Back when Lauren Marrett wanted to be an art major, she didn't care much about whether her school was accredited or by whom.
It was the quality of her art portfolio that mattered, she thought, not the reputation of her college.
She enrolled in a for-profit online college lacking regional accreditation. But six months into her schooling, she started to get nervous about how employers would view her school.
"I started to think, 'Art is a competitive field and I need a backup plan,'" says the 23-year-old, who eventually transferred to the University of Illinois Springfield, a college with solid academic credentials. "I wanted to go online and have it be a legitimate school."
With a little bit of Google research, Marrett got to the bottom of a problem that plagues many online students: how to determine whether a school has recognized accreditation – verification by an outside, legitimate authority that a college or university provides an education that meets certain standards.
Marrett was featured by U.S. News & World Report on October, 16, 2013.
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