Finding Online Colleges with Open Enrollment and Admissions

No. While the overwhelming majority of for-profit colleges are open enrollment, not all open enrollment colleges are for-profit. Most community colleges are open enrollment, as are some public and private universities.

It may be easier to get into an open enrollment college, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the actual work is easy once you start. College coursework is challenging and rigorous at any properly accredited school, regardless of whether its open enrollment or not. Also, regionally accredited colleges typically accept transfer credits from other regionally accredited colleges, and this wouldn’t be the case if there were any doubts about the quality of education.

That really depends on the individual student. Some may be more prepared than others, but colleges do their best to place students in appropriate classes, based on high school GPA and/or placement test results. Some students may need to start off in remedial courses without credit before moving on to regular credit classes. (In fact, remedial coursework is common even at public and private institutions without open enrollment policies.)

Yes. The financial aid process is identical, as long as the school is accredited by a recognized agency. However, students receiving federal financial aid at any college are required to meet mandated Satisfactory Academic Progress standards to keep their aid. This means students must pass at least two-thirds of their courses and be on pace to finish their degree within 150 percent of the typical time frame.

Yes, up to 30 semester hours (or 45 quarter hours), the equivalent to a year of full-time courses. After that point, students should be ready to enroll in credit-based courses. Even though remedial students are not earning credits, the remedial courses do count toward the financial aid limits mentioned above.

Most don’t, but there are some exceptions. Students can typically find this information on the university’s website or can contact the school directly for the most up-to-date admission information.

Probably not. The college admission process is separate from the academic calendar. Most brick-and-mortar schools use two start dates – one in the fall and another in the spring, with some schools also offering summer and/or winter start dates. Although some online colleges use the same schedule, many are more flexible and have multiple start dates. It’s even possible to see as many as 12 start dates in a year, depending on the school. But even then, you’ll likely still have to wait a few weeks.

In general, yes. Tuition at open enrollment schools tend to be lower than selective four-year colleges. That’s because most open enrollment colleges are community colleges that strive to give lower-income students more access to a college education. But there’s one caveat – although they typically have open enrollment policies, some for-profit schools are more expensive than comparable nonprofit colleges.

Typically, colleges wait until after the deadline to look at all the applications and judge them against one another. Not so with rolling admission. Under this policy, colleges review applications as they come in, meaning students can apply any time before the application deadline and can expect to receive an answer within a month or two.

With early action, students can apply to a school before the regular deadline date to get an early yes/no response (for example, in December or January instead of May) but still have until May 1 to decide. This can be ideal for students who strongly prefer one or two schools. One major drawback, however, is that early action students who have also applied to colleges with regular admission policies typically can’t compare financial aid packages that are sent later in the spring.

Early decision is early action with one major caveat – any student accepted through early decision is obligated to attend that college. Because of this, applicants can only apply to one early decision college.

Offered by a few select universities such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford, this policy is a hybrid of early action and early decision. Like early action, students will hear back early (usually in December) and those who are accepted are not obligated to enroll. On top of that, like early decision, students cannot apply to any other colleges via early admission. They can, however, apply to colleges through the non-binding regular process.

Schools with open door policies admit anyone who can pay tuition. Applicants don’t have to have proof of high school graduation. Such schools are often diploma mills, but not always. Several reputable institutions, such as The Open University, the UK’s largest online educator, use open door policies.