Accredited Online Education

Accredited online education is a lot like a trip to the grocery store to pick out some fruit. Over here are these bagged oranges and they look good, but over here are these individual ones from Florida and they look better. And if a person chooses to take home both kinds, the more expensive may turn out to be really sour while the bagged oranges are just as tasty as one could ever want. In other words, with fruit what you see isn't necessarily what you get, and the same is absolutely true for accredited online education opportunities. The term accredited can be as misleading as the shiny and waxed cover of an orange, and the term is absolutely subjective until close scrutiny is applied. "Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord and depart from evil." (Proverbs 3:7)

Fifteen years ago getting any kind of education online was just being discussed and now it has become a huge revenue producing business for both traditional and non-traditional schools. From those seeking home inspection training to masters degrees in psychology, a wide range of academic and vocational interests can be met by using sanctioned online education providers. But accreditation is a fundamental issue that everyone deciding to pursue education through the use of online facilities must consider. In fact, it can mean the difference between wasting many thousands of dollars, many man hours plus not being considered for key jobs and promotions and being very happy with the choice of educational provider and having no regrets. Accreditation is in fact, a huge consideration.

Being accredited by the right sanctioning agencies is the most important achievement of any educational institute. For decades, the brick and mortar colleges and universities of America have taken pride in achieving the approval of certain accrediting bodies and that accreditation has enabled students from eastern schools to transfer their credits to a western school without fear of having to begin again. Standards that are fairly uniform when it comes to core curriculum, faculty standards and academic excellence enable graduates from one college to seek postgraduate degrees at other school with ease. But then came the arrival of long distance schools and the term accredited online education has come to mean something other than the traditional understanding of accreditation.

Almost no long distance provider of education would ever advertise not being accredited. The word is the gold standard. But the question is, "Accredited by whose standards?" Keep in mind that the federal government does not make a distinction between accreditation agencies. In fact, accreditation is actually a voluntary quality assurance management system under which schools put themselves. There are six regional accrediting agencies which sanction all public schools and private and public colleges and universities. These include the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, the New England Association of Colleges and Schools, the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools, the Western Association of Colleges and Schools and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

But there are also fifty two national accrediting agencies which are more likely, but not always, to grant accreditation to long distance education providers. In a great many cases, technical, trade and many distance undergraduate and postgraduate providers of accredited online education are sanctioned by one of these fifty two national agencies. In many cases, the national accreditation process is not nearly as stringent as the regional process, and therein lays the great disparity in the sanctioning issue. Routinely schools that are accredited by national sanctioning bodies are rejected by requests for regional consideration because the faculty standards may not be high enough, the requirements for degrees may not be stringent enough, or perhaps the core requirements are suspect. So the whole issue comes down to what a person wants to do in life with their education.

One of the more positive aspects of this whole discussion about wasting time and effort on a degree that may not pass muster is that the majority of those considering accredited online educational opportunities are adult learners who really have been able to think through life issues. For example, a woman who is thirty has had enough of waiting on tables and decides she wants to teach school. She looks for an accredited online education provider to give her an undergraduate degree in elementary education. But she has also had enough contact with friends in the teaching profession to know that she will also have to have a masters degree and she dreams of getting that degree at the state school where her father attended. Will the online degree be accepted at the brick and mortar school later? For her situation, the answer is no, and so she will have to continue to look for a provider of an accredited online education for teachers that will be accepted at the graduate school of her dreams. Not everyone seeking an online degree has enough foresight to look down the road at all the implications of educational choices made earlier.

On the other hand, many employers are only looking at a degree, without being concerned about the pedigree. For instance, a young father is getting his undergraduate business degree from a nationally accredited online education provider. His BA in business management will thrill the man's supervisor and will provide the stepping stone to becoming the district sales manager within a couple of years. The name of the school on the diploma is not important, and the man has gained a valuable education that will have forever changed his life. Knowing where a person wants to go is a real important factor in choosing the right long distance educational opportunity.