Online education/financial aid question?

Question

If an online university offers financial aid to attend their institution, does that meet the criteria for accredidation, and therefore making it a legite university, or can any institution offer financial aid?

Answer 1

A school MUST be accredited in order to offer FEDERAL financial aid, so if you're getting (or being offered) a Federal Pell Grant or Stafford Loan, that's a pretty good clue that the school is accredited.

However, there are unaccredited schools out there that offer financial assistance (scholarships, loans, or grants) from their own pool(s) of funding. Just because they give away their own money and call it "financial aid" doesn't make then accredited.

If you really want to know if your school isn't a recognized accredited school, you can check the Wikipedia's big list of unaccredited schools (which can be fascinating reading if you like reading about the ccreepy things that some schools do): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unaccredited_institutions_of_higher_learning .

Remember, some schools say that they are accredited but are still less-than-legitimate because the agency that supposedly accredited them is not legitimate itself. Read up on "accreditation mills" for more info. You can look up the school, find out who they are accredited by and check to see if that accreditation association is not recognized as legitimate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unrecognized_accreditation_associations_of_higher_learning

Answer 2

financial aid from the school has nothing to do with accreditation. if your financial aid package has gov't grants and loans, then, yes, the school is accredited because the gov't won't give you any money otherwise. but, a school is not accredited because it offers financial aid, it offers gov't sponsored financial aid because it is accredited.