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A headline stating that a 4-year degree can be earned in 3-months? That alone is a huge red flag suggesting a degree mill. Lack of national accreditation is red flag #2. I don't mean to say that this is a degree mill, but the nature of the article does raise reasonable suspicions. Alumni are rightly critical of such articles that make their school sound like something it probably is not.


The speed at which you can get a degree can look like a red flag, but you are mistaken about the accreditation. Regional accreditation is actually what you want, not national. Most universities you think of are regionally accredited, whereas the for-profit ones that you can't transfer credit from are nationally accredited. Ie, Stanford = regionally accredited, DeVry = nationally acccredited.

WGU is accredited by NWCCU, which is the same as the University of Utah, University of Washington, etc.. See: https://nwccu.org/member-institutions/directory/


Thanks. My knowledge of accreditation is mostly from law schools, for which national v. regional is a huge deal.


How about the gold standard for engineering and computer science(s), a program accredited by ABET?

Is WGU?


It is not, but I didn't think ABET accreditation was a big thing for CS and was more common in engineering? CMU and Stanford, for example, do not have ABET-accredited CS programs, although MIT does.


A lot of CS programs are ABET accredited.

CMU and Stanford don't need anyone or any organization to tell the world they do a good job educating CS students. Not so clear if the CS dept is at the Small Town Liberal Arts College and Seminary.

But the other 4,999 schools CS programs, like the one being discussed at WGU, the source of the accreditation is a valuable signal.


At the bottom, the article says they are not ABET accredited.


Read about national accreditation elsewhere in the comments. It is not what you think. Regional accreditation is more desirable.


Only in the USA. The word "University" means absolutely nothing there.


Yes, well the school in question is in the USA, so the specifics of USA's accreditation system are clearly what's relevant...


> Lack of national accreditation is red flag #2.

No, having national accreditation would be a red flag.

Regional is the gold standard. (Yes, the names make it sound backwards; it is what it is.)




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