Our generation is so rapped up in getting everything today, and instant gratification that they don’t think about what it really takes to be a crime scene investigator. The fast past world we live in lends credit to getting a online Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice with specializing in crime scene investigation. This is only the start of a CSI career….

MORE >>>> http://www.globaleducationsearch.com/online-degree-articles/online-bachelors-degree-in-criminal-justice//

MORE >>>> http://www.globaleducationsearch.com/online-degree-articles/online-university-programs/

MORE >>>> Advantages of Online Study and Online Degrees ….

Kenneth Shong, 44, helped to run “Carlingford University” while he was behind bars, according to interviews and documents obtained by AP through the state open records law. Prison authorities uncovered the scheme in late 2008, but Carlingford’s Web site was taken down only this month after AP interviewed its designer.

The school was apparently just a phony moneymaking venture, according to state regulators. Its Web site claimed Carlingford had an office in Mobile, Ala., and a “regional training center” in Green Bay, but both were merely post office boxes.

Web designer Brian Truckey acknowledged in an interview that he ran Carlingford’s Web site and that it contained inaccurate information he was told to post. He said Shong, an inmate at Racine Correctional Institute whose criminal career has spanned the globe, was in charge.

MORE >>>> http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/02/22/general-us-diploma-mill-inmate_7376052.html

The University of California, for instance, estimates a 30 % increase in the 2010 – 2011 year. “California’s $20 billion deficit will make it hard for the [ state's ] legislature to provide funding to the schools,” said Patrick Lenz, UC Berkeley’s budget administrator.

Next year’s tuition numbers aren’t final, since many states are still hashing out their budgets. But one thing is certain: Rates are going up, and the schools that will be hit the hardest are in the states that have seen the worst of the economic downturn.

For example, the Universities of Nevada, Florida, and Washington, each estimate that their tuitions will jump 10% to 15% next year.

MORE >>>> http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/24/news/economy/public_tuition_soars/index.htm?section=money_pf_college

Ready?

Online Degree Question 1: TRUE OR FALSE: An online business education can’t compare to face-to-face learning.

FALSE – In fact, a 93 page “Department of Education” report outlined in The New York Times found that online students outperformed classroom-based students in a modest but statistically meaningful way using comparative research gathered from 1996 to 2008.

Add in the fact that many online learning tools — like streaming video, email, instant messaging, and teleconferencing — develop key communication skills that every modern business executive needs, and it becomes apparent that online programs can offer some competitive advantages that a typical classroom-based education can’t.

MORE >>>> http://globaleducationsearch.com/online-degree-articles/true-and-false-about-online-degrees/

The ‘Accredibase Report’ is the result of an 18-month international research project by Eyal Ben Cohen and Rachel Winch of Verifile Limited, one of the leading background screening firms in the United Kingdom,

Report co-author Ben Cohen says: “We have so far identified 1,762 fake institutions, and we are still investigating a further 1,545 currently filed as ‘suspicious’ before publishing them on the ‘Accredibase’ database.”

Alarmingly, the US was found to be the world’s fake college capital, with 810 diploma mills already identified and many more still under investigation as the Report went to press. More than 35 percent of the diploma mills operate in California, Hawaii, Washington and Florida. The world’s second biggest concentration of fake colleges was in the UK, the Report exposing 271 bogus institutions, making the UK the centre of Europe’s bogus colleges scam.

MORE >>>> http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/nation/united-states-has-become-world-capital-of-fake-colleges-and-diplomas

With ample opportunities to eat out, party and spend freely without the glares and spending lectures from your parents, you need to keep your spending in check. Or else in your sophomore year you will realize you don’t have enough money for books, beer or rent.

Too many college students wait until the well runs dry to start thinking about money management. At this point, most likely it’s too late. Instead of struggling to make ends meet when times are desperate, begin now.

MORE >>>> http://globaleducationsearch.com/online-degree-articles/college-students-and-money-management/

While it’s obviously crucial to match your next job or career to your interests, that can be easier said than done. You may have been working in the same field for years — or even decades — making it hard to get a good idea of what else you’re suited for.

To help you get started, check out free self-assessment quizzes at Careerpath.com and Monster.com. You can find more detailed personality tests — such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Strong Interest Inventory, and the Work-Personality Index — for a fee at What’s Next.

Beverly Jones, a 53-year-old corporate lawyer and vice president of external affairs and policy at Consolidated Natural Gas, accepted a modest early-retirement package. Her second-act plan was to get involved in landscape design, since gardening was one of her passions.

But she soon found that it didn’t make sense as a career choice. As a hobby, gardening was the perfect antidote to a busy career, but the solitary nature of the work made it a lousy full-time gig. She thrived on social contact. The good news: Jones had another skill — mentoring — that met all her requirements for a rewarding second career.

While remaining loosely associated with a law firm and lobbying for a nonprofit, she studied and obtained a Leadership Coaching Certificate from Georgetown University. She also attended career workshops, hired her own career coach, and read extensively about the field. Roughly six months later, she launched her own coaching/consulting practice in Washington. “In time, I began to find my own voice as a coach and felt confident I was doing what I was meant to do,” Jones says.

Career Lessons #2. Get the Skills You Need Before You Leave Your Job

If at all possible, keep your current job while you add the education you need for your new pursuit so that you can reduce your financial burden. Under federal law, employers can offer up to $5,250 a year in tax-free education-assistance benefits for undergraduate or graduate courses. You don’t even need to be working toward a degree. Your employer, however, may require you to receive a minimum grade or to complete a program to be eligible for reimbursement. You may also need to stay employed by your company for a period of time after completing the course of study. And some employers even offer these benefits to laid-off former employees.

