Online Criminal Justice Degree

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Accreditation is the important thing. Accreditation just means your attendance at a class will be recognized at the next school you try to transfer your credits to. Classes you take for self enjoyment at a non accredited institution may be discounted by the agency if you try to claim them. Or not, as the agency policy is up to the agency (but subject to later review by the GAO and the media). There at least 100 different accreditation groups in the US but only about 20 of them are legitimate, so accredited by who is important. Some scam schools founders have historically been known to create phony accreditation groups so they can claim to be accredited and a letter to a different PO box will result in a worthless letter confirming an accreditation. Sometimes groups of schools not meeting national accreditation standards get together and form their own accreditation council. You start getting into is the accreditation group itself accredited? If accredited, then by who? States have accreditation procedures. The accreditation could be a Regional accreditation, but not a national accreditation. The US Dept. of Education tracks (34 CFR part 602) some of them. Sometimes an accreditation agency itself can have their Federally recognized accreditation authority revoked, or suspended. Some go away one year, then come back on the list a few years later. Some go away and stay away. Now the status of a degree issued by a school to a student that thought his/her degree was from an accredited college becomes problematic. Students at Antioch Law school in DC went through this a few years ago. http://www.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accr...ation_pg4.html is a good place to learn the authority of an accreditation group and what it is good for. Note some accreditation groups are shown as "candidates for accreditation." What's a degree from a school boasting of accreditation by one of those groups worth if the final decision is no? A good rule of thumb is to confine your dollars to schools with more than one national accreditation.
What one person calls online school, the accreditation groups call distance learning institutions. Some are accredited, some are not. Some have only portions of some programs accredited. Some one asked, how would the FBI know? Trust me, they do know the difference between a fly by night school (or program) and one that is accredited by four or five different nationally recognized accreditation groups. There is a lot of current onging debate between Uncle Sam and the different groups offering or accrediting "Distance Learning" degrees. Class participation is only one issue. Identity verification is another. The jury is still debating. At some point in an application process someone will look at your transcript. Then they will look up the school or the program to see if it is an accredited institution or program. If the position is a sensitive one they will probably physically send someone to the school's mailing address to pull your official transcript and compare it to the one you submitted and meet with your instructors and classmates. (Yes, they will spend some effort to locate them.) Did you write a thesis? They may read it. Does your instructor remember you? They will ask the instructor. Where are your old test papers and homework answers? Does the school or professor still have them? Do you write like a five year old? Is the school a mail drop run from someone's basement server? They will notice.