How To Avoid Wasting Money on Online Degree Scams

By: David Dunlap

For every person hoping to achieve success and get an online education, there are many more companies and people trying to scam unsuspecting individuals. It goes without saying that these should be avoided at all cost. Of course, the best approach to avoiding online degree scams is to know your product before you buy.

Prospective online students should be on the lookout for things inside the degree offer that tout the benefits of distance learning, but provide little in the way of support for the student. A degree based on life experience alone may often not be worth the paper it is printed on. This can often be very hard for a "graduate" of diploma mills to understand, but most human resource managers would give you a blank stare if you mentioned this as a competitive qualification for employment.

A "money back guarantee" can mean nothing if the small legalese boilerplate says that only in extreme circumstances can you actually get your money back. If the work materials are out of date, poorly written, or the grading standards too harsh or unfair, to whom might you complain? The job market right now is extremely competitive. Gaining any kind of degree or credential that has questionable legitimacy can reduce your chances of being hired, promoted or recognized in your respective field.

Think about what you would do if your money was charged or your check for the "degree" cashed, and you received no diploma, certificate, or any documentation at all showing educational progress. Can you afford to sue a website or a company? Ask yourself before you enroll in any online program if there is not a more legitimate and trustworthy institution available. Why would you want to furnish identity information such as your name, address and telephone number (and IP address), credit, and social security data to strangers over the Internet anyway? Can you hire an attorney to travel to the place where the business is headquartered? Do you have a fine understanding of the legalities of suing a company that accepts money for 7-day high school equivalency courses? It’s likely they are ten steps ahead of you for any legal recourse.

Shop around and see why the "big" online schools near you don’t offer the same program, or call them and ask why. Often a look at the fine print will tell the story. Are there foreign or offshore company names, paragraph after paragraph of disclaimers, unlisted faculty, or minute clauses that state that the work being paid for is only coaching or instruction toward the goal of a degree and cannot be termed education? In order to prove you passed a course with a suspect, or possibly fraudulent, online company, could you produce screenshots of every question you answered correctly? Could you prove that these programs came from the company listed on your credit card? If you don’t receive a quality teaching experience, have you really achieved anything more than a piece of paper?

If you feel there is an online service you want to check, research the "school" or find discussion boards that tell about other student’s experiences. Do not trust testimonials from that site. Contact your state board of education or the county education offices where that school claims to be located. Ask the personnel there if they know of the school or have processed any inquiries or complaints. Keep in mind that a high school diploma obtained in another state may be legal there, but not where you live or work.

The worst thing about education scams is they injure the very people who are most deserving of help; the ones who are trying to better themselves and do what’s needed to get ahead. It is recommended that students act in their own defense first and contact local public school counseling offices or boards of education for advice first.

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How To Choose An Online Accredited Degree Program

By Steadman Issenburg

With the rapid proliferation of both online and off line schools that offer advanced degree programs, it is more important than ever that you choose a fully accredited school in order to get the best education possible. So let's discuss what accreditation is, how you benefit from it, and how you can use it to select the best online schools and degree programs.

First of all, there's a need to understand the accreditation process. For a school to be legitimately accredited means that it has been validated by a peer review process and found to be providing a high quality education according to accepted established educational standards. In other countries, schools are often accredited by some form of government agency. However in the US, these evaluations are made by private accrediting agencies instead, many of which are regional in nature.

So when you are comparing online degree programs, accreditation is perhaps the first and foremost issue that you want to address. For an online college or university to be accredited means that you will have all the tools at your disposal that are necessary to help you get a high quality education in the field that you are pursuing. And since the accreditation is awarded according to established educational standards, if you have to transfer from that school to another accredited school later on, all of the credits that you have earned up to that point should be able to transfer along with you without your having to repeat courses that you have already covered.

So why is accreditation so important? Simply put, there are a lot of generally worthless college degree scams commonly known as diploma mills set up to take students hard earned money and give them very little quality education in return. Even though you may get an online degree from one of these schools that are not accredited, it will most likely do you very little good when it comes time to try to get employment in that particular field as the quality of the education that you have received cannot be verified or validated.

So obviously then, it's vital to make sure that any online degree program that you consider is a fully accredited school that offers a high quality education in the field of your pursuit. But how do you make sure that is an accredited school? Perhaps the easiest and quickest way to verify accreditation for any particular school is to go to the web site for the Council for Higher Education Accreditation or CHEA. This agency is not affiliated with the government, but helps coordinate research on accreditation issues. So all you have to do is enter the name of the school that you wish to research and see if it comes up as having been accredited by a reliable accrediting agency. If a school or online degree program is found to not be accredited by a reliable agency, it's usually best to avoid it at all costs.

Hopefully the information in this article will help you understand how imported accreditation is in the education field, and how you can protect yourself by making sure that the online college or university that you choose is fully accredited and validated.

Steadman Issenburg writes on many consumer related topics including education. You can find online accredited degree programs and accredited distance learning programs and more by visiting our education website.

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Tips for Receiving Online Accredited Degrees

By: John Higginbotham

While a great many individuals dream of getting a degree, it is sometimes seemingly impossible to interrupt your career and or family life to go back to school. Many of us, of course, have jobs and find that the traditional schedules offered by community colleges and universities often make it impossible for us to juggle our schedules to attend. Or perhaps we have family members, kids more than likely, that we simply must dedicate our time to. These are the very things that are making online college courses ever so more attractive. And don't think for a second that the colleges and universities across the country aren't recognizing this and responding in kind.

A great alternative for the person who desires to attend college classes is to go the route of an online accredited degree. This is a degree from a college or university with accreditation, which means it meets the state's guidelines and is deemed to be every bit as credible as a brick-and-mortar earned degree.

The programs offered in the form of online degrees very greatly. It is advised that anyone pursuing this avenue of higher learning do their homework and learn as much as they possibly can before making their decision as to which classes to pursue. There is ample information to be had, so by all means request as much as you feel is necessary to obtain the information that you're after. We must remember that there are so many degrees offered through the online accreditation process that your choices are becoming ever more diversified. Degree levels include Associates, Bachelors, Masters and Doctorates.

The advantages to getting an online degree are virtually endless. You do not have to commute and there is no need to schedule classes and reshuffle your life around someone else's schedule. The only thing you really have to do is be on yourself to stay disciplined to get your work done.

I will again repeat what I said earlier because of its great importance. It is absolutely paramount that you make sure that the degree that you are pursuing and the classes that you are taking are indeed accredited. There's nothing worse than wasting your time and money taking classes that you will not get credit for, unless of course you are doing it for your own edification.

If you were ever considering getting a degree to improve your chances of landing a job, or getting paid more, or even to perhaps change careers completely, now is the time to do it. The future is promised to no one and now with the advantages of online accredited degrees, there really is no excuse for not pursuing these wonderful opportunities. Most of these online classes are delivered by way of computer. Don't be intimidated by this if you are not computer savvy. A simple computer and Internet connection will be more than enough to get you through. So now you know. No excuses, get out there and get it done.

John Higginbotham has been on the internet for over 6 years and has extensive knowledge on internet marketing as well as obtaining an online education. You may visit his website at http://www.degree-online.info/.

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