Diploma mills have been around for long time and they are getting good market shares from the profitable education businesses. Many people are aware about diploma mills and are trying their best to avoid falling into the trap set by diploma mills, but still many of them become the victims of diploma mills. You must be smart enough to detect the sign of diploma mills and avoid yourself from being the next victim.
The diploma mills are doing their best to imitate legitimate online degree programs offered by accredited online universities. They claim to be accredited by an accreditation agency and teach you on how to differentiate "real" & "fake" degree by stressing on the word "accreditation". Here is where the trap being set, you thought that the school is accredited by an accreditation agency, but without knowing that the accreditation agency is a "fake" accreditation body that is not recognized by U.S. Department of Education. You have visited the "diploma mills" website, it's look so professional and it teach you how to avoid online degree scams, and it makes you believe that it is a legitimate online school that is accredited and it is save to enroll into their programs.
Many of the diploma mills websites look even more professional and the offered programs are more attractive then other online degree programs offered by those "legitimate" online universities. Their online degree programs come with many attractive "guarantees" with extremely fast to complete your degree in "unbelievable" short period of time. You do not need to worry about no time allocated for your study because you are too busy with your current work, it guarantees that your degree program can be completed on time without the need to even invest your time; you don't have to send in anything but your money.
In the first glance, the online degree programs offered by those diploma mills look so attractive, that's why many diploma mills' victims are falling into their traps. Don't let this happen to you. The consequences of getting a job with a worthless degree from a diploma mill won't helps you to get your dream job because the job market has aware of the "fake degree" and the employers are more careful and put suspicious on the degree from school that are not look familiar to them.
You definitely want your degree to worth the value and help you to smoothly start up your career after graduation. So, it is worth to put some efforts to search and make sure the degree you are going to sign up is from a legitimate online university that is properly accredited by an accreditation agency, recognized by U.S. Department of Education.
Information requests from online universities are free. You should utilize this free service to get more details information on your preference degree programs from those online universities. Don't rush to sign up any online degree program just because it meets your requirement. You should short list your preferred online degree programs from your selected online universities. Check again your selected online universities against accreditation database from CHEA.org and any filed complaints from BBB.org, remove any suspicious online university that is claimed accreditation but not listed in the accreditation database from your list together with their online degree programs and erase those that have negative feedbacks. Your list now should left with "real" accredited online degree programs from reputable online universities. With that, you can start to fine review and select your preference online degree program from your short listed record.
In Summary
Diploma mills are good in imitation and do their best to look alike the legitimate online universities. Hence, don't be the next victim of diploma mill, you should spend more time and effort to ensure the online degree program of your interested is not from the one offered by diploma mills.
Julie Harvard is the author of http://www.studykiosk.com, an online degree directory that lets you browse over 1000 accredited online degree programs offer by legitimate online universities.
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