would you want to work in the kind of company where you see no higher-ups worth emulating?