If you’re looking into online education, you may have heard or seen the term accreditation being used, and not really known what it’s about or why it’s important.
Having accreditation means that a certain regulator has certified that school or program meets a certain educational standard. This means, for instance, that a University’s program meets the standards required to issue a degree, and for that degree to be recognized by the State or Employers.
Accreditation is normally a non-issue with large public Universities (at least from a student perspective), as those in the public eye are easy to shut down if their accreditation or standards were to lapse. However, with accreditation for online education, things begin to get sticky.
In the US, accreditation is normally broken down into two categories: national accreditation, and regional accreditation. National accreditation is carried out by a group designed to apply a broad set of standards across the country. For US online programs, the group doing this is known as the Distance Education Training Council, or DETC.
DETC-accredited programs have met a certain standard, but DETC accreditation is often looked down upon, and nationally-accredited programs can have difficulty being accepted for transfer to regionally accredited Universities, employment, or tuition reimbursement (e.g. from the military.)
Regional accreditation on the other hand, is performed by a body in the area (for example, the Southwestern United States.) They claim to have higher standards (though this is debatable), and regionally accredited institutions offer their students the full luxury of transfer credit and reimbursement.
Another thing to keep in mind is that public institutions normally have regional accreditation, while private and for-profit institutions tend to get national accreditation.
If the online program you want is only offered at a University with national accreditation, don’t dismiss it outright. But do your homework; nobody wants to pour thousands of dollars into a degree only to have it be useless in the workforce.
