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
I’m ready to go back to college online. I need a distance MBA. Fast. But I already carry $25,000 in student loans from my bachelors degree. Can GetEducated.com recommend a good—but cheap—online MBA?
—Brad Manchester, NH
Answer:
Brace yourself. The cost range of an online MBA, also known as a distance MBA, is truly staggering. According to GetEducated.com’s National Ranking Survey of Affordable Online MBAs, you can pay as little as $7,000 or as much as $119,000 for an accredited distance MBA.
With a $100,000 price difference between the least expensive and most expensive option, you’re smart to compare costs carefully before you enroll.
Accreditation, geographic region and the funding structure of your online college—whether it is a non-profit or a for-profit institution—are just some of the factors that will drastically affect the cost of your online MBA. Cheapest Online MBA
As a rule, the cheapest online MBA will come from schools that are accredited by the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC). Average cost of a distance learning MBA from a DETC school: $11,972. Six DETC institutions—schools such as California Coast University, Andrew Jackson University and Grantham University—offer online MBAs with sticker prices well under $10,000.
If you pay less do you get less?
Maybe.
DETC degrees are not as widely accepted as regionally accredited degrees. (More than 85 percent of all colleges in the USA are regionally accredited).
Most DETC-accredited schools don’t operate residential campuses. Most operate solely as distance learning schools. For this reason, DETC-accredited schools don’t tend to carry as much brand name recognition with employers. Cheapest Distance MBA - Regionally Accredited
If you want a regionally accredited distance MBA, bargains abound. Most of these come from public universities in the South or the Midwest that have begun offering their degrees online to a national audience.
Wayne State College is a real steal at $6,750. In fact, among the 406 online MBAs GetEducated.com surveyed in 2010, Wayne State was the most affordable.
Cheapest Distance MBA – AACSB Accredited If you have to have the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business’ (AACSB) stamp of approval on your MBA, Southeast Missouri State University offers the cheapest option—but only if you’re lucky enough to be a resident of the state of Missouri. It’s $8,233 for Missourians, over $14,173 for everyone else.
Those who reside in the South can select from a slew of public universities that offer affordable online MBAs; since you don’t, Brad, try the University of North Dakota or the University of South Dakota, both of which have distance MBAs for under $13,000 (no matter where you live).
Have you called your state college system? Many state universities now offer MBAs online, or in a “hybrid” or “blended” format—meaning some courses are offered online while others may still be taught in the classroom. These programs are incredibly flexible and very cost effective.
State colleges rarely advertise programs to the public via Google or other net forums. Given the growing popularity of online education, chances are excellent that there may be a cheap—and highly regarded— distance MBA right in your own backyard.
