A Long-Distance Diploma

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"Distance learning places a lot of responsibility on the student, and that starts with shopping around," says John Bear. First, you will need to decide what you want out of a distance education course or program.

• Are you interested in learning for learning's sake, or are you eager to attain a degree?
• Do you hope to later transfer any credits earned to another college or university?
• Will you want your degree to be recognized by current or future employers?
• Would you prefer a highly structured program, or one you design in consultation with a faculty advisor?
• How much are you willing to spend? The courses or degree program you choose will (or should) ultimately depend on how you answer each of these questions.

Once you've decided what you want to learn and why you want to learn it, it's time to zero in on the program that is best tailored to meet your needs. This is where it helps to be an informed consumer.

It is not a good idea to limit your search to classified ads in the backs of magazines, nor should you rely on surfing the Web for an appropriate course or program. There are few to no regulations controlling who can post what on the web, and that includes use of the ".edu" domain (Long the exclusive province of legitimate schools and colleges, until savvy hucksters clued in). "Anyone who has the necessary $70 can register an .edu domain name and use it to archive any type of enterprise on the Internet," warns Phillips, who is also CEO of Lifelong Learning, a Vermont-based firm that helps colleges and corporations to devise educational programs for adult learners.

So where should you look? The aforementioned guides by Phillips and Yager and the Bears are a good place to start. So, too, is another sweeping reference, Peterson's Guide to Distance Learning Programs 1999, which provides details about some 2,000 degree and certificate options available from nearly 900 institutions.

Then there's the Distance Education and Training Council's (DETC) Directory of Accredited Institutions, which profiles the more than 70 schools and programs sanctioned by the DETC's accrediting arm. A Washington-based, nonprofit association, the DETC was founded in 1926 as a clearinghouse for information about distance education. It has the authority to accredit schools offering everything from certificates to master's degrees, though a majority of the programs it recognizes are vocationally or trade-oriented.

While DETC accreditation guarantees a program's legitimacy, keep in mind that credits earned in DETC-recognized programs may not transfer to regionally accredited two- or four-year colleges. If you do plan to take DETC courses with the intention of later transferring the credits or applying to another college for a higher degree, you'd do well to check with that college's registrar in advance.

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