NORTH ATTLEBORO - Fisher College's online degree program has been ranked 12th best in the nation by a nationally recognized distance-learning organization.

Fisher College, which has a campus in North Attleboro, was the only higher education institution in New England to make the list compiled by the Online Education Database, which only evaluated accredited online educational programs.

"This ranking reaffirms our belief that our online degree program is one of the best in the country," said Fisher College President Thomas M. McGovern. "We make no distinction between our on-campus students and our online students, and this ranking validates our approach."

The rankings were based on eight criteria: acceptance rate, financial aid, graduation rate, peer Web citations, retention rate, scholarly citations, student-faculty ratio and years accredited.

Fisher College, one of the first colleges in the country to launch an online degree program, scored particularly well in the categories of financial aid since 100 percent of Fisher's online students receive some amount of financial aid, scholarly citations and student-to-faculty ratio. "Our online degree programs allow all types of students to get their degree in a convenient and flexible way," said Janet Harrington, vice president for continuing and distance education operations. "We offer our distance learners the same level of support - from one-on-one counseling to help with financial aid - that we provide to those in the classroom. We believe this commitment to online learning is a major competitive advantage for Fisher."

The rankings can be found online at http://oedb.org/rankings.