Is Penn Foster High School a scam?

Answer 1

Posted 1-29-10

I came across this post because I am trying to figure out if Penn Foster College is a legitimate school as well. My husband is interested in their Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice degree and it would be a perfect option for him if it turns out to be a serious school. From my research, I have found that PFC is accredited by the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) and is licensed by the Arizona State Board for Private Postsecondary Education to award associates and Bachelors Degrees. They are not, however, a Title IV federal aid participant, meaning they don't offer federally backed loans and therefore do not have a Federal Code. There is an expensive process and infrastructure involved with a school implementing Title IV and from my understanding, PFC aims to keep tuition as low as possible. What I do not know is whether they choose not to participate in Title IV or if they are not eligible to do so because of their academic standards. I intend to find out before my husband enrolls, but I thought this might be more helpful than the previous person's post of "go to a real school." His or her statement that "no credible employer will hire you" is obviously based on opinion since I do know from personal experience that the Penn Foster Career School is utilized by government agencies to provide vocational rehabilitation to people who are in need of or entitled to retraining services.

Answer 2

Answer 1: It depends on what your definition of a scam is. Is it legal, and can you get a diploma? Yes. Is it a good education and is the diploma accepted and respected everywhere? No.

Answer 2: I'm sorry... I could not more strongly disagree with the first answerer. In fact, I find his/her answer highly misleading.

First, Penn Foster High School isn't even remotelya "scam." That the first answerer didn't just get that word off the table, right off the bat, is misleading and shame on him/her.

Second, Penn Foster is not merely legal; and it's not that you may merely, by hook or by crook, get a diploma from it. Shame, again, on him/her for that implication.

Third, what the student gets from Penn Foster High School is absolutelya good education; and its diploma is accepted and respected everywhere!

Seriously, the first answerer's answer borders on the irresponsible. I'm guessing that his/her problem is that Penn Foster High School is an online program; and perhaps s/he's under the mistaken opinion that there's something sub-standard about that. Let me set straight two things about that...

First, all degree/diploma mills are "online." The reason, simply, is that it's easier to create an impressive looking website, online, than it is an impressive-looking physical campus; and so all degree/diploma mills are, by nature, "online." However, even Harvard and Yale, now, offer entirely online degrees. So, then, it's an "all thumbs are fingers, but all fingers are not thumbs" sort of thing. All degree/diploma mills are "online," but not everything online is a degree/diploma mill.

Second, there is nothing inherently substandard about online versus in-classroom teaching. Maybe there was back when the only distance learning modality which existed was old-fashioned, through-the-postal-system "correspondence" courses. Using today's online technologies, though, a student can be made to feel almost like s/he's sitting right in the classroom. In 2009, the US Department of Education (USDE) commissioned a study which found that online students were more disciplined, more serious, and more generally successful than their in-classroom counterparts.

So, then, the first answerer needs to get the silly notion of that there's anything inherently sub-standard about "online" out of his/her head!

What actually matters -- and, in fact, it's the only thing that matters, at least for our purposes, here; and when it comes to assessing a high school -- is whether the high school is accredited by a USDE-approved agency; and, more specifically, whether said agency is one of the US's six big "regional" accreditors!

It matters not whether the modality of the high school's coursework delivery is by "online" or "in-classroom" methods. All that matters is whether the online high school is at least "regionally" accredited. Oh, it can also be "nationally" accredited by a USDE-approved national accreditor. But "national" accreditation is only acceptable at the post-secondary (college) level. At the secondary (high school) level, only "regional" accreditation will do. Most employers, colleges/universities, the military, etc., will only accept high school diplomas from "regionally" accredited high schools. Period.

And Penn Foster High School is both "regionally" and "nationally" accredited. Since only its "regional" accreditation is of any real value, though, its "national" accreditation may be viewed as nice, but irrelevant.

Every US K-12 school in any local neighborhood, that's part of any city or county school district, is "regionally" accredited, exactly the same as Penn Foster High School.

So, first answerer, you could not be more wrong.

Penn Foster High School is fine. Excellent, in fact. And it could not possibly be further from being a scam! What a terrible thing to allow the questioner to even wonder is true!

Now, that said, as I just wrote in another answer, here, Penn Foster High School, and its direct competitor, Ashworth College's James Madison High School, are sort of almost "assembly line" kinds of schools. I sometimes joke that they're almost like the "Walmart" of accredited online education because, frankly, the owners/operators of those two schools -- and their parent colleges, too -- simply want to graduate as many people as possible, as cheaply and quickly as possible, without providing too much special help and support, if it can be avoided. It's not that they can't or won't provide all the help that a student needs, if s/he, indeed, needs it. It's simply that the student who needs more than just a little help really needs to be insistent about it, and to kinda' force the schools to take it seriously. None of that makes the schools bad, mind you; but the student who enrolls at either of them really needs to have his/her eyes wide open about how hard it can sometimes be to get them to take seriously providing whatever help is needed. Also, it can be a little impersonal because one usually never gets the same helper/tutor twice. Still, the help is there if needed. The student just needs to accept and adjust to that... well... again... it can be a little like shopping at Walmart.

But both schools are, nevertheless, "regionally" accredited; and at the high school level, that's all that matters!

Answer 3

I asked Charleston School of Beauty Culture if they'd accept this diploma and they said they would not.

Answer 1: Absolutely not. Penn-Foster High School (not its college, but its high school) is not only accredited by an agency approved by the US Department of Education (USDE), but it is "regionally" accredited by said agency...

...and "regional" accreditation is the best kind. It's by no means the only kind, but at the high school level (far more so than at the college level), "regional" accreditation is the one for any high school to have.

And Penn-Foster High School has it!

Weirdly, Penn-Foster College, doesn't. It's accreditation is "national," rather than "regional." National accreditation, at the college level, is fine; it's approved by USDE, and also by the USDE-sanctioned Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), and so there's not a darned thing wrong with it.

That said, I'm unaware of a single college, university, seminary, trade school, or any other nationally-accredited institution of higher learning that wouldn't give its proverbial right arm to be "regionally" accredited.

So, bottom line: No. Penn-Foster is by no means "a scam." Get a high school diploma from it, and it will absolutely, positively be identically-acceptable to any regionally-accredited college or university anywhere.

Answer 4

Yes, Penn Foster online school is legit and is credited.