This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

Online education is our subject this week as we continue our Foreign Student Series. Our reports are for students around the world who would like to attend a college or university in the United States. Programs where students take classes by computer over the Internet offer a way to earn a degree from home.

Online learning is also called distance education. Many American colleges and universities have been offering it for years.

One example is New York University in Manhattan. The School of Continuing and Professional Studies began online classes in 1992. Its Virtual College has taught more than 10,000 students from across the United States and other countries.

Last year, the School of Continuing and Professional Studies launched NYU Online. It offers NYU's first online programs to earn a bachelor's degree. Programs are offered in three areas: leadership and management, information systems management and social sciences.

University officials say classes are highly interactive¹, where students communicate with each other and their teachers. Some classes require students to all log in at the same time so they can attend live lectures by a professor. Students can also ask questions and work together on team projects.

The university says classes are taught by NYU professors who have been trained in online teaching.

International students must take two admissions tests before they can be accepted into the program. These are the SAT and the TOEFL. We will discuss these tests later in our series.

The cost to attend NYU Online depends on how many classes a student takes. It can cost as much as fifteen thousand dollars a year. NYU offers no financial aid for international students in this program. You can get more details at nyu.edu.

Many other schools offer online education. Students should be especially careful of programs that offer a degree in return for little or no work. These are known as diploma mills, and are illegal in the United States.

Educational advisers² also say that before you enter any program, make sure the work will be recognized in your country. You should also make sure the schools you are considering are accredited³. That will be our subject next week.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. More information for foreign students can be found at www.unsv.com. I'm Steve Ember.