Start local. If you live near a college or university, you may want to check with it first. Many colleges offer 100-percent online degree programs these days, but some offer combined online and on-campus programs. This means that while the bulk of your learning will be done online, you may need to commute to the school periodically for meetings or certain classes. By starting local, this will eliminate much of the hassle if your program requires you to attend a periodic “in-residence” session.
Search regionally. If you strike out at the local level, expand your search to regional or even statewide colleges or universities before you look out of state. First, in-state tuition is typically and significantly less expensive than out-of-state tuition. Second, if you find a great program that requires periodic on-campus visits, it may be less of a hassle to drive to the next county than to a college that’s several states away.
Refer to an online directory. If you do not have any luck at the local or regional level, the next step would be to research graduate schools online. A website like GradSchools.com can help you narrow down your choices to only programs that offer online options. From there, you can research individual schools directly to find one that matches your needs and interests.
Research your selected school's accreditation. Once you've searched the gradschools.com directory and chosen a few schools that look promising, you must determine whether the school has been accredited by a nationally recognized accreditation body. To determine whether your school of interest is accredited, visit the website of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) at chea.org. The website features an easy-to-use database that will allow you to search whether any given institution's CHEA recognition. Using this website, you can search by institution name, state or program of interest.
Request information. Once you find a program that is accredited and looks likes it would be a good fit for your lifestyle and academic goals, request information from the school. While most schools have a wealth of information available on their websites, you will typically receive more in-depth materials about your prospective program if you speak to someone directly.
Apply, apply, apply. Once you’ve narrowed your research down to a few choices, begin the application process. Be sure to follow the process according to the school’s requirements; some graduate programs are extremely competitive, and not following application instructions can easily disqualify you from consideration.