Since the pandemic hit the world, every learning facility was forced to transfer to online classes and courses. What’s good about this is, because you’re learning what you desire from the comfort of your own home, your time and classes are flexible. Nowadays, you can finish a course on basically anything, for example, marketing, business, affiliate markets, stock markets, and so many other courses. If you’re particularly interested in the affiliate market course, James-Scholes.com has in detail everything you need to know about it. If you’ve already made a decision about getting an online degree, then you should also make sure that where you’re getting it from is trustworthy and legitimate.
The first thing anyone tells you to look up about the school of interest is the accreditation. But even then, you should do more research about it. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
Look up the School’s Accreditation
As mentioned above, this document is proof of the school’s legitimacy and validation. If you are unfamiliar with this document, it is essentially a type of verification from the state’s Ministry of Education and the document should be displayed on the faculty’s website, visible for anyone.
However, there are two types of accreditations, one for specialized courses that only offer and teach certain fields and an institutional one, for private or online colleges and universities. A benefit that comes with institutional accreditation is federal financial aid.
It’s important to mention as well, try and search the institution’s history of accreditations. Even if you’re considering a famous or well-known university, there is a chance they might have something on their record to endanger their accreditation or already have. However, this type of information isn’t accessible to everyone, if you have a workaround, then it wouldn’t hurt to just check the record.
If you’ve already gone through the trouble of finding everything you needed, it would be a good idea to verify the institution’s accreditation. You can do this by reaching out to the listed department or council on the document and check with them if it’s all legitimate.
Location of the facility
On the university’s website, there should always be a street address and zip code of the city. If only a post box is available, that definitely indicates a non-legitimate school. Also, if the facility has multiple addresses in different states and most of them are not active anymore, that usually means they have been forced to move locations because they were caught with fraud.
Never pay big amounts beforehand
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If they are requesting for you to pay tuition or a membership fee before even knowing if you are enrolled yet or not, never oblige. This type of behaviour and requests can indicate a scam. Normally, institutions and universities charge tuition fees at the end of a semester or at the end of each year, whether that be online education in Melbourne or in-person education.
Avoid schools with the same name as big universities
If you have a feeling that you might have already heard the name of your faculty in interest, do more research on the university? Chances are, you probably have heard or seen the same or similar name somewhere else. For example, if you see an Oxford related name, it makes you think it’s part of the actual university when in reality it’s a scam.
The road to a degree seems too easy
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The first red flag you should notice is the promise of a fast and easy way to getting a degree. It should be a known fact that diplomas and degrees don’t come around so easily, at least not without hard work. Legitimate courses and schools require you to complete an application process. Though this process varies from one school to another, it’s usually a must.
If the facility claims you can get the degree by mail with only life experience, the chances are very high that you are dealing with a scam. Unfortunately, you have to face the reality of it being way too easy and accessible.
No student services
Enrolled students should be able to have services such as online libraries, technological support, the ability to contact staff members for any needs or help. If the school does not offer any of the mentioned services, you should be very concerned about the school’s legitimacy. It’s a very big red flag that should not go unnoticed.
Read reviews online
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It might not sound as much help, because reviews can be easily bought, you can still come across real and legitimate reviews. If you see repetitive comments, those are usually fake. Try looking for long and detailed reviews that cover everything from point A to Z.
If the student experiences from the institution are positive, they will most likely mention it in the reviews and also mention the difficulty of actually getting the diploma.
It may seem scary or like a lot of work just to start an online course, but they have their benefits. For example, every lesson and class goes with your speed of learning and your availability for the day. Because they usually send pre-made video lessons, it’s much easier to come back to parts you didn’t quite understand or need to cover a few times. As another big factor, you can save a lot of money through this method of learning. By having an online education system, you eliminate a lot of fees you would normally get charged in an in-person school.
There are so many other benefits from online schooling and courses, these just some of the best. In this time, a lot more people will start to get interested in online learning, as it’s a lot more convenient. We advise you to start looking at traditional schools, as a lot of them now offer online courses. Work your way from there until you find what works best for you and we hope our article was of any help to you.
