It’s hard researching online colleges.
U.S. News & World Report certainly doesn’t rank online schools and the publishing world largely ignores distant learning colleges. Visit a bookstore and it’s doubtful that you’ll find anything worthwhile. When I checked on Amazon.com, one of the only books that I found was more than eight years old.
During a period when more people — not just teenagers — are thinking about earning a degree or obtaining additional skills, it’s unfortunate that there is such a lack of information about this no-nonsense way of attending college.
An organization called the Online Education Database is trying to fill that information void. It recently released its third annual rankings of online institutions. You can find the list of schools, as well as the criteria used to evaluate them here.
A little due diligence should help would-be students avoid diploma mills.
Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution.