Make sure your school is legit
Anyone in the midst of the search for a college undoubtedly has run across a little thing called “accreditation.” Very loosely translated, “accreditation” means “the process by which you can guarantee your degree is worth the paper it’s printed on.”
There is a lot of money to be made in the world of higher education, and, unfortunately, there are many unscrupulous people and institutions out there who are only too happy to take loads of your — and/or the government’s — cash, only to leave you with a fake degree.
When searching for a legitimate college or university, keep in mind that only the U.S. Department of Education and the private Council for Higher Education Accreditation recognize accrediting organizations. If your school claims to be accredited by an organization not recognized by the Education Department or CHEA, chances are it’s not legit.
CHEA maintains on its Web site databases of both recognized accrediting organizations and institutions/programs accredited by recognized U.S. accrediting organizations.
Read carefully. Diploma mills sometimes will try to trick would-be students by concocting a bogus accrediting organization very close in name to a legitimate one. So, for example, while the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities is the real deal, the Northwest Commission and Council on Colleges and Universities is not.
Check out CHEA’s Web site for everything you need to know about accreditation. And, when in doubt, consider this: Uncle Sam isn’t a fan of frauds, so if he’s willing to foot the bill for you to go to school somewhere, you can be sure he’s done his own homework to make sure the place is legit.
