How good is online qualification at university of essex?

So.. I was thinking about doing an online course at university of essex, which is considered very good university in the UK. I know they are not a part of the Russell Group, but their university is still good and not that expensive, as it is only 18,000 for 4 years, that's only about 4,000 a year. My question is, are these degrees as good as those gained in full time education? I'd rather go for distance learning since its a bit cheaper, I could get myself a job and pay for the university with my own money.

The University of Essex Online has nothing to do with the brick uni. They just sold their trademark to a corporation called Kaplan Training. They don't share staff or anything.
Imagine doing something like nanodegree with Udacity or Coursera just with the syllabus from 2005, but for 5x as much

In reality, if your MSc can be done online, you probably don't need it.

Yes I am fully aware it's Kaplan.

You do realise how many people do their masters levels qualifications online? Both mine and the OPs question was on any previous or current students experiences not the validity of online qualifications overall at masters level.

Why are you under the impression that you need one in the first place? What exactly are you after? I know someone doing their law degree. it's quite obvious that they are heavily into cutting down costs, the whole thing looks very cheap, the "just enough to keep accreditation" type of attitude. Also if you enjoy waiting for videos to load, you will love Kaplan.
I don't believe that masters would be of better quality.

It is unfortunately a requirement for career progression and/or phd funding although my recent proposal was accepted my funding was not. The feedback and advice was to either reapply with a further more relevant qualification or to continue as I am. I am not overly happy with where I am and feel I have more to offer hence the distance masters.

I'm also a little older with work experience in this area but with family/commitments I will struggle to pay for a brick university and keep up with work, I don't want to half arse work or study. Work has attempted to seek funding on my behalf and failed.
But thank you for mentioning your freind as I took your post the wrong way. Your freind and you have very much the same impression I have got through communication with them despite their oddly good TEF standard etc. I guess I need to knock them off my list it did seem a little too good to be true.

Your generalization that most online masters are from degree mills is way off the mark. Like most things, you can always find those of poor quality. But to assert what you did about online degree mills fails to recognize that virtually every one of the top 200 Times-ranked universities in the world offer a full range of online masters degrees. In the UK Oxford, UCL, Kings College, Imperial, Durham, Manchester Birminghan, Leeds , and dozens of others including Essex, which is AMBA accredited, offer online masters degrees. In the U.S. such top institutions as Harvard, Boston College, Penn State, Arizona State, Purdue, U Texas, U North Carolina, U Washington...the list goes on and on, all offer online masters in dozens of different programs. So next time, before you shoot from the hip, know what your talking about.

Hi, might you have an idea which Online University is good for a BSc or BA in psychology? I am looking into Arden, but it seems Essex is more affordable. However I don't want to get caught up in a bad teaching system. If I can get a degree in the USA as well, I would be content.