We Are Penn Foster

At Penn Foster, we are dedicated to helping our students build brighter futures by making education affordable and within reach. Our mission has remained the same over the past 125+ years: to create a better world through knowledge and skill. Penn Foster works to empower youth and adult learners to achieve their academic goals so they may unlock their career potential, and ultimately better position themselves for success.

Penn Foster's affordable programs give students the flexibility to learn around their own schedules, with 24/7 access to a supportive online community of students and faculty. Students also receive coaching and support through our comprehensive motivational, financial, and academic support from our faculty, Success Coaches, tutoring services, and online Student Community.

Our Goals & Objectives

Penn Foster provides career pathways for opportunity youth and adult learners through diverse and affordable online diploma, certificate and degree programs, offered via its high school, career school and college. With more than 30,000 graduates each year, Penn Foster's online and blended learning programs are delivered in a self-paced, competency-based model wrapped by comprehensive academic, professional and personal support and coaching. We promise to:

Provide educational programs that enable self-motivated, independent learners to acquire core competencies in their chosen technical and professional fields.
Employ contemporary learning strategies based on academic standards of good practice in distance education.
Develop and maintain systems that optimize student opportunities for broadly participative, interactive learning.
Establish and communicate high standards of academic performance for students and the institution.
Assess student learning and institutional effectiveness systematically in order to improve student performance.
Provide an extensive suite of student support services based on student needs and interests.

Our History

Penn Foster has a rich history of providing career training for in-demand fields. Founded in 1890, Penn Foster was one of the first pioneers of distance learning. A newspaper editor named Thomas J. Foster founded the school to provide coal miners with the education they needed to advance in their careers and increase worker safety. At the turn of the century, the school was officially known as the International Correspondence Schools (ICS), and one out of every 27 adults in the US had taken an ICS course. As the school reached its one millionth enrollment, Thomas Edison, who authored one if its courses, remarked that home study was one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. President Theodore Roosevelt agreed. He visited the Scranton campus and extolled the virtues of the school's study method. Soon, Foster's program grew and became more sophisticated, and the International Correspondence Schools eventually became Penn Foster. In the years since, our institution has produced many notable alumni including Chrysler's former president Walter Chrysler, GM's former president Charles W. Nash, and Dan Kimball, former Secretary of the U.S. Navy.

Penn Foster High School

Penn Foster High School is one of the largest regionally and nationally accredited online high schools in the United States, with over 25,000 students receiving their high school diplomas each year.

Penn Foster Career School

Penn Foster Career School helps students begin their path towards finding the right career with over 80 diploma and certificate programs that are regionally and nationally accredited, flexible, and affordable. Every year we graduate over 10,000 students who are looking to take the first steps towards jobs and careers they love.

Penn Foster College

Penn Foster College offers everything from online associate degrees and bachelor's degrees to undergraduate certificates and individual online college courses which are nationally accredited. We provide a unique, flexible schedule for busy schedules and affordable tuition, which includes all course material.