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"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
By GetEducated.com Consumer Reporting Team | June 15, 2009
Sixty-seven former students of Warren National University have filed a lawsuit in the Laramie County District Court in Wyoming claiming they were misled by the online university, reports the Associated Press.
Many are now calling the online non accredited college a diploma or degree mill.
Warren National, which was headquartered in Cheyenne, shuttered its virtual doors this spring after failing to achieve regional accreditation and having its license revoked by the state of Wyoming. As a result, former online students have been left holding worthless pieces of paper, questionable diplomas rather than the online degrees for which they paid thousands of dollars. The lawsuit states online students paid average annual tuition of $6,000 to $12,000, while Warren National University's owners took in $25 million to $30 million in tuition revenue each year.
The former students claim they were misled by the online university into thinking that either the school was properly accredited or soon would be, and that their online degrees would be recognized retroactively after accreditation was achieved. Some claim they were told that college accreditation simply did not matter in the state of Wyoming.
Warren National University was previously known as Kennedy-National University. It changed its name in 2007 after being spotlit in a government sting operation targeting suspected college degree mills and diploma mills. The online university was cited in the government report for accepting tax dollars and issuing online college degrees by mail to unqualified government employees.
Wyoming is one of several states that once allowed distance learning "colleges" to operate without accreditation. The state used to have a licensure system in place that allowed educational entities to operate legally as "licensed" online schools. GetEducated.com founder and CEO Vicky Phillips had termed the state of Wyoming a "degree mill ghetto."
However, in 2006, Wyoming changed its laws. It currently no longer allows unaccredited colleges to operate.
Consumers searching for online education providers should consider this case a cautionary tale—and question whether a "licensed" distance learning university, as opposed to a legitimately accredited one, is a safe bet, says Phillips. As for the disgruntled graduates of Warren National University who have fallen victim, all they will have to show for their money is a fake online degree and message of caution.
