Penn Foster’s Editorial Process
At Penn Foster, we’re committed to serving our students – from enrollment to graduation. Part of that means making sure you have trustworthy, accurate information and resources to help you navigate online education.
It's important to know that both Penn Foster Career School and High School have achieved accreditation at regional and national levels, and Penn Foster College has secured national accreditation. Accreditation signifies that an institution and its programs have met quality benchmarks as prescribed by the accrediting organization. Part of those guidelines include regularly auditing and updating content to ensure what we write remains true and relevant to learners.
Additionally, that also means that we rely on experts – our instructors, company leaders, and administrative staff with industry experience – to review and inform our content so that you can be confident that what you’re reading reflects real-world experience in jobs from healthcare to education.
Our team writes and updates every article according to our standards to best meet the needs of you, our readers and students. To ensure quality and accuracy, we follow these guidelines:
1. Be transparent.
With everything we write, we want to be fully transparent with our potential students, current learners, alumni, and readers. That means being upfront with facts to help you make decisions, including salary information, education needs, and job demand. We also write not with the intent of “selling” our programs, but giving every reader the most accurate and complete information to help them make a decision regarding their education or career, whether or not that means choosing to enroll with Penn Foster.
2. Maintain high standards.
Everything we write and share with you is reviewed to ensure that the information is accurate, clear, and helpful to you. We also regularly audit and edit content to
- Update relevant information. Whether we’re updating information about a program or updating statistics we reference, such as salary data, we strive to make sure the information you read is the most accurate it can be.
- Increase clarity. Sometimes, what made sense a year ago doesn’t read the same now. That’s why we also pay careful attention to how we write and what we say, updating content that doesn’t necessarily ring true anymore.
- Introduce new information. Things change and, in some careers and programs, they can change fast. We’ll review and update blogs to make sure that what you read shares the most recent information we have available.
- Site our facts. We won’t just write facts and figures without a reliable source. When we site salary and job data, we will always site the source within the content, whether by linking or including a footnote. While we use a variety of sources for different content, we most usually reference the Bureau of Labor Statistics for up-to-date, relevant job information like average salary, job growth, and more.
3. Prioritize empathy, honesty, and inclusivity.
We believe education is for everyone, no matter their background or circumstances, so our content should reflect that. That means, when we write a blog, we write with the idea that it can be read or listened to by most people. We also strive to reflect on the phrases we use to make sure what we’re saying is accurate to every reader, paying close attention to language around accessibility and inclusivity.
4. Prioritize the needs of learners.
At the end of the day, you – our learners and readers – are the most important part of the writing process. When we write content, we strive to prioritize your needs and interests. That means that we try to answer the questions that will be most helpful to you, provide information that is relevant and useful to what you’re looking for, and make sure you can find what you need in our blog.