5 Things Veterans Need To Consider About Online Degrees

My personal experience and setbacks have allowed me to give the following advice to my soldiers:

Maximize junior college, be it online or in person. The value is there and the one on one instruction can help immensely for subjects like algebra.

Be leery of for profit. I don't say avoid because a white knight will appear to speak the greatness of them. In my opinion, they are there solely to make a buck and separate you from your TA and/ or GI Bill.

There is nothing wrong with a pure online degree; as long as you know where it's coming from. All of the schools that have sports have online degrees of some type. It's how their former student athletes can finish while in the pros. There will also be name recognition in a degree from say Alabama, Iowa, North Carolina, etc when it comes time to get a job. Do you really think Ashford Univesity or the non regionally accredited Grantham will hold a candle to them?

I touched on accreditation. National is not the best. Regionally accredited is the ticket. I did classes at Grantham and they transferred for absolutely no credit. I wasted my time and my TA. I learned my lesson and made it a personal mission of mine to educate my guys about what they are doing.

Something I preach to all my new lads. Find an established decent and small public university in your home state and enroll in there. Most offer online classes for each class they have. It's a safer bet than purely online

Online school or not, use caution and do your homework. I went to a local college and they would lure students in with the expectation of making a high salary when they had completed the courses. The numbers they were spouting off were pay for working overseas. I was in school to get my aircraft mechanics licenses. Good luck and do plenty of research. Those schools are there because they want to take your money. No because they want to give you an education.