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There’s a much easier -- SUPER-easy, in fact -- way to ensure that one is not ripped-off by a diploma/degree-mill… …simply ensure that whatever online (or any other kind of) school is ACCREDITED by an agency approved by the US Department of Education (USDE) and/or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Only those two agencies in the US may approve US accreditors. All other so-called “accreditors” are nothing but fakes; and degree/diploma-mills create fake accreditors (with fancy dancy web sites) to make them look good. Never believe ANY school’s claim of being accredited. And don’t waste your time looking closely at the web site or doing any other kind of your own due diligence to spot other telltale signs that it might be a diploma/degree-mill. There’s a much easier way, to wit: Just look-up the school in question in the online databases of either or both (preferably both) of USDE and/or CHEA… USDE DATABASE: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation CHEA DATABASE: http://www.chea.org/search …and if the school in question isn’t in either or both of those databases, then the school is *NOT* accredited… no matter what it might claim on its web site. If the school is in EITHER of them, then it’s accredited, and so it isn’t really necessary to look it up in both databases if you find it in either of them. However, if it’s not in one database, then do look it up in the other because there are a tiny handful of schools accredited by CHEA but not also USDE (and vice versa). It takes only SECONDS to look-up a school in those databases… far, far less time than it takes to do your own due diligence. Now, all that said, there actually are legitimate and credible schools out there in the world which are not accredited. I’m not an accreditation snob who believes that no school is good unless it’s accredited. But, honestly, there are darned few of them. Most of the ones that I know of are specialist schools… schools which are unaccredited, but which nevertheless qualify people for something special, like state licensure (law, psychology, real estate, etc.) ; or which are strictly religious schools (usually seminaries) which qualify people to be clergy in certain denominations. I’m not saying that there are no other kinds of unaccredited schools out there, but once you eliminate the two kinds I just mentioned, there are, to be candid, almost none others which are truly credible, rigorous, and worthwhile. Plus, there is a growing list of US states which make it flat-out illegal to list an unaccredited degree on one’s resume, on business cards, in advertising, on job applications, etc. So even if the school’s credible, but unaccredited, one can still get in trouble with the law by proffering an unaccredited degree in at least those states… and, again, that list of states is growing. Oregon was the first state, and remains the most strict. So it’s a good example if you want to learn more. Just Google Oregon’s “Office of Degree Authorization” and read all about it. Finally, unaccredited coursework is usually not transferable into any other accredited school’s degree programs; and degrees from unaccredited schools are usually not accepted as requisite for entry into higher-level degrees at other accredited schools; and, unaccredited degrees are usually not acceptable to US employers or the US government. So, bottom line: Yes, there are credible and legitimate unaccredited schools out there. But it’s a time-consuming and rigorous task to do one’s own due diligence to figure out if they’re rip-offs; plus their coursework and/or credentials are virtually useless out in the real world, as a practical matter. It’s simply easier to just decide, right out of the gate, that you will not attend ANY school — be it online or in the classroom — unless it’s accredited by a USDE- and/or CHEA-approved agency. If you do that, and then simply look-up any school you’re considering in either or both of the USDE and/or CHEA databases, then you’ll NEVER have a problem. Never! Hope that helps. ________________________________________________ Gregg L. DesElms Napa, California USA gregg at greggdeselms dot com