Well, now that I’ve started off with a really misleading title, let’s begin.

My cousin Elizabeth is recently going to be graduating high school and she’s been looking around for universities. There was one in particular she wanted me to look over (being the “Big sister” of the family, I’d say my views are pretty important! … ha). She wanted me to take a look at an online university. My initial instinct of course was that online universities aren’t usually any good. And you’re better off studying at a local campus.

But seeing as how I’m not attending any online universities, I’ll at least take a gander at the website and let you guys know what I think of the site. We’re taking a look at Western Governors University’s website, and their online degree programs. Let’s dive right in!

Okay. At the website, the first thing that jumps out at me is the slogan. Learn More. Become More. Online. Not too bad. I’ve seen much worse slogans. Good job! Underneath, what gives me a good feeling is that they are NCATE and CCNE accredited. This is hugely important. Just posting this makes me feel a lot more secure about what they’re offering. If you don’t know, accreditation basically means that they are acknowledged and given licenses to partake in providing education for people. In other words, they’re not bums off the street cheating you out of money.

Moving on to the main event, the courses and degrees they offer. Looking at their Programs page, it’s pretty impressive. They separate the programs into sections: For Teachers, Businesses, Information Technology and Health. Their range of degrees is pretty nice, too. They offer from licenses to post baccalaureate, even masters degrees.

With that said, the offerings aren’t all that bad! Pretty impressive. But I would always be very careful before jumping into something like this. The school is accredited, and there are no red flags or alarms. But some people just study better at a campus.

I will however give them a positive thumbs up for being accredited, and having a very detailed but simple website to get into.