Your Accreditation Advocate
Furthering your education can be the key to success in an increasingly competitive job market, but finding the time to pursue this goal can present a significant challenge. However, with the growing popularity of online education there are many associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. programs flexible enough to fit into even the busiest of schedules. Still, while the opportunities these programs provide are exciting, we’ve found that it can become overwhelming to learn what factors distinguish a high-quality online degree program from lesser ones. Perhaps the first and most important item on your checklist should be accreditation.
Accreditation ensures that students are receiving an education from an institution whose facilities, faculty, and curriculum meet certain standards set by the accrediting body. There are different types of accreditation that a school can receive, including national, regional, or specialized accreditation. These all depend on where the school is located and what types of degree programs they offer. While accreditation is not required for a college to open their doors, we recommend that you look for a program that is accredited to ensure you are pursuing a sufficiently rigorous course of study that will provide you best possibly job opportunities once you graduate.
It is important to ensure you are making a wise investment no matter what school you choose, and doing your research ahead of time is essential to achieving the most positive experience, both during your time as a student and after you graduate. We seek to provide you with a central and comprehensive resource in your research, which is why we have created a database profiling more than 3,000 accredited online colleges to help you make an educated decision about your future. In addition, we provide a wide variety of articles to help you better understand exactly what accreditation is, how schools earn, maintain, or possibly lose accreditation, and what types of special accreditations certain fields of study fall under.
While the U.S. Department of Education is not directly responsible for accrediting institutions, they do provide information on all the approved national accrediting agencies. We recommend that you check their online database to verify that a school is properly accredited by a legitimate agency. Another great resource for verifying accreditation is the Council for Higher Education Accreditation database, also publicly accessible online.
