thomas3940's Blog

October 09, 2008
8 Colleges and Universities Offering Free Accounting Courses Online

 

Looking to gain or expand your knowledge of accounting? Here's a list of colleges and universities that offer free, high quality accounting courses online.

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit.edu)

The MIT OpenCourseWare project makes graduate level accounting courses from the MIT Sloan School of Management available to everyone. Online courses consist of PDF lecture notes, reading lists and in some cases, quizzes and examinations. No registration is required.

2. Open University of the UK (open.ac.uk)

Britain's Open University is dedicated to providing a high quality university education that is free for everyone. There are several accounting courses offered through the project. All are comprehensive and easily accessible from the site. No registration is required.

3. Carnegie Mellon University (cmu.edu)

Carnegie Mellon University's Open Learning Initiative provides everyone with free access to online course books used in Carnegie Mellon's Micro Economics course. Course books include text, graphing applets, tests, computer tutors and virtual online experiments. Registration is not required, but is recommended if you want to save your work as you progress through the course.

4. Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (kutztownsbdc.org)

Kutztown University's Small Business Development Center offers four different free accounting courses online. Courses range from intermediate to advanced and include audio stream, high end graphics and interactive case studies. Registration is required, but there is no charge.

5. University of Alaska - College of Business and Public Policy (scob.alaska.edu)

Dr. Fred Barbee's Principles of Financial Accounting Course is an introduction to financial accounting concepts and principles. The course is free for everyone and includes access to homework assignments, practice exams, PowerPoint slides, learning games and other course materials. No registration is required.

6. University of California- Irvine (uci.edu)

The University of California-Irvine offers one free course that may be of interest to aspiring accountants who want to learn the basics of financial planning. The comprehensive text-based course is accessible through the school's website. No registration is required.

7. Gresham College (gresham.ac.uk)

Britain's Gresham College is well known for the free public lectures the school's professors give in London. Thousands of these lectures are now available online in streaming audio and video. RealPlayer is necessary to play most of the free accounting lectures. Registration is not required.

8. Wikibooks (wikibooks.org)

Wikibooks isn't a traditional university per se, but it is an educational resource worth checking out. The Wikimedia community has a huge textbook collection that is free to everyone. The accountancy collection is a great place for beginners to start. No registration is required.

sb
October 09, 2008

With the rise in demand for online distance learning degrees, many bogus learning institutions have mushroomed over the internet with the sole intention of taking advantage of innocent students seeking for a genuine degree. These so-called “Colleges” often attract applicants with their attractive degree programs which are boasts of easy graduation, low tuition fees, no examinations and credit given for life experience, all of which just sound too good to be true. Some of them even go to the extent of prospecting for customers by sending out bulk email citing university degrees for sale.

Therefore, with all the confusion generated, how can students sieve out the genuine from the bogus? This may be especially difficult for distance learning programs when students practically make their choices based on what is shown on a website. In many cases, especially for international students, it may not be feasible to visit the physical site of a college before enrolling. With this, making choices will really depend on the appearance and content of a website, which sometimes may not be an accurate judge of the creditability of a college.

One of the qualifying factors that can be utilized by students to make correct enrolment decisions is by determining the type of college accreditation that has been received by their college of consideration. If the college vaguely states itself as having “nationwide or worldwide accreditation” without stating specifically which regional accreditation body it is accredited with, then most likely this college does not possess legitimate accreditation.

In the U.S., college accreditation is awarded by one of the following six accreditation agencies which are all appointed by the National Board of Education - New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), North Central Association of Schools and Colleges (NCA), Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges (MSA), Southern Association of Schools and Colleges (SACS), Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges (NWCCU). Each agency has been allocated responsibility for providing accreditation for schools in specific states. Therefore, it would be best to run checks on a particular online degree institution with the agency offering college accreditation for the state in which the college is registered in.

Another tell-tale sign of bogus degrees offered is when the university advertises itself through mass-mailing email featuring university degrees for sale. Many bogus distance learning institutions prey on people who are desperate for a degree, but don’t have the time and money to go for proper education. That is why these colleges boast of degrees without any examinations, classes, studying or even waiting. There are even websites that offer degrees for just a few hundred dollars which can be ordered and received within 7 days. Furthermore, some of them also have dubious URLs, stating accreditation from agencies which are not any one of the six listed above. Additionally, they offer fixed prices for their Master’s, Bachelor’s, and even Doctorate Degrees. Their justification for awarding degrees will be for giving credit to life experiences such as any type of work experience, any educational background, any workshops or community services attended as well as travel experience, hobbies and even on the number of books that a person has read!

In conclusion, as the awareness on bogus degrees increases amongst prospective employers, degrees obtained through a legitimate avenue of education can sometimes be mistaken for bogus degrees too. Therefore, the best approach to select a college would ideally be based on legitimate college accreditation awarded by the appointed authorities to the respective colleges.

sb
October 09, 2008

Figuring out the reasons people want to get an online degree is simple. Online colleges are ten times more convenient then attending a campus school with a fixed schedule. You can keep your job while you attend. But perhaps the most important reason so many people go for an online degree is this. More education improves your life.

