Accreditation. It’s a term you will hear a lot in the degree hacking community, but what does it mean? What’s the difference between regional and national accreditation? What does it mean if my school requires a certain number of courses in an accredited institution?
Keep reading to find out.
As in many countries, the United States has a system for accrediting educational institutions. Approval by an accrediting body means that an educational institution meets certain criteria whereby it can grant degrees. The accrediting body itself must have official approval to grant accreditation. In the United States, that authority is granted by the federal Department of Education.
Accrediting Bodies
There are three types of accrediting bodies:
- Regional accreditors (RA) cover specific geographic areas in the United States. Regional accreditation is considered the gold standard since the regional accrediting bodies have the most rigorous requirements. The regional accreditors are:
- Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) – Southeast
- Higher Learning Commission (HLC) – Midwest and Central US
- New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) – New England
- Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) – Northeast US (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland)
- Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) – Hawaii and California
- Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) – western and northwestern US, including Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Nevada
- National accreditors (NA) accredit schools anywhere in the United States. National accreditation is considered lesser because the national accreditors use less rigorous standards. Recognized national accreditors include, but are not limited to:
- Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC)
- Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS)
- Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC)
- Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training (ACCET)
- Programmatic accreditors grant approval to specialty schools and specific programs. Examples include but are by no means limited to:
- Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools
- Association of Theological Schools
- American Bar Association
- Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business
- Liaison Committee on Medical Education
Now, why does this matter? If the school you attend is accredited, isn’t that all that counts? Well, yes and no. Some graduate programs require you to have graduated from a programmatically accredited undergraduate program, and practically all RA graduate schools require applicants to have an RA bachelor’s degree (or its international equivalent) as a precondition for acceptance. In order to sit for licensure exams such as the USMLE (for medical students), the state Bar exams (for law students), and the Uniform CPA Exam (for accountants), a student must have earned credit at a relevantly accredited school (LCME/COCA for medicine, ABA for law, regional accreditation for accountancy[1]). Most pertinent to our needs on Transfer Calculus, regionally accredited universities typically accept transfer credit from other regionally accredited universities. There are rare exceptions to this, such as the small handful of courses approved by ACE or NCCRS and provided by institutions such as Penn Foster College or Crestpoint University. But make no mistake: credits you earn at a nationally accredited school almost certainly won’t transfer, not even to other nationally accredited schools. That’s why I strongly advise you against pursuing a degree at a nationally accredited university unless you have a very good reason to do so[2].
There is another important consideration here: if you are eligible for federal financial aid, you cannot use it at a nationally accredited university. The Department of Education requires that financial aid monies disbursed in your name, whether from a grant or a loan, be disbursed to a regionally accredited institution (which may include trade schools, community colleges, and four-year universities). This will affect you if you are eligible for federal loans, veterans’ benefits through the GI Bill, or the Pell Grant and other types of need-based aid. Financial aid money awarded by the federal and state governments has specific restrictions tied to its use, and the accreditation status of the school where it’s used is one of those restrictions.
You can visit DAPIP to verify the accreditation status of any school you may be interested in attending, such as this report on the trade school I attended in 2018.
Coda
The topic of accreditation may seem complex at first. While it does have some nuance, understanding it is vitally important to making the right decision for where to complete or continue your education. In the United States, universities that are regionally accredited have passed the highest standard of accreditation and will generally accept transfer credit from other regionally accredited institutions. Regional accreditation also enables a university to accept federal financial aid.
Notes
- Some states also require programmatic accreditation such as from AACSB or ACBSP. My state, Tennessee, does not; if you are unsure, check with your state’s board of accountancy.
- Many employers won’t verify the accreditation status of your degree-granting institution… but some absolutely will. In the public sector and in many Fortune 500 companies, nationally accredited degrees are often flat-out rejected. However, if you’re looking to tick the box and nothing more, an NA school may be worth considering if it is cheap enough and saves you enough time.
Likewise, if you just love the field you want to study and a nationally accredited school offers a degree in it, that’s worth considering, too. Newlane University offers a remarkably tasty-looking BA in Philosophy that I’ve strongly considered pursuing, while Coastal California University has programs in healthcare management that I would pursue just to get some exposure to the subject for work. This option is more appealing if you already have a regionally accredited degree and just want another credential for the sake of having it.
If you’re mid-career and just want to say you finished something – perhaps for yourself, for your children, for your parents, or for your partner – an NA school could be viable, too.
Lastly, in the case of fields where licensure is not an issue (or it is, but obtaining a license doesn’t require a specific degree) and the NA school has strong industry connections, go nuts. A lot of trade schools (known nationally: WyoTech, Universal Technical Institute, National Paralegal University) fall into this category – you might be able, in a small geographical region or a small industry, to get on with companies when they see that you went to a specific NA school with strong connections to their industry. The trade school I attended (which is regionally accredited, for what it’s worth) has very strong ties to the industries it trains for, and indeed I got into the healthcare industry because of those strong ties.