What are the Most Common Accrediting Agencies for Colleges and Universities Offering Undergraduate Degrees?

arrow_drop_up
  • Find a bachelor's degree




    Bachelors Degree Center is an advertising-supported site. Featured or trusted partner programs and all school search, finder, or match results are for schools that compensate us. This compensation does not influence our school rankings, resource guides, or other editorially-independent information published on this site.

Col­lege is an invest­ment in your future, and it’s an expen­sive under­tak­ing. Like any big pur­chase, it’s wise to ensure you’re get­ting a high-qual­i­ty prod­uct or ser­vice before you buy. That’s what accred­it­ing agen­cies do. Tech­ni­cal­ly, these groups are agen­cies rec­og­nized by the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion as author­i­ties on deter­min­ing the qual­i­ty of a col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty’s pro­grams. They are pri­vate enti­ties, can be region­al or nation­al in scope, and can use what­ev­er stan­dards they wish in order to mea­sure qual­i­ty of edu­ca­tion at a school. Accred­i­ta­tion can be giv­en to a sin­gle degree pro­gram or to an entire school.

Why Does Accreditation Matter?

Accred­i­ta­tion is extreme­ly impor­tant, espe­cial­ly if you are con­sid­er­ing an under­grad­u­ate degree in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing or math (STEM). You would­n’t want to go to a doc­tor or den­tist that did­n’t have the right train­ing, or dri­ve across a bridge designed by an engi­neer who has­n’t learned physics or struc­tur­al mechan­ics. Accred­i­ta­tion affects oth­er degree pro­grams, too, includ­ing agri­cul­tur­al sci­ences and even the lib­er­al arts. You would­n’t buy food from a farmer who did­n’t know how to con­duct a soil test, and you would­n’t study phi­los­o­phy with a pro­fes­sor who did­n’t have a full under­stand­ing of world his­to­ry. The stamp of approval from an accred­i­ta­tion agency lets you know you’ll get a well-round­ed, thor­ough edu­ca­tion in the field of your choice.

Accred­i­ta­tion is also impor­tant to employ­ers, espe­cial­ly when you’re seek­ing an entry-lev­el job after grad­u­a­tion. Imag­ine you’re an employ­er, con­sid­er­ing two even­ly-matched can­di­dates for a job. Both are smart, moti­vat­ed, enthu­si­as­tic and per­son­able. One went to an accred­it­ed school, the oth­er did­n’t. Which can­di­date are you going to pick?

How Do Colleges and Universities Earn Accreditation?

Accred­i­ta­tion agen­cies devel­op sets of cri­te­ria for judg­ing the qual­i­ty of a school. Then they con­duct a peer eval­u­a­tion to deter­mine whether or not the cri­te­ria are being met. Schools seek out accred­i­ta­tion on a vol­un­tary basis, and usu­al­ly spend months prepar­ing for appli­ca­tion and review. Once the review is com­plete, most col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties will pub­lish the fact that they’re accred­it­ed and fea­ture it promi­nent­ly in recruit­ing materials.

Are Some Agencies Better Than Others?

Since accred­i­ta­tion agen­cies are pri­vate, they can deter­mine their own set of stan­dards for judg­ing a school’s pro­grams. Nat­u­ral­ly, those stan­dards vary from agency to agency and some of those stan­dards are def­i­nite­ly high­er than oth­ers. The Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion is required to pub­lish a list of accred­i­ta­tion agen­cies rec­og­nized by the gov­ern­ment, and though these agen­cies aren’t required to pur­sue that recog­ni­tion, the most pres­ti­gious accred­it­ing agen­cies are linked to the most pres­ti­gious pro­grams and aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions. It’s also worth men­tion­ing that accred­i­ta­tion can be giv­en to a sin­gle degree pro­gram or to an entire school.

What Are the Most Recognized Accreditation Agencies?

Some of the most eas­i­ly rec­og­nized and most spe­cial­ized accred­i­ta­tion agen­cies on the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion (DOE) list have instant­ly famil­iar names. The Amer­i­can Bar Asso­ci­a­tion, the Amer­i­can Den­tal Asso­ci­a­tion and the Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­can Med­ical Col­leges are only a few such agen­cies. Oth­ers are less well-known to the gen­er­al pub­lic but are high­ly respect­ed in cer­tain pro­fes­sions, such as the Accred­i­ta­tion Board for Engi­neer­ing and Tech­nol­o­gy, the Accred­i­ta­tion Coun­cil for Phar­ma­cy Edu­ca­tion, the Nation­al Coun­cil for Accred­i­ta­tion of Teacher Edu­ca­tion, among many, many others.

What About Online Universities and Colleges?

As the pop­u­lar­i­ty of dis­tance learn­ing grows by leaps and bounds, online uni­ver­si­ties have sprung up to meet the demand. Accred­i­ta­tion is just as impor­tant to these schools as it is to their brick-and-mor­tar coun­ter­parts, and per­haps more so. Part of the rea­son for this is that almost any­thing can be bought or sold on the inter­net, and that’s always a risk of fraud for the buy­er. The DOE has respond­ed by pub­lish­ing a list of dis­tance edu­ca­tion accred­i­ta­tion agen­cies, which is easy to find on inter­net search engines. Addi­tion­al­ly, many estab­lished accred­i­ta­tion agen­cies now include accred­i­ta­tion for dis­tance learn­ing “annex­es” of brick-and-mor­tar insti­tu­tions in the appli­ca­tion process.

Are There Fake Accrediting Agencies?

There are many fly-by-night accred­it­ing agen­cies out there, many of them online. Keep in mind that the DOE does not rec­og­nize inter­na­tion­al accred­i­ta­tion agen­cies, only region­al and nation­al agen­cies in the Unit­ed States. Beware of schools that tout accred­i­ta­tion from agen­cies that are not on the DOE list, and don’t be fooled by offi­cial-sound­ing names. It’s worth the few min­utes it takes to check it out!

If you want an under­grad­u­ate degree, and whether you plan to attend online or on cam­pus, choos­ing a col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty will deter­mine your edu­ca­tion­al and finan­cial course for the next four years. It’s a sub­stan­tial invest­ment of time and mon­ey, so keep accred­i­ta­tion high on your list of require­ments. As with most things in life, it is best to check the facts before mak­ing your choice!

Relat­ed:

Where Can I Find Cheap Accred­it­ed Account­ing Programs?

Where Can I Find The Best Accred­it­ed Mas­ters Degree In Education?

25 Best Pay­ing Careers for Bach­e­lor’s Degree Grads

What Are The Eas­i­est Col­lege Degrees For High-Pay­ing Careers?