Hi Dan,
Most people find it confusing when they try and determine if an online college is real or fake. There are more than 5,000 "real" colleges or advanced residential schools in the USA and most people have only heard of about a dozen of these so once you begin looking for colleges online you'll see a lot of schools whose names you do not recognize.
In a nutshell, the first 2 things to look for to determine if a college is real or fake:
1) Is the college accredited;
2) Is the accreditor a recognized accreditor (BE CAREFUL -- all degree mills are accredited BUT by fake agencies that they own and operate in an effort to confuse people who don;t know the names of the real college accreditors)
See our great
list of fake college accreditation agencies.
You may find helpful Get Educated's great article
Top 10 Signs Degree Mill.
If there is a specific school you suspect may be a degree mill and you want to know about that specific school check our
list of diploma mills in the Diploma Mill Police database.
Dan wrote:
What is the best way to know if a school is a Degree Mill? Are there certain things I should look for to make sure I attend a "real" college? I'm nervous that I might make the wrong decision.
Thanks for any help you can give me!
