What Should I Know About Accreditation and Online School?

Thanks to the boom in Internet technology over the past decade, there are more options than ever for students looking to obtain a degree from an online school. But just as there are a growing number of legitimate online college and universities, there are also plenty of disreputable business known as "diploma mills," the for-profit institutions designed to take your money without providing you with a quality education. If you want to attend an online school, it’s absolutely imperative that the institution be accredited by a national or regional accrediting agency that has judged the school to be worth your time and money. What’s more, employers are far more likely to hire you if you’ve got an accredited degree than one from a less than honorable school.

There are many accrediting agencies, operating on either the national or regional level, that examine colleges and universities and judge their academic rigor. You can find out whether your online school has been accredited by visiting the U.S. Department of Education’s searchable index of schools that have received accreditation by legitimate agencies. There’s also a nongovernmental group called the Council for Higher Education Accreditation that maintains a similar online index, and both are vital tools in determining the educational quality of your prospective online school.

You should also note whether your online school was nationally or regionally accredited. The difference in agencies is pretty much what it sounds like: some focus on certain parts of the country, while others work nationwide. But you need to know that if you develop the need to transfer to a new online school, you might not be able to carry over credits between institutions with different levels of accreditation. Generally, you can take course credits from a regionally accredited school to a nationally accredited one, but it often doesn’t work the other way.

Additionally, it’s important to make sure that, if your desired degree requires post-graduation certification through exams, your online school has been accredited by the proper professional organization. As an example, there are a pair of special accrediting agencies that deal with online degree programs in medical assisting. In order to become a medical assistant that’s been certified by the American Medical Association, you’ll need to take a special test, and the exam is only available to those who have attended an online school that’s been accredited by these agencies. Of course, not every degree path and career has such special requirements, but once you decide what you want to study, check with your online school to see if it needs to be accredited by a special agency. If not, consider another school.

Determining an online school’s accreditation is a key step in the academic process, but with a little research, you’ll be able to find the quality online school that’s right for you.