Paralegal Online Degrees

Are Online Paralegal Degrees Credible?

If you're looking into paralegal online degrees, you're probably wondering whether employers think they are as credible as paralegal degrees from traditional schools.

In July 2009, the Society for Human Resource Management (SRHM) surveyed its members to find out what they thought about online degrees in general. Their findings might just surprise you! 

Here's some great news from the survey:

In fact, about half of survey participants viewed online university degree programs to be as credible as traditional degree programs!

Almost 70 percent think individual courses from online universities are as credible as traditional university courses.

Survey participants suggested they were seeing more job applicants with online degrees due to current economic troubles. This suggests that online paralegal degrees (and other online degrees) may become even more mainstream as more and more students get their education from accredited online programs.

Finally, 95 percent of the survey respondents said there was no difference in terms of tuition assistance, whether employees took courses at an accredited traditional university or an accredited online university. Remember here that they were comparing accredited programs -- if you plan to attend an online paralegal school, be sure you research its accreditation before enrolling.  

This is all great news!  However, 63 percent of the survey participants agreed that "job applicants with traditional university degrees are preferred by my organization to applicants with online university degrees, presuming work experiences are similar."  It was interesting to see that privately owned, for-profit companies were more likely than government agencies to prefer job applicants with traditional degrees.  U.S. agencies employ a large number of paralegals.

So what does this mean for you?

If you have a solid, accredited paralegal program nearby that fits your personal needs (schedule, costs, etc.) you will probably want to pursue your paralegal certificate or degree the old fashioned way. However, if you need a program with greater flexibility, or live in an area with few programs to choose from, an accredited online paralegal degree is a solid option, too.

And, if you’re interested in working at any sort of government agency, your online paralegal degree should be looked upon favorably (or at least it won’t hurt).

Finally, the survey brought up an interesting issue: they asked participants whether job applicants indicated on their resumes whether their degrees came from online universities, and 68 percent indicated that applicants never or seldom did so! 

So, when you’re building your resume, remember that while you ALWAYS need to be truthful about where and when you obtained your paralegal certificate or degree, need only to include the name of the school, the dates you attended, and any certificates or degrees you earned. You don’t have to “call out” the fact that your program was online.  

Access the SHRM survey here

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