Finding the Right Online School For You

The County of Queens, New York Public Library system has a fairly enlightened approach to job recruitment. It realizes many of the people it needs don't have degrees in library science. So it pays for them. The catch is you have to obtain that degree within a conscripted time period... and from an online school.

Even though such fine institutions as NYU, Columbia and the SUNY system are just a subway ride away, the Queens Library maximizes employee time against educational advancement. Its librarians don't have to go to a separate campus, but home, to further themselves. You can bet Queens knows which schools it wants its employees to go to, but do you?

Maybe you would rather be an accountant or advance your programming abilities instead of learning the nuances of the Dewey Decimal System. In these days of the web, one can find an online school for those, and many other disciplines, too. The key thing is just finding the right school for you.

The first thing to do is narrow down the several hundred universities out there. A good place to start is Google. Just do a search under "online universities, accredited" and it will lead you to a number of data bases that will guide you to about 200 different facilities offering such college degrees. Obviously, trying to sift through several hundred online schools isn't that efficient.

It is time to narrow the search to the field you want to specialize in. A good way to narrow that is, once on the data base, type in your field of interest. It can cut the number of schools down considerably, as much as 90%. Note that many online schools realize that students may not know what they truly want to specialize in until their junior year. One might want to see if these schools offer more broad liberal arts or science-based programs until you make a final decision. Again, the list will be narrowed.

Now it's time to do more refined sifting. Is the school truly accredited? Just type the school's name and something like "accreditation" will answer that quickly. Does the school offer financial aid? The school itself usually will gladly answer that for you. Also, don't be afraid to go to the Department of Education to see if there are programs outside the school's for more aid.

Once you get the field narrowed to a dozen or less schools, it's time to get to work. Go to the school's web site and do some serious reading. Find out if there is anyone of note teaching the courses. If the program offered does fit your personal schedule. What are the costs and funds available for your entrance. Sort and sift until you get that list down to approximately three.

Then it's time to pull the trigger and apply at an online school. Remember you're in the drivers seat so go for what you feel will be the best deal. After this much work, the final choice in an online degree education should be pretty easy from this point on.