Have been doing research lately for a masters or a PhD program from an accredited university and what one finds is the high level of fees that are beyond the reach of the average student. Banks, as helpful as ever offer educational loans setting students back by at least $30,000 to $40,000, even before the graduate starts out on his first day at work. What a huge load to bear, as if to say that it is your fault that you wanted to educate yourself.

The traditional full-time route to study for a degree is truly ruled out in such circumstances, unless you manage a full scholarship. These are much in demand and competition is tough. So where does this leave the average learner intent on pursuing further education. Nowhere really until he starts thinking out of the box, yes he needs to think about the various online/distance learning courses on offer. Here in this sphere of activity too we have the grand old universities/institutions, I refer to them hereon as G.O.I’s masquerading like they have suddenly woken up to the needs of the average student, by no means, do not be fooled. Do you know that the G.O.I’s advertise their online courses as offering the student the convenience of online study from home or office and yes it is true that online distance learning does offer this convenience, but what about the costs, well surprise, surprise these courses are not much different from the full time courses as far as the courses fees are concerned. The only benefit is … you guessed it, convenience. The average learner, the average cash strapped learner for all his interest in the subject is left in the lurch because what he wants is affordable education not convenient but unaffordable education.

A few universities have addressed this problem but the happiness of our cash strapped student is at stake because none of these low cost universities are accredited. They are not accredited because in the US, for an institution to get accredited, it costs anywhere from $1 Million to $3 million a year depending on the accrediting agency that is doing the honors for that university. A few good low cost institutions tried to get accreditation but found that in order to be able to pay the accreditation fees, they will have to start charging fees similar to fees charged by the G.O.I’s.

There is one other way out for the student he can apply to institutes that allow him to test out of many courses thereby reducing the total costs, well that’s what they say in their websites. This realm is dominated by a Charter oak college, Excelsior and Western Governors university but these worthies charge a huge amount to test out of specific courses approximately $200 to get rid of each credit,in addition to $ 2000 evaluation fee, in effect sending the student back into the waiting arms of the G.O.I’s. Welcome back to where we were before this discussion started.

So there you have it, get into an affordable institution and your degree is unaccredited, or pay a kings ransom and get your accredited degree, the choice is entirely yours.

The US has quite stringent laws to deal with low cost universities that offer distance learning/online programs which are unaccredited. Many have been closed down and many more have set up offices overseas in foreign locations. The state governments provide separate lists of institutes that are unaccredited and strict penalties are imposed for using such degrees to get jobs in the respective states. The government has done its job as far as enforcing the rules are concerned and the G.O.I’s are a pleased lot as the student has no other option but to pay the huge fees and get an education.

It seems quite possible that the G.O.I’s are nothing more than a powerful syndicate that can get its way on the force of sheer money power. Any student researching the internet in order to find an affordable online masters or PhD course would come across the various forums where courses are discussed and any attempt at getting to an informative discussion about unaccredited courses is strictly prohibited. The student appears to have no choice. This is where the government needs to step in to make education affordable and accessible to the average student.

The first thing that needs to be done is to make accreditation more affordable and accessible to institutions that are interested in getting accredited. At the same time standards of accreditation should be maintained to the highest levels.

It is quite possible that with accreditation becoming affordable, the many good low cost providers of online education get the accreditation they seek without passing the costs of accreditation onto the student as is the case with the G.O.I’s. This will result in affordable, accredited education for students intending to pursue higher education. Most importantly it will be a wake up call to the G.O.I’s who will see that they no longer have a captive customer base for their courses and this will result in moves to lower the fees that they impose on the hapless student.