So you want to earn a high school diploma online? Before you begin, you need to decide why it is you want to start down that path.Please do not do it because you think it will be easier. This is rarely true; often it is exactly the opposite. While in traditional high schools, there is someone who monitors your education. When you take your high school education online, there is much more independence. That is both good and less good.

There are two basic kinds of online high school diploma programs. There are commercial programs and there are public programs. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. It is best to explore both to determine which is the right choice for you

Commercial Programs

Commercial online high school programs include schools like Penn Foster High School, Kaplan College Preparatory High School, and National High School. These programs offer an online high school program for varying amounts of money. The advantages to these types of programs is that most of them are available to students regardless of age. So, whether you are fifteen or fifty, you have access to the majority of these programs.

These sorts of programs, however, are the ones where you need to be the most careful. It appears that there are just as many fake programs as legitimate ones. A commercial program should have regional or national accreditation. However, and importantly, just as there are fake schools, there is also fake accreditation. If the accreditor is not listed on this list of recognized accrediting associations from the U.S. Department of Education, it is probably not a good choice.

Public Programs

Public programs include such entities as charter schools, university-based high schools, and state departments of education-funded schools. Some of these high schools are actually free. There is somewhat less concern for the validity of these schools since most will either be regionally/nationally accredited or be approved by a state's department of education. Colleges tend to find either acceptable.

Those free online high schools typically have specific age requirements that correlate to traditional public schools although, in some states, they are free up to the age of twenty-one. Check with the school to be sure. Readers will notice that school chains - like Insight Schools or Connections Academies - have begun to sprout throughout the United States. To my thinking, this can be good for quality control, but there are many find local programs as well (think: Greenways Academy or Laurel Springs School).

One thing you will notice is that these public programs tend to be newer. The commercial ones were out of the blocks much earlier. There are exceptions, of course, like the program at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, that has a long history.

Conclusion

Whichever direction you decide to go, make sure that you do your homework before you choose. This includes the issue of accreditation and even checking with your potential colleges to make sure of acceptability. That being said, properly accredited online high school programs have reached the point where acceptability is mostly a non- issue.