Online education is just a new practice.
It hasn’t been around that long. Some online colleges provide a high-quality education, but they haven’t yet established a solid reputation like much older colleges and universities. How would you know if an online associate’s program is up to academic standards?
Know how long has the program existed. It can be hard to decide on an academic program if it’s only been around a year or two. But after four or five years there will be plenty of data on the program that you can evaluate.
Find out more about the faculty. What education and experience do the instructors have? This can ultimately be the deciding factor in how well you do in a particular class.
Check out the graduation rates. A good history of student success in a certain program would be a big plus when you want to enroll to that program. Seek out graduates of the program and see how satisfied they were. You can also ask them their opinions of the faculty.
If you’ve gathered all this information but don’t know how to put it into context, compare this program to ones at other schools. Once you start comparing and contrasting, you’ll start to get a better idea of what looks good to you and what doesn’t.