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
A diploma mill, also known as a degree mill, is a phony university that sells a college diploma—the piece of paper itself—rather than the educational experience. Diploma mills are scam operations that literally crank out fake paper diplomas to anyone who pays the requested "tuition.”
Diploma Mills often promise a college degree fast based on life experience. The Get Educated online education team has prepared these Top 10 Signs of on Online College Degree Mill to help students protect themselves from this popular online learning scam. {{ad91}}
Don’t be fooled by degree mills
Many maintain impressive-looking websites.
All of them advertise online under the terms fast degree, life experience degrees, fast online degree, and work experience degree.
To protect yourself, you need to look behind the curtain. In other words, flip past the flashy graphics on the website and the promises of an instant degree for the name of the school’s accreditation agency.
Some consumers realize what they are doing, but an escalating number are being duped by online college scams that operate sophisticated Internet fraud schemes that promise consumers they can get a degree fast online. These phony online colleges thrive on selling fake diplomas.
I have a friend who claims he earned his college degree online (a life experience online degree) by “testing out" of courses and by putting together a portfolio of all his work and military training over the last two decades. Is it really possible to earn an entire online degree based on work and life experience, or has my friend been scammed big time?{{ad91}}
—Todd Modesto, California
Answer:
Input “college credit for life or work experience” into any search engine and you’ll be swamped with hundreds of websites that promise to review your resume and convert your life experience credentials and training into a college diploma.
Most of these websites are indeed scams and most of these diplomas are quite fake.
However, a few are the real deal. A select handful of these online colleges represent solid opportunities for seasoned professionals to jump-start a college degree.
Most people assumed not—until 2003, when the U.S. Government Office of Accountability undertook the first study of government employees who used federal tuition aid programs to buy a fake college diploma online.
The Congressional investigation uncovered 400 government employees, including upper echelon managers, who had decided to buy a degree using government tuition assistance programs or who had listed bogus colleges on their job applications.
By GetEducated.com Consumer Reporting Team
| February 02, 2009
Colby Nolan, a black cat, brought new meaning to the term "educational pedigree" when, in 2004, he “earned” an MBA online from Trinity Southern University of Plano, Texas. Trinity awarded the cat a work experience online degree.
The feline and online graduate student was graduated with honors with a 3.5 GPA (that's a B-plus average) after Trinity Southern officials “evaluated” his resume—which apparently showed college-level business experience in the fast food industry, child care, and, er, retail management.
Colby’s diploma was purchased for $399, plus shipping and handling, in a sting operation undertaken by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.
