Online College Rankings

[Alpha]

I'm not a big fan of the USNews College Rankings so I'm posting a link to the rankings by Intelligent.com  To be honest, I'm not sure that the Intelligent rankings are any better but it might be fun to have a look.
The Best Online Degrees - Intelligent

[wilburmluong]

What are the best accredited online colleges?

[ss20ts]

What are the best accredited online colleges?

Which accreditation? All of the schools on the lists I reviewed were RA schools. Lists like this don't have unaccredited schools and rarely NA schools.

The best is very subjective. It depends on the degree and what you're looking to do with the degree. 

[pkmoose]

I
Columbia Southern University was, surprisingly, on one of those lists.

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[Alpha]

What are the best accredited online colleges?

The best is very subjective. It depends on the degree and what you're looking to do with the degree. 

Not only that. it might matter which degree you're earning.  The best school for IT might not be the best for say, Teaching or Business.  Many people, myself included, weed out all the high-priced and even medium-priced options and in most cases you are now limited to a precious few schools.  Everyone is looking for the cheapest legitimate option that fits their needs.  There are lots of very good online degree programs but they don't always get much mention because of their cost.  And the time factor. That's the main reason why I'm not crazy about rankings.

[Alpha]

Here's another ranking system for online colleges.  You'll see a lot of familiar names thrown in but you'll quickly notice that few of them get much mention on this site.  Most of the people here are degreeforum have a different value system at play than the people at EdScoop and this makes the rankings worth little more than a curiosity.  I think it would be good if someone wrote a different type of story about "the best online/alternative degree."  A journalistic piece that highlighted the big 3 and the many alternative ways in which college credit can be earned.  There arepeople here who know more than enough to write that article.
New university rankings reveal best online degree programs for 2021 (edscoop.com)

[Vle045]

Here's another ranking system for online colleges.  You'll see a lot of familiar names thrown in but you'll quickly notice that few of them get much mention on this site.  Most of the people here are degreeforum have a different value system at play than the people at EdScoop and this makes the rankings worth little more than a curiosity.  I think it would be good if someone wrote a different type of story about "the best online/alternative degree."  A journalistic piece that highlighted the big 3 and the many alternative ways in which college credit can be earned.  There arepeople here who know more than enough to write that article.
New university rankings reveal best online degree programs for 2021 (edscoop.com)

I agree.  I decided to make a facebook post a while back just to share with my circle of friends all the alternative ways to get a degree.  A lot of people had no idea.

[rachel83az]

So many of the articles you see online about the "cheapest" ways to get a degree involve the type of degree where you work on campus to pay for your tuition. I imagine this is very frustrating for the people who can't afford to just pack up and move across the country to get a degree. I know it was frustrating for me before I found this forum. Plus, I imagine most of those schools are very selective and the vast majority of students who apply aren't going to be able to get in.

[Vle045]

That degree I earned in 1997 was from the cheapest college in the state of Pennsylvania at the time. I finally paid off all those loans in 2019. I even had some grants. I can’t imagine how long it would take to pay off these days. It’s so much more expensive. Any degree or certificate I earn from this point forward will need to be free or something I can pay out of pocket. I still have a teenage son that may need to go to college. I’m hoping to shave off some of the costs with CCP, AP or ACE before he even finishes high school. He claims he doesn’t want to go to college. I’m hoping if it is easy enough to get alternative credits now, he can at the very least get an associates degree or a business degree using the methods here. The kid has no clue how much a degree will help him down the road. Even if it’s just to check a box.

[rachel83az]

He claims he doesn’t want to go to college.  I’m hoping if it is easy enough to get alternative credits now, he can at the very least get an associates degree or a business degree using the methods here.  The kid has no clue how much a degree will help him down the road.  Even if it’s just to check a box.

Does he know what he wants to do as a career? If he's in his mid-teens or older, it might help to have him look on Monster or Jobing for his "dream job" and then see what the requirements are. There are soooooooo many automated systems these days that will reject your application if you don't at least have some degree. Unless he wants to only be eligible to work retail or fast food (and there is nothing wrong with those jobs, but most people would prefer not to do them for 40+ years), he's definitely going to need a degree of some kind.

He's also probably being bombarded with what I would consider to be propaganda about the "correct" way to get a degree: you have to go to Harvard or MIT or some other big name or else it "doesn't count" somehow. School, media, and just life in general are all full of this nonsense. If I thought those were my only choices, I wouldn't want a degree either. Too much pressure.