You’ve found the online program you want, all you to do is click, pay, and you are in! Is it too good to be true? Well, yes. You can end up not getting the education you paid for, credits that are not transferable, or course work that is not accepted by professional organizations. The best way to make sure you aren’t falling for a scam is to make sure the online provider is accredited.

Accreditation Comes First

If you are looking to earn a bachelors degree in economics and then plan to get an MBA, accreditation is essential. It gives you some degree of assurance about the organization, regardless of whether it is a distance education provider or a face-to-face institution. Nonetheless, just knowing if an online program is accredited is still not enough. Anyone can set up an organization and call itself an accrediting agency. It is not that common, but diploma mills have been known to create their own accrediting agency and then declare they have accreditation.

Just What Is Accreditation?

The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) defines accreditation as "review of the quality of higher education institutions and programs." Within CHEA, private, nongovernmental educational agencies with a regional or national scope have adopted standards for evaluating colleges and universities. Institutions seeking accreditation conduct an in-depth self-study to measure their performance against these standards. The accrediting agency then conducts an on-site evaluation and either awards accreditation or pre-accreditation status or denies accreditation. Periodically, the agency reevaluates each institution to make sure continued accreditation is warranted. Accreditation is not a one-step process. An institution must maintain high standards or face jeopardizing its accreditation status as a result of these periodic evaluations.

Seeking accreditation is entirely voluntary. The initial accreditation process can take as many as five or ten years and it costs money. For that reason, recently established online program providers that are perfectly legitimate may not have been in operation long enough to be accredited.

Who Does the Accrediting?

Accrediting agencies are private, nongovernmental organizations. In other countries, government agencies oversee educational quality. In the United States, authority over postsecondary educational institutions is decentralized. Although there are some national accrediting agencies, each state, not the federal government, regulates educational institutions within its borders and, as a consequence, standards and quality vary considerably.

There are two basic types of accreditation: institutional accreditation and specialized accreditation. Institutional accreditation is awarded to an institution by one of six regional accrediting agencies, such as the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, and national accrediting agencies, such as the Distance Education and Training Council.

In contrast to institutional accreditation, specialized accreditation usually applies to a single department, program, or school that is part of a larger institution of higher education. There are specialized accrediting agencies in nearly fifty fields. Specialized accreditation varies considerably depending on the field of study. In some professional fields, you must have a degree or certificate from a program with specialized accreditation in order to take qualifying exams or be in practice.

What Is the Purpose of Accreditation?

If you know an online provider is accredited, you will know about the quality of the provider, whether you can get federal financial assistance and state funds, and if you will be able to easily transfer credits from one school to another.

• Quality

When an institution is accredited, its faculty members, curriculum development, student services, and libraries have met established standards. In addition, colleges, universities, and employers are more likely to recognize any certificate or degree you earn as a legitimate credential.

• Funding

The federal government uses accreditation organizations to ensure students receiving federal loans and grants are attending institutions that maintain high standards of quality. State governments do the same, ensuring that students receiving state loans and grants and going for state licensure examinations in some professional fields are attending institutions with high-quality standards.

• Transferring credits

Whether or not you intend to transfer credits from a course or program, accreditation is one major factor the receiving institution takes into consideration. Any credits you earn are more likely to transfer to other regionally accredited institutions.

Which Is Best: National or Regional Accreditation?

Because the federal government has not established a national system, the best form of accreditation is regional. Remember, no national or federal law requires a college to be accredited by a nationally recognized agency. This is not to say that you should dismiss national accreditation organizations. For instance, the Distance Education and Training Council sponsors a nationally recognized accrediting agency, the Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council. There are also national accrediting bodies that are discipline based.

How to Know Whether an Institution Is Really Accredited

There are many ways to check whether an institution is accredited by a recognized organization. Here are some great websites that can help.

• The Department of Education Web site: www.ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. There you will find a master list of 6,900 postsecondary colleges, universities, and career and trade schools

• The Federal Trade Commission recently published "Avoid Fake-Degree Burns by Researching Academic Credentials" (available at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/diplomamills.htm).

• CHEA’s Web site: www.chea.org. This organization lists about 3,000 colleges and universities and encompasses more than sixty national, regional, and specialized accrediting organizations.

What if an Institution You Are Considering Is not Accredited?

As mentioned before, since online programs are still somewhat new, some might either choose to not be accredited or are in the process of becoming accredited. The process takes some time.

How can you make sure a school is legitimate if it is not accredited?

• Call the state agency with jurisdiction over higher education in the state in which the school is located. The agency can at least tell you whether or not the school is operating with a legitimate charter and if any complaints have been lodged or legal action has been taken.

• Call the school and ask why it is not accredited and whether the school plans to seek accreditation. If the school tells you it has applied for accreditation, double-check its status with the agency it names.

• Consult with people in your field about the school’s reputation and the value of its degree. Don’t forget, in some fields, a degree from an unaccredited school or program will bar you from professional licensure and practice.

Diploma Mills:"Get Your Degree for Only $500?"

By now, "diploma mills" is a well-known term in distance education and in the public mind. What you probably don’t know is just how prevalent diploma mills are. When you can buy a diploma for $500 to $2,500 and pay an extra $500 for magna cum laude, that’s a diploma mill. They have mushroomed in the online environment. With such varied state regulations, some states have become diploma-mill breeding grounds. Because diploma mills present themselves as viable educational institutions, it is difficult for the less-than-savvy person to differentiate them from legitimate institutions.

When potential students are smart enough to ask an online program provider if it is accredited, diploma mills say yes and point to their Web site. Their Web site says they are accredited, but is it by a recognized accrediting organization? Probably not. Some states are cracking down, but diploma mills just move to another state. Do you research and protect yourself!