What is accreditation anyway?

It seems that a university with national accrediation is a good thing but a friend told me that actually, regional accreditation is better when it comes to college and universities. This seems really important because I am looking at online degree programs. Is this true?

Yes, it is true. When exploring colleges and universities, it is a good idea, first and foremost, to make sure they are accredited. This "stamp of approval" if you will, comes from an accrediting body. If a college or university is not accredited, the diploma that you work hard to earn will not be worth much. That's because it more than likely will not be recognized by future employers as a "real" degree.

There are a couple of organizations that you should know about. One is the Distance Education Training Council. This is a single, national accrediting organization that focuses on distance learning universities in the United States.

Regional accrediting is done by a network of six organizations located around the U.S. Which organization that accredits a university depends on what part of the country it is in.

The U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation recognize both accreditation forms. However, regional accreditation is more commonly accepted and is held by most so-called brick-and-mortar colleges and universities. Think large state universities, for example.

The biggest issue, aside from the quality of the crediential, is the ability to transfer credits. Many major colleges and universities that are regionally accredited have policies that prohibit accepting credits or transfers from a nationally accredited school.

So, if you don’t plan to continue your education with the completion of a degree, the type of accreditation may not matter. However, if you think you may want to change schools, further your education or be employed by a company that does not recognize degrees from nationally accredited universities, applying to a regionally accredited one is probably the way to go.

Curricular flow

When I hear about online degrees, especially those that are designed around liberal studies, it sounds like you have to read some books, write a couple of papers and earn college credit. Is it really that hard to get your degree this way?

One of the biggest misconceptions about online education is that it is easy. It most assuredly is not. Many regionally accredited universities that offer online courses employ curriculum developers who work with faculty members to design courses. Often curriculum developers have advanced degrees themselves.

Online curriculum for liberal studies students is not merely a word document with some reading and writing assignments posted on a website. Curriculum is designed to invite the learner into deep engagement with provocative issues that were germane for the past, present, and future while opening up intense interactions with passionate and deeply knowledgeable professors.

Imagine taking seminars with names such as Roots of Chaos: The Cultural Antecedents of Political Upheaval in the Twentieth Century, Music and Popular Culture During the Swing Era, and the Ethical Frontiers on the Sciences and Humanities and courses from Art and Medicine to Police and Policing.

The rich tradition of liberal studies curriculum continues to inspire students to think using a scaled-up process designed to incorporate a unique blend of structure, technology, and active learning philosophy.

Just as a river has many sources of flow, every person involved in curriculum development contributes to the end product. Each pours themselves into the effort to transfer into a course the knowledge, understanding and passion of the subject matter expert that inspires the student to learn and apply fully their unique gifts.

An online degree program typically offers its courses using a structured process with multiple entry points – internal and external evaluations and reviews across a broad spectrum of people, from faculty members to state regents and chancellors for higher education.

To create significant learning experiences that contain more than just an aggregation of content materials and resources, here are some centered guiding values for online curricula:

• Rigor – Curriculum that embodies strength, depth, and breadth in the content and learning strategies.
• Agility – Curriculum that is pragmatic in multiple ways with a long term view.
• Profitability – Curriculum that adds value to all constituents – students, faculty, college and society.
• Significance – Curriculum that centers on the major constructs, concepts, ideas and issues in the students’ lives.
• Inspiration – Curriculum that exploits the tension between passion and reason through human interaction.

As you can see, there is a great deal of academic rigor applied to the development of curriculum for online courses and degree programs. You want to be intellectually challenged. That is what you should expect when embarking on such a journey.

For-profit education

I have been hearing a lot lately about for-profit universities and now I am confused. They seem to cater to all kinds of students not just the traditional 18-to-24-year-olds but I get the impression that these kinds of schools may not have a good reputation. What is the difference between a traditional university and a for-profit university?

We have been reading and seeing a number of these stories as well and they do raise some alarming issues. On the surface, the mission of for-profit universities seems benevolent because they make higher education available to all. A mission of the current presidential administration is to create a more educated workforce and to make higher education more accessible.

But here-in lays a big part of the image problem for these institutions. Where traditional universities have certain admission requirements which might include such things as official transcripts, minimum grade point averages, academic tests and language requirements, for-profit universities open their doors to everyone.

Sounds pretty good until you look closer. There are some reports that for-profit college recruiters are going in to homeless shelters and halfway houses to lure students in with the promise of a better life and an education. The problem is that by offering financial aid to already disadvantaged individuals creates a huge burden for them when it comes time to repay. For-profit colleges are publicly traded higher education companies. Their revenue comes from federal funds. And tuition is very high.

Rates vary, but can be up to four times the cost of traditional universities.
Employers may be suspicious of a degree from a for-profit university. There can be questions of accreditation. Does the degree bring value? Is it real?

Do your homework and ask questions. As with most things in life, if earning a degree from a for-profit university sounds too good to be true, it probably is.