| |
Online Degrees |
|
| |
Level of Degrees |
|
| |
Undergraduate,
Masters,
Doctorals, MBA,
Associate
Certificate,
College
Courses, High
School |
|
| |
|
|
| |
Subject of Studies |
|
| |
Business, Engineering,
Technology (IT),
Education,
Health &
Medical, Law
& Criminal Justice, Science,
Social Science. |
|
| |
View
all subjects and degrees... |
|
| |
 |
|
| |
Online Courses |
|
| |
Career
and Vocational
Child
Psychology, Medical
Assistant, Interior
Design, Gunsmithing,
Travel
View
all categories . . .
Business
Skills
Accounting,
Leadership
Training, Marketing,
Management,
Team
Building
View all
categories . . .
Continuing
Education
Accounting
CPE, Nursing
CEU, Dietitians
Paralegal CPE, Social
Work CEU
View
all categories . . .
Online
Training
Web
Design, Graphic
Design, IT
Training, Networking,
Technical
Writing, CSS
View all
categories . . .
Personal
Development
Writing,
Sports,
Nutrition,
Cooking
Classes
View
all categories . . .
Language
& Other Courses
Spanish,
Chinese,
French,
Portuguese,
Italian,
Hebrew,
Latin,
TEFL, GRE,
GMAT,
TOEFL.
View all
categories . . . |
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
View all Online
Schools... |
|
| |
|
|
| |
Educational
Articles |
|
| |
Article Index,
Recent
Articles |
|
| |
View all Articles... |
|
| |
|
|
| |
Visit
Our Scholarships Blog |
|
| |
Blog Index, Blog
of Scholarships |
|
| |
View Blog Now... |
|
| |
|
|
|
| Getting
the Best Online College Education |
 |
The importance of accreditation and online education cannot be underestimated. Understanding why accreditation is important will help you when looking for an online college degree program
|
|
| Getting the
Best Online College Education |
While there is always a lot of debate
as to whether an online college education is as good as a traditional
college education, the answer is really very simple; there are
good institutions that offer an online college education and
there are bad establishments that offer an online college education.
The same holds true for traditional college degree programs.
So, just as when you are looking for an offline course, you
need to do the same kind of your research when you are looking
for the best place to pursue an online college education.
Of course, you normally won't care where the college is located
unless part of the online program involves off-line meetings.
Usually the physical location just doesn't matter. However,
a lot of the other points that you would consider before attending
a traditional offline college or university should also be considered
before you enroll with any organization offering an online college
education.
The growth in the numbers of people pursuing an online college
education has led to increased competition among institutions
to attract students. The best way to assess the credibility
of a site advertising that they have the best online college
education is to ask about the accreditation of its courses.
Accreditation means that some governing body for a particular
field has endorsed the course. This can be extremely important
in helping you to decide who to trust with your online college
education. If a course is not accredited then you need to find
out why.
There may be a number of courses that have not yet received
accreditation from an appropriate association or governing body
but still offer a good online college education. For example,
the establishment may have applied for accreditation but not
yet been assessed. In that case you can actually check with
the particular accrediting agency to be certain that they actually
are in the process of assessing the application for accreditation.
Another reason may be that there is no appropriate accrediting
body for a course. This is less likely but, nevertheless, could
be a valid reason and doesn't necessarily indicate that the
course offered is not going to be worth taking to advance your
online college education.
If, however, you find that the online college education institution
has been refused accreditation, then they are likely to try
to tell you that accreditation is not important. And that simply
isn't true. An online college education from a non-accredited
institution is not going to be viewed as positively as one from
an accredited establishment. Choose where you go to get your
online college education with care to ensure that you are not
wasting your time and money by having a nearly worthless qualification.
Another factor related to accreditation has to do with professions
requiring some form of governmental license or certification.
You need to be certain that any college degree or other course
certification will be acceptable to whatever licensing body
has authority over the profession in the location you live and
work in. For example, a course which is accepted in one state,
may not be accepted by the authorities in another state.
You need to think of the online college education arena as a
marketplace. You are the consumer and as in any marketplace,
you need to check the quality of the product and the 'merchant'
according to the circumstances that apply to you and your area
of study. While this may seem like a lot of work at times, it
is your future, your time and your money that are involved.
So take a little extra time and verify the value of any online
college program (or any type of online learning) that you are
considering.
Copyright 2005 Richard Keir
As a writer and educator, both online and offline, Richard strongly
supports the value of quality online educational programs in
increasing access to education in today's hectic world. Learn
more about online college programs: http://online-learning.blgz.info/
and online learning http://learning.werkz.org/ at these sites.
|
| Article
Index | Home |
| |
|