When mortgage banker Cliff Stevenson, 55, decided to become a high-school social-studies teacher a few years ago, he took night courses for two years to get a master’s degree in education before he resigned from his firm. Since he had an undergraduate degree in history, all he needed were seven additional courses in education to be certified as a social-studies teacher in Pennsylvania. “I started planning years before I switched careers,” Stevenson says. “My wife and I thought carefully about the financial aspects, and I set a target date that I would leave the mortgage-banking business, which allowed me to go to school and stuff away as much money as I could.” Unplanned bonus: He got out of mortgage banking just before the industry fell off a cliff.

Career Lessons #3. Take Advantage of Education Tax Breaks

If you need to ramp up your skills with a degree or additional classwork, the tuition tab can be onerous. Stevenson’s total cost for a master’s degree in education, for instance, was $35,000. Depending on your income, though, you might qualify for various tax credits, such as the lifetime learning credit, worth up to $2,000 each year for an unlimited number of years that can be used for tuition and fees. The credit has an income phaseout for 2009 incomes from $50,000 to $60,000 (single filer) or $100,000 to $120,000 (married filing jointly). These phaseouts are indexed for inflation.

Career Lessons #4. Apply for Student Aid

Financial aid isn’t just for undergrads — anyone can get low-cost student loans from the government, even if you’re only attending part-time. Acupuncturist Eaves was able to borrow $10,500 to help with her $26,000 tuition using low-interest Stafford loans, the main federal loan for students. Graduate Stafford loans currently charge a fixed rate of 6.8 percent, compared with about 8 percent for a home-equity loan.

The good news is that the federal aid formulas that determine how much you can borrow don’t take into account your home-equity or retirement accounts. Also, a certain amount of your savings — about $20,000 to over $60,000, depending on your age and marital status — are not calculated into your aid formula. And your student-loan interest may even be tax deductible, depending on your income level. You can get more information on what’s deductible from IRS Publication 970, as well as from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators’ Tax Benefits Guide.

Career Lessons #5. Consider Moving to Reduce Costs

The reality is that you will probably have to take a salary cut when you move into a new career, so it might make sense to look for work in an area where the cost of living is lower. Tim Sheerer, 48, moved from an expensive northern New Jersey suburb, where he had commuted to work on Wall Street as an investment banker, to Pittsburgh, when he decided to enter the restaurant business and open an Italian bistro. The cost of living there — about one-third lower — allowed him the cushion to get his restaurant up and running without undue financial pressure. Of course, that sort of uprooting is a little more complicated if you have a family to consider. For Sheerer, he couldn’t have done it without getting the green light from his wife, Colleen, and four children, who all pitch in at the restaurant.

Career Lessons #6. Train While You Work

When Seattle human resources pro Arlene Carter lost her job, a friend told her about an executive fundraising job at a local assisted-living community. The job duties combined fundraising, public relations, and marketing. Carter figured she didn’t have quite the right skills for the job, but she went for the interview anyway. As it turned out, the hiring manager for the nonprofit foundation liked her and offered to shell out a few grand to help her to earn a certificate in fundraising from Indiana University-Purdue University.

It may be hard to believe, but there are some fields, particularly in the health care sector, where there’s a shortage of workers, so employers are willing to help train employees who have the overall skill set and personality to do a job but need to bone up on the nuts and bolts. “The kind of work I did in human resources and what you do in public relations is actually pretty close,” says Carter. “And because it was a hybrid job, it was a little easier to make the stretch.”

Fields such as nursing, eldercare, and home health services are particularly amenable to on-the-job training, says Ellen Freudenheim, author of The Boomers’ Guide to Good Work.

Career Lessons #7. Downsize Your Lifestyle

When you’re new to a profession, you usually can’t expect to pull in the big bucks until you ramp up your skills and gain experience. So get a clear handle on your finances, and start to look for places to cut spending. Ask what luxuries you can do without, from dining out to dry cleaning. And set aside a cushion of up to six months of living expenses to ease transition costs, as well as for unexpected emergencies. Before she left Fannie Mae, Eaves, for instance, refinanced her condo to lower her monthly mortgage payment and paid off her car loan.

Arlene Carter had to take a 15 percent pay cut for her new position, but she’s taken it in stride. For starters, she now commutes just one mile to work as opposed to 30 minutes to her ex-employer’s office, which helps her save on gas and wear and tear on her car. She and her husband also found ways to trim monthly expenses by cutting channel options for their cable-TV service and reducing the number of minutes available on their cell phones. They make a habit of opting for home-cooked meals, and her new work environment’s casual dress policy means lower wardrobe bills. “I don’t even notice the pay cut,” Carter says.

Career Lessons #8. Get Your Foot in the Door

It’s critical to soak up as much as you can about the businesses that appeal to you before you make the plunge. So do informational interviews with people who work in those fields, apply for internships or fellowships, and consider volunteering or moonlighting to get a sense of what the job entails. A potential employer can get a chance to see what you have to offer, and you get a peek inside to see if the job suits you.

Before Steve Brooks, a veteran TV producer based in Atlanta, opened his boutique winery in Walla Walla, Wash., he worked as an apprentice to top-drawer winemakers in the region, in addition to taking classes. “I made a lot of contacts in the business and connected with winemakers who were willing to mentor me,” Brooks says. “I was a cellar rat for three years, and it was the best education I could imagine.”

source: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/career-advice/article/new-jobs-8-lessons-from-real-life-career-switchers/363397/