It’s easier to get promoted when you finish your online degree. Graduates tend to make more money, and get better duties. Getting your degree, or advanced specialization just makes your life better. And a better life is worth trying for.

It’s no surprise, then, that unscrupulous people will try to take advantage of people trying to better their lives. They come on with a slick sales letter, promising you an online degree in NO time, simply because of your life experience.

That sounds great, doesn’t it? You’ve led a full life. You’ve learned a lot. You probably actually deserve a degree of some kind. But the real world doesn’t work like that. It might be nice if it did but it doesn’t.

That doesn’t stop these “diploma mills” from convincing people every day that a degree from their “college” will be recognized as valuable by society, and more importantly, their bosses. If you went to your boss with a piece of paper from one of these scammers, do you think you’d get that big fat promotion? Of course not.

I think what is even worse is that they actually charge quite a fee for their “services.” People pay out a few hundred dollars sometimes, sometimes more, because when compared with the costs of actually going to school and getting a real degree online, it seems faster and cheaper. And why not? It is faster and cheaper.

At least it would be if it were an actual accredited degree instead of just a piece of card-stock (if it’s a fancy scam) with something official-looking printed on it. I’ve seen a few of these diplomas, and truthfully, it’s nothing that a kid with a computer couldn’t bang out with Microsoft Publisher in less then 5 minutes.

The worst part of this entire thing is who the scammers target. Most of the time the diploma mills ads are aimed at the undereducated and therefore lower paid people. These people can’t afford to lose over a hundred dollars. But because their uneducated, and because it’s human nature to want to strive for more, to make your life better, they fall into the diploma mill’s trap
sb
October 09, 2008

There will always be con artists, people trying to make a buck on the shady side of the street. They prey on the unsuspecting and the ill-informed. Every year thousands of Americans are hoodwinked by direct mail scams that offer them great prizes and vacations. Some of these victims, many of them elderly or senior citizens invest their hard earned savings with unscrupulous crooks who fleece them of their money through promises of exorbitant returns. The bottom line in business is to know who you are dealing with and check them out if things they say or do raise concern.

Unfortunately these scammers have found the Internet to be a great and anonymous way to select new victims. One way they do this is by creating fake universities and colleges that grant bogus degrees.

A bogus online degree is one that will be worthless to you in the future and will not be accepted as proof of your credentials by any other institution or employer.

Some experts say that there are at least thirty “universities” offering bogus online degree programs and they are willing to sell you a degree, even if you never plan to attend classes. Be forewarned, a degree without the proper accreditation is only worth the piece of paper that it is written on and no one will give you any of the respect and rewards that you think you may deserve with a bogus degree.

The process of accreditation is supervised by a set of regional accreditation agencies across the United States. They examine all aspects of the online degree program to ensure that it meets or exceeds nationally established standards. They look at the curriculum, the instructors, the course material and the quality control processes that the institution has in place before they agree to accredit the program. This ensures that an online degree granted by one institution is as least as good as all of the rest and it protects students, the school and prospective employees from embarrassment or disappointment later.

There are over 750 online degree programs that are accredited and open to the public across the United States. Some are very small and highly specialized

sb
July 02, 2008

The convenience in studying at home is the best advantage the online degrees programs offered in many internet sites nowadays have. The process of studying online has been introduced with many names like e-learning, online distance learning and many more. But all of these online degrees offered have something in common; this is the use of the internet connection for the studying needs of any individual. This means that there will be no need for anyone to get to any university campus to attend classes.

The distance education that the online degrees program offers allows the unique training advantage for anyone who seems to fit for this kind of learning. For some people who had not been able to gain an accredited Bachelor's degree earlier has been the most common reason for getting some online degrees. Finding a university that offers some online Bachelor's degrees is quite an easy thing to achieve. There are numerous choices for you available from the internet.

If your interest is to find some online Bachelor's degree, then consider looking for the one that will be the best for the skills, talents and needs that you have now. This is for you to achieve a lot more from the online degree you will be completing in the future. The internet has huge information available that can help you in finding a program for your needed development in education.

Using the many technological is the most innovative way for you to take advantage of the many online training programs to provide you with the skills you will need in your career advancement. There may be some areas that need to be considered on getting more education but most of these will be eliminated once enough research is done on these process of learning.

If you worry on the accreditation of any online Bachelor's degree that you will be taking up; this is not a hindrance because finding reliable and legally accredited universities that offer you with many different specializations for the online Bachelor's degree they have can be easy. It will be best to find a renowned university with offerings of online degrees for your application. This is crucial, without the accreditation of your education; it is useless spending money on just any online programs.

On the other hand, due to the increase and developments that the online Bachelor's degree had undergone, more and more employers are recognizing from old schools, as well as from the newer schools. This is also due to the rise of these programs. Some employers are even providing support and additional time off for their employers that are under some online degree programs. Some of them are even willing to pay for the tuition fees of some employees that have the potential in providing more growth for the company they play a part. Getting further education in this manner also serves the company the advantage of not losing employees for further education reasons, productivity in the office can be maintained and support on personal developments are provided.
sb
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