Online Degree Programs: How Can You Choose?
Online degrees are especially convenient for those who want to back to college or work while they are in school. If you’ve decided you want to get an online degree, now comes the difficult task of choosing which program is right for you. With a smattering of commercials and advertisements for every online college possible, how on earth are you supposed to choose the right one?
It can be somewhat intimidating choosing a program; just googling “online colleges” pulls up 8,330,000 results! Here are a few tips to help you shuffle through all those results and pick the one for you:
- Accreditation: The most important factor to consider when choosing a school is whether the school is accredited. In order to award degrees to students, colleges are required to earn accreditation. It’s difficult to figure out if a school is accredited merely because some online programs in particular claim to be accredited but are actually fraudulent. Choosing a school that isn’t accredited can be very troublesome in the future because most employers will not accept a degree from an unaccredited school. Also, credits from non-accredited schools cannot be transferred to other universities. In order to find out whether a school is accredited, contact your state’s Department of Higher Education. The last thing you want to do is waste time, money and effort on a useless degree.
- Regional vs. National Accreditation: Once you determine that the schools are in fact accredited, then you have to find out whether they are regionally or nationally accredited. Is your head hurting yet? There are benefits to both, but make sure you know which one is best for you. This post should help.
- Find the One For You: Once you have determined which schools are accredited, it is only a question of choosing the right program for you. It’s likely that you have a general idea of what degree you are looking for and that can narrow the field down quite a bit. However, there are a few other factors to consider when choosing a program.
- Instructors: Most important, is the qualification of the instructors. It is important to check their credentials and determine whether they will be available if you have questions or problems arise.
- Student Interaction: Also, perhaps it’s important to you to have the ability to interact with other students. Through online programs, this can be difficult, but some programs use chat rooms or instant messaging.
- Other features: A few other things you might want to check into are the library facilities, technological services in case you have problems accessing program material, and the way in which students are evaluated and the reputation of the program.
There is a lot to consider when choosing any school but online programs are particularly difficult because they are so new.
For more information, check out howstuffworks and adultlearn. And, (shameless plug) if you want to find the right program for you, try the college matching process at myUsearch.
