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The Battle of Gaining and Losing Online Accredited Colleges

January 12th, 2010

Accreditation is a difficult thing to strip from a school system, although only last year, a county school system in Georgia became the nation’s first in 40 years to lose its accreditation status due to ethics violations of many school board members.  The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools declared the system unfit for accreditation as the board members were shown to be unfit to lead a school system.  Instead of only affecting colleges in this rare incident, the loss of accreditation affected 59 schools in the county, including elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools, as well as the colleges that were found in the district.

Given this unique situation, the citizens of the county were given the chance to elect new board members within the year following the announcement.  While school accreditation is a strictly voluntary procedure, many colleges will not accept graduates from an unaccredited high school and employers will not accept diplomas from an unaccredited college.  Georgia itself recently changed the law in its state only last year, allowing a major scholarship program in the state to give scholarships to students who graduated from unaccredited high schools.

Accredited colleges and schools have become a major part of the education system, although it is relatively under-reported how much of a difference this accreditation status makes.  It almost seems unfair for students to suffer from the loss of accreditation when it is the fault of the higher school board members who are supposed to make decisions that benefit the schools.   This is why it has become so rare for schools to lose accreditation, even online accredited schools are typically safe from losing their status.  However, gaining accreditation is a difficult process in itself, as the school district or school itself must prove that its curriculum, professors, and programs are up to state and national standards.  Many new schools are not able to prove this to accreditation boards and therefore cannot receive accreditation until they fix whatever problem they have; this only hurts the school because many students will not enroll in a school that cannot give them a true diploma. 

Accreditation status has been plaguing the online college system since the opening of the first online school.  It really is a battle in itself to hold onto accreditation after gaining it in the first years of the school’s existence, as the school must ensure that every segment of the school is in working order and cooperating with every other segment.  While accreditation remains an important part of any educational system, sometimes it seems wrong and out of character to punish innocent students, such as those in Georgia.  However, for college students, it is simply a matter of ensuring that your online college has accreditation and is not in danger of losing it in the next few years. 

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