Have you heard good - or bad - things about an online college? Share which online universities you feel are the best in a reputation review.
"Anybody who's thinking of enrolling in an online degree ... take a good look at GetEducated.com . Go ... get a free download of a detailed guide ."
Searching for an Online MBA?: "Several websites can help .. first, GetEducated.com offers free rankings of distance-learning MBA programs."
"Beware diploma mills... Go to GetEducated.com and ask the Diploma Mill Police."
"For a distance MBA you can pay from $6,000 to $120,000. To get the most bang for your buck ... check out GetEducated.com"
GetEducated.com – "a great source for weeding out phonies" (among online colleges).
"Thanks much for your wonderful site! I've recommended it to my students and entered a program I found at GetEducated.com." --Charles Balch, MBA, Ph.D. --Professor, Arizona Western College
Vicky Phillips -- Founder of GetEducated.com ... "for 20 years the leading consumer advocate for online college students" ... Different Paths to a College Degree, Sept. 2009
Vicky Phillips ... founder of GetEducated.com ... "one of the nation’s leading experts on educational fraud" ... . ~Joyce Lain Kennedy~ (Nov, 2009), LA Times
"Kiplinger Personal Finance" partners with Get Educated - Top 15 Picks Prestigious Online Masters Degrees
Get Educated helps LATimes Consumer Reporter David Lazarus in "Getting an Education Learning Over the Internet" -- Nov. 10, 2010
Get Educated's beloved mascot, Chester Ludlow, dog with online MBA, helps Neely Tucker, Washington Post reporter, expose murderous minister with degree mill pedigree - Dec. 2010
Rochville University, an online college lacking proper accreditation, awarded an MBA to a dog earlier this year. Yet Rochville diplomas continue to be touted by professionals on the resumes they post to LinkedIn.com, a networking site, according to GetEducated.com.
Besides Rochville, many other online colleges lacking proper accreditation are listed by LinkedIn users on their resumes. Thousands of professionals claim degree mill educations, including:
• an assistant vice president at Merrill Lynch • a public university language instructor • a criminal justice consultant • a consultant forensic psychologist • a NASA systems engineer
About 450 LinkedIn professionals tout diplomas from Rochville. Similarly, about 1,800 LinkedIn users cite online education from Almeda University—a university cited as a diploma mill by Alan Contreras, head of the state of Oregon’s Office of Degree Authorization.
GetEducated.com founder Vicky Phillips estimates that more than 75 percent of people in the United States who buy and brandish fraudulent online degrees know what they are doing.
“A real online MBA costs more than $35,000, but can raise your earning potential by $10,000 per year," she says. "If you can get a fake MBA for less than $500 and qualify for a $10,000 raise, well, that’s more financial temptation than many can tolerate.”
Employers compound the problem by failing to check whether schools listed on resumes are properly accredited.
“One reason online degree mill mills continue to thrive,” explains Phillips, “is that employers are confused about college accreditation. All degree mills are accredited. The trick is that they are accredited by fake agencies—agencies that they themselves have created.”
Rochville claims accreditation by the Board of Online Universities Accreditation and the Universal Council for Online Education Accreditation.
“Rochville may indeed be ‘accredited’ by these agencies, but neither agency is recognized as a college accreditor by the U.S. Department of Education—or by any other valid international accrediting body,” says Phillips.
To help employers understand college accreditation, GetEducated.com has developed a free database, the Diploma Mill Police (TM). This free service provides advice on how to spot resume fraud and degree mills and avoid online education scams.
About: Founded in 1989, GetEducated.com is a consumer advocacy group that reviews, rates and ranks online colleges along the dimensions that matter most to consumers: cost and credibility.
CONTACT:Lorna Collier, Information Services, Get Educated, Inc., Essex Junction, VT. 05452. 802-899-4866. Website: http://www.geteducated.com
