Online colleges are becoming popular as people seek to get degrees from their homes. Starting an accredited online college is a business venture that can be difficult but has the potential to become very profitable.
Decide if your college will be a general college or if it will offer specialized degrees.
Decide on the number of degrees that your college will offer and name these degrees.
Higher a web master to build and run your site, a curriculum planner to help you develop the degrees you are offering and a financial director to help you develop tuition costs.
Contact a state or regional accreditation office that specializes in the degrees you will be offering. Let them know you are starting a school and will eventually ask for accreditation. Ask for a list of things that the particular accreditation office looks for in schools.
Set a date for work to be completed and for your school to open. This date should correspond with the beginning of a semester.
Set a calendar for your school including when semesters or quarters will run, whether you will be an all-year school or a semester-long school and which holidays you will take off.
Develop a website with your web master. He will use a template for online schools. It should include a virtual chat room, an email server, online course rooms, messaging services and an online course and grade area.
Develop curriculum with your planner. Each degree should have a specific number of credits assigned to it. Use other colleges as a guide. Create a specific number of courses that will count toward each degree. Base the curriculum ideas around the list you have gotten from the accreditation office to ensure you are planning curriculum that will be accredited.
Create a financial idea with your finance planner. Build a budget based around the start-up costs, the costs of running the school, and the money you want to make, versus the amount of tuition that students will pay per credit hour.
Hire teachers to teach the courses that you have developed with your curriculum planner.
Notify the accreditation agency that you are going to start offering courses and ask them to evaluate your school.
Make any changes that the accreditation agency asks you to make to get temporary accreditation. They will complete the process after they have evaluated your work with students.
Advertise for students to join your school.
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