DegreeGo Blog

Accreditation is an integral part to any kind of education, especially online degree programs. Before looking into an online degree program, prospective college students should familiarize themselves with accreditation and its significance on their future educational pursuits. These Five Facts About Accreditation That You Should Know will familiarize the basic points of accreditation.

1. Accreditation will determine your transferability. The units of your classes–and you degree itself–will be transferable to other schools based upon the school’s accreditation. This means that if you decide to change online degree programs or other learning programs, you will have to have reputable accreditation to make that transition.
2. Accreditation will validate your degree. Some employers will check the accreditation of your degree to make sure it is legit. Accreditation weeds out degree mills, which are unable to receive accreditation, and thus the value of a degree is validated by your school’s accreditation. Specific degrees, like health care degrees, may require accreditation with specific agencies (for instance, there are specific agencies that accredit online nursing programs.)
3. You should be able to find a school’s accreditation. First, visit the school’s website. Most schools are open about their accreditation and all pertinent information will be readily available to the potential student. If you cannot find this, you can also visit the site of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. CHEA is an association of 3,000 degree-granting colleges and universities and recognizes 60 institutional and programmatic accrediting organizations. Last, while the U.S. Department of Education does not accredit educational institutions and/or programs themselves, they do maintain a list of institutions; you can search The U.S. Department of Education’s database.
4. There are differences between national and regional accreditation. The Six Regional Accreditation Agencies are the bigwigs of accreditation. If a school is accredited by one of these six accreditation agencies, changes are that your units are transferable to other colleges under the same umbrella. The Six Regional Accreditation Agencies do not just represent schools in the United States, but also in other countries. National accreditation agencies, by contrast, only accredit schools within the United States, and may not have transferability status with as many colleges (although they are still considered widely-accepted methods of accreditation.)
5. Accreditation is a continuous, cyclical process. The accreditation agencies that watch over education have to be accredited themselves, usually by CHEA, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. In addition to this hierarchy of accreditaiton, all schools must renew their accreditation every “X” amount of years, making accreditation a complete, continuous, and cyclical process.

To understand some of the finer aspects of accreditation, consider the following sources:

• Accreditation of Online Colleges
• National and Regional Accreditation
• DegreeGo Accreditation Resources