Evaluating a school's accreditation status can be confusing... There are over 50 accrediting agencies in the U.S. that are approved by two different organizations. Schools and programs within schools may be accredited by different agencies. There are some accrediting agencies only recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) but not recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) and vice versa. Understanding how all of this should impact a student's choice of school can be daunting. The steps below will help clarify how to determine whether a school is appropriately accredited.
Steps to evaluate a school's accreditation
Start with the school's website to find out what they list as their accreditation agency or agencies. Since schools can list accrediting agencies that are not recognized by the USDE or CHEA, or can falsely list a recognized agency, further verification is needed.
Go to the USDE's website search tool and enter the school's name. The schools that match this name will appear in a list along with their locations. If there is more than one location, choose the appropriate one. If the school is accredited, a status of Accredited or Pre-accredited will be present along with the date this status became effective. Pre-accredited is a status sometimes given to schools the first time they are accredited.
If the school is no longer accredited, the next column will show a status of "Resigned" or "Terminated" depending on whether the school voluntarily resigned its accreditation or involuntarily lost its accreditation. Voluntary resignation of accreditation may occur if the programs at the school changed and therefore a different agency was requested to grant accreditation. Many schools that have lost their accreditation will not appear at all since the database does not include older terminated accreditations.
If the school is not on the USDE list...
It may be a specialized school that is accredited by a programmatic agency only recognized by the Council for Higher Education (CHEA) but not the USDE. These schools do not offer federal or state financial aid but have met the same quality standards as other accredited schools. Check the CHEA database to see if the school is listed there.
If the school is not listed in either the USDE or CHEA database, it may be newly accredited and may not have been updated in the databases yet. The accrediting agency's database should be up-to-date, so go to the agency's website (found on either the CHEA or USDE database) and look for the school in their database.
If all else fails, contact the school directly to see if they have any reasonable explanation for the discrepancy.
Should schools without legitimate accreditation ever be considered?
In some fields, it may be acceptable to have a degree or certificate from a school without proper accreditation. Talking to people in the field, especially those responsible for hiring, can provide some insight as to whether this will impact job prospects. The school itself may be able to give names of alumni for prospective students to contact. However, it should be kept in mind that these schools cannot offer federal or state financial aid and other colleges will not likely accept transfer credits from these schools.
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