Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce Business Journal Q3 2014 | Page 54

 is for Accredited What is it and Why Does it Matter? By: Eric S. Davis, M.A., M.A.S., Park University Campus Center Director A ccreditation is a method of ensuring a school is meeting academic quality standards in their programs. Universities and colleges ask the accrediting body to evaluate their programs to see if they meet standards. Whether or not a college or university is accredited is an important aspect to consider when researching your educational options. When you’re doing your research, Accreditation Matters! Students who attend accredited schools have greater access to federal loans, scholarships, and other financial aid. If you’re looking to attend graduate school, most will require you to have an undergraduate degree from an accredited institution; most will require regional accreditation. Military commissioning programs require officer candidates to be graduates of regionally accredited institutions, and a great many employers will not recognize degrees earned from institutions that don’t have at least a national accreditation; many require regional accreditation. (1) I’ve thrown out the terms “regional accreditation” and “national accreditation.” What difference does PG 54 l Education: The Foundation of Our Future that make in your decision making? Plenty! Currently in the United States, regional accreditation is the “Gold Standard.” (2) Certainly national accreditation is better than no accreditation, but regional is still viewed as the best by most major employers, other institutions of higher learning, the military, etc. This often seems counter-intuitive because most would assume national accreditation MUST be “above” regional accreditation. In reality, the Regional Accrediting bodies have been around since the mid-to-late 1800’s, long before there was any notion of a nationwide accrediting body. Regional accreditation is almost universally accepted, whether at another regionally accredited institution or at a nationally accredited one. Work done at a Regionally Accredited school in one state will almost always be accepted at a Regionally Accredited school in another state, whether the “accepting school” is in the same region or a different region than the “providing school.” Work done at a Regionally Accredited school will also almost always be accepted at a Nationally Accredited institution. But the converse is not always, or even often true: academic work done at a nationally accredited school may not be accepted at a regionally accredited school. (3)