Affordable Schools Online is a comprehensive resource for current and prospective students, providing them with the tools they need to make informed decisions about their educational paths and careers. We offer free guides and rankings that can take the stress out of their online search, whether students are looking for financial aid, comparing college programs, or exploring school disability accommodations.
Editorial independence is our top priority, and we provide these resources because we believe transparent information and data-driven content are powerful tools for accessing high-quality education. Our experts do all the fact-finding for students, and we can even help identify the schools that match their ambitions, geographic location, and financial circumstances.
How We Make Money: To generate revenue, Affordable Schools Online primarily advertises specific programs for schools that compensate us for student referrals. This means that when users make school selections using our program search tool or when they interact with an ad labeled as “ad”, “advertisement,” or “advertising disclosure” on AffordableSchoolsOnline.com, we may receive compensation. We strive to be as transparent as possible when it comes to separating our advertised and editorial content — the advertising placements through which we receive compensation are transparently identified with terms like “ad” or “advertising disclosure.”
We may also make money through affiliate partner links: If you click on a product link, we may earn a commission. Our writers and editors make independent recommendations without the influence of our business team. We take steps to ensure our site is accurate and up to date, but some information might be different than what you find by visiting a vendor’s website. All products are presented without warranty.
Maintaining Editorial Independence: Our proprietary methodology and algorithm for evaluating college programs ensure that our guides and rankings are unbiased. The data sources we use include the National Center for Education Statistics, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Payscale.com, and CollegeScorecard, which are all recognized for providing accurate information about education and occupations around the United States. In addition to maintaining the highest standards for our sources, we do not rank any schools or programs on our website based on any type of financial relationship with any school partner.
Schools never receive preferential treatment in our rankings because of financial compensation or advertising partnerships. All the schools in our rankings are evaluated using the same criteria and are ranked by our algorithm. We do not award schools rankings that do not directly reflect variables such as admission rates, retention rates, graduation rates, and program costs.
We take editorial integrity seriously and constantly evaluate our content for bias, recency, and accuracy. Our experts, writers, and editors all abide by a consistent set of editorial standards focused on the balanced presentation of facts and responsible journalism. Editorial decisions are made, and editorial content is conceived with current, prospective, and returning students in mind and is therefore focused on supporting the student experience without considering financial relationships with school partners. All schools in our rankings are nationally or regionally accredited, providing an extra layer of quality assurance and transparency to our rankings.