How to Tell if an Online Program Is Accredited
Back when Lauren Marrett wanted to be an art major, she didn't care much about whether her school was accredited or by whom.
It was the quality of her art portfolio that mattered, she thought, not the reputation of her college.
She enrolled in a for-profit online college
lacking regional accreditation. But six months into her schooling, she
started to get nervous about how employers would view her school.
"I started to think, 'Art is a competitive field and I
need a backup plan,'" says the 23-year-old, who eventually transferred
to the University of Illinois—Springfield, a college with solid academic credentials. "I wanted to go online and have it be a legitimate school."
[Find answers to
common questions about online program accreditation.]
With a little bit of Google research, Marrett got to the
bottom of a problem that plagues many online students: how to determine
whether a school has recognized accreditation – verification by an
outside, legitimate authority that a college or university provides an
education that meets certain standards.
Discovering whether your school has a stamp of approval
can be a painstaking process, but it's an important one, experts say.
Many colleges and universities won't accept transfer credits from
schools without recognized accreditation and employers often won't pay
for their employees to attend them.
"When searching for a university that offers online
courses, students must inquire about accreditation," says Susan
Aldridge, a senior fellow at the American Association of State Colleges
and Universities. "Accreditation doesn't guarantee quality, but does
provide more assurance that there is oversight regarding the instruction
and their authority to issue degrees."
During the typical accreditation process, a
nongovernmental body conducts reviews and site visits to assess faculty,
student support services, finance and facilities, curricula and other
factors. There are so many so-called "accreditation mills" – groups that
will accredit schools using minimum standards – out on the Internet
that it can be particularly easy for online students to get involved
with schools that lack legitimacy, experts say.
"They have very misleading names. They sound like they
are these wonderful institutions but they are not," says Judith S.
Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation,
or CHEA. "This is especially a problem for international students. We
take our complex higher education system for granted. Someone will see
something called 'U.S. University' and assume it's okay, but it's not.
It's just a degree."
To see whether an accrediting agency is legitimate,
students should check to see if it's recognized either by the council or
the U.S. Department of Education.
Both groups investigate accreditors to ensure they are
using appropriate standards when they are evaluating schools. But
students can only receive federal student aid from schools accredited by
agencies recognized by the U.S. government.
The council, a private sector group, publishes a list of accrediting organizations recognized by both it and the federal government.
[Learn
five steps to check if an online program is accredited.]
The federal government recognizes seven regional
accreditors, which evaluate schools in certain parts of the country,
while the council recognizes six.
Both groups also recognize fewer than a dozen national
accreditors, such as the Association for Biblical Higher Education
Commission on Accreditation and the Distance Education and Training
Council Accrediting Commission, which evaluate faith-based schools or
career-oriented programs. Many religious institutions have regional
accreditation as well.
Students who take courses from nationally accredited
universities may have difficulty transferring their credits to
regionally accredited schools, since most regionally accredited
universities do not accept transfer credits from those schools,
according to Aldridge.
"State universities and private nonprofit universities
are regionally accredited," says Aldridge. "This is the most desirable
accreditation because students taking courses at one regionally
accredited university will be more likely to transfer their credits to
another similar institution."
[Explore why online ed isn't always cheaper.]
Students should also check the council's list to see
whether reputable professional associations accredit their specific
program, says Russell Poulin, deputy director of research and analysis
for WCET, which advocates for effective technology use in higher
education.
Industry groups such as the American Bar Association, the
American Dental Association and others offer specialized accreditation
for individual programs, he says.
If students don't check their programmatic accreditation, he says they run the risk of not getting hired after graduation.
Finally, online students should beware of schools touting
"international accreditation," since the council and the federal
government don't recognize any international accrediting bodies, Eaton
says.
Schools often list accreditation on their websites. If they don't list their credentials, experts suggest students call and ask.
"I think the information is there, you just have to have
the motivation to go find it and back yourself up," says Marrett, the
University of Illinois—Springfield student. "You don't want to walk into
a job interview and get laughed out of the room because you went to a
joke of a school."
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