Beware of fake degrees and diplomas.

With the students striving for better higher education invites more of education institutes luring them to join their prescribed courses. Many of them are genuinely recognized and have the requisite infrastructure but at the same time existing those without proper status still claim to be at their best to provide the required curriculum. Novice students on their tall claim fall in their trap loosing not only whooping sum of money but precious time too without quality education and competent document of accomplishment. Every year innumerable number of students faces this problem.

As many as 22 universities are listed as fake in 2009 by UGC, university grants commission, stated to be having not qualified requirement for university establishments and yet operating in different places. Mostly the degrees are detected to be inadequate when the individual applies for job or pursue further education which is when the damage is already done. Some do tend to get the alert before and manage to avert with minimal damage. The fortunate normally gets alerted from the behavior of the institutes. For instance these universities have very flexible schedules, they are registered under certain society or other unknown resource, degrees and diplomas are awarded within incredulous time period, not heard much before about it, lacking basic infrastructures like lab etc, charges  very high fees unlike other legitimate institutes and have incompetent faculties.
Online degrees are further more risky as they do not involve dedicated source of communication which makes it very difficult to locate the culprits.

Some of the signs to be taken care of before making decision while taking up online course:

1. It promises a degree in no time
2. You can't contact anyone about the program
3. Online forums and blogs have bad things to say
4. The government education agencies have never heard of the program
5. The site talks about getting your degree, but not the education part
6. The degree is super affordable, super easy and super fast
7. The school isn't accredited

These degrees are luring as they are awarded by universities and institutes located abroad.  The prospects of either continuing studies abroad or getting better pay cheques post education causes them to take up these courses. Hence one should be very sure of all the credentials before taking up any courses.

To see the list of unrecognized and fake universities released by UGC, please visit http://www.ugc.ac.in/inside/fakealerts.html