Funding An Online College Degree

Online courses have evolved to become a great means of acquiring education and certain skills that would have otherwise required traditional brick and mortar colleges. The biggest advantage online education has over physical colleges is location and the ability to save on miscellaneous costs such as transport, board expenses and food, while enjoying the same quality of program you would have on a physical campus.
Choosing an online program requires doing your fair bit of research – just as you would when investigating the credentials and accreditations of any traditional college.

College Degree Complete Rate

A big factor you should consider before financing your online education is the completion rate, which for online courses is significantly lower than traditional college courses. Leaving college doesn’t necessarily mean your student debt will be wiped out either. If anything, it might just increase the risk of default.
As is true with traditional colleges, you can always use federal financial aid to fund online education programs, but there are a few restrictions in place. For starters, you can’t apply to an online program if it is outside of the United States. It is also important to note that federal aid only finances online colleges that are accredited by a recognized accreditation agency.

College Degree Program Quality

Before you decide to use financial aid resources to fund your online college, it is important to evaluate the quality of your program. This requires verifying that the program is accredited by federal, regional and national creditors to ensure that the program meets minimum standards. This also increases your chances of transferring your credits to a different college during the course of your online education.

A big risk with online education is overborrowing because schools offer the same cost of attendance totals to online students as they would to students attending the program on campus. This opens up the possibility of receiving more funds than needed. Taking more than necessary will quickly add up to a higher student loan debt than you initially expected.