The burgeoning field of online education has come under a lot of suspicion, and a prospective student can have a lot of trouble sorting out legitimate schools from degree-mills and scams. GetEducated is an online college review website that attempts to provide a little guidance in sorting these issues out.

Pros:
The site has managed to develop a fairly large catalogue of online schools and degrees, all reviewed (to varying levels of depth). It then provides a variety of tools to compare different aspects of these schools so you can find, for any given degree, the lowest cost provider, or the highest quality. The site incorporates user/student evaluations as well as expert opinions, and also provides job listings and financial aid information for the field.

Cons:
The interface and homepage have an unpolished and cluttered feel, including a few too many ads, and many of the school entries offer the user little more information than the name and location of a school. In general, the resources provided, while broad, come across as shallow. For evaluative metrics, the site uses affordability and student satisfaction, so that with a dearth of student reviews most schools are being judged on a. whether they are accredited, and b. how much they cost.

Our Takeaway:
Clear, common sense, and reliable advice on the burgeoning online higher-ed system is in short supply; in this regard, GetEducated provides a salutary service. As New York City’s new ad campaign warning against predatory school scams demonstrates, the frontier of the higher education system is still something of a wild west.

EdLab Relevance:
GetEducated demonstrates the advantages and disadvantages of a reviewing system that relies to a large extent on user-submitted content. It may seem like one can quickly gather content in this manner, but without nurturing your sources you might find that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.