In U.S, online universities are accredited by any of either national or regional accrediting agencies recognized by the Department of Education. Previously accreditation is the quality assurance of degree programs offered by those accredited online universities. But, today, all online universities, including diploma mills do claim accredited. The only different is "Good" & "Bad" accreditation, but the problem it really confusing and many students accidentally fall into a diploma mills trap due to their accreditation look good to them. So, how to differentiate the good from bad accreditation of these online universities?
It is important for you to know how and where to access the resources needed to make an informed decision about legitimate online degree program before you enroll into the program. When you plan to pursue your degree online, internet is the best place for you to search for your preference degree program offered by various online universities. Here is where diploma mills with a "fake" or "bad" accreditation set up their traps waiting you to fall into and hand over your money to exchange with their fake degree.
As a student and consumer, you must be careful and be smart enough to detect any potential signs of scam. Any online degree program offered by unfamiliar online university and if you are unable to confirm it is from legitimate accreditation, it better to eliminate from your list than taking the risk to enroll into the program. Online universities should provide their contact and address on their website, if not, you should straightly erase them from your list.
In searching for your preference program, you can request detail information from the university. In fact, information request is free of charge; you should utilize this service to get as much information as possible which can help you make your ultimate decision. Before you go and sign up the program, the most important thing that you cannot miss is check the online university that offers your prefer degree program with the accreditation database which is recognized by Department of Education. Go to ope.ed.gov/accreditation/search.php and type in the name of online university or go to CHEA.org and explorer it's "database and directories" to confirm whether the online university that offer your preference online degree program is listed in the database. If you can't the online university listed in these databases, don't take the risk to enroll into the program unless you can confirm its accreditation is from a recognized accrediting agency from other reliable resources.
There too many "fake" accreditation agencies that accrediting diploma mills to make them look like legitimate. Those accrediting agencies are naming their agency sound alike with those legitimate accrediting agency and having website address that is similar but different domain extension. If you did not see it carefully, you will easily think that the online universities are accredited by legitimate accreditation agencies, but in actual they are diploma mills. Hence, you must watch out the details when you do the checking.
People will make complaints if they found they have been cheated. So, a good resource to check for the filed complaints of any online universities is at Better Business Bureau (BBB.org). Other than that, try to look at what other people talk about the online degree program offered by your selected online university, you should get some useful information that can help in your decision making.
In Summary
You want your degree to worth its value. Hence, it is important that you enroll into a degree program offered by online university that is accredited by one of accrediting agencies that are recognized by Department of Education. Always get confirmation on accreditation information of the online university from reliable resources before you sign up the online degree program.
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