Too often students will only look up whether or not an online school is accredited, and if it is, automatically assume it is a quality program. However, when looking behind the scenes of the accreditation process one starts understanding why Sylvia Manning, the president of the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, argues, “Accreditation is a gatekeeper [to determining a school’s quality] but not the sole gatekeeper.”
Too Much Pressure on Accreditation Agencies
People are suspicious of online for-profit schools. Education, in most people’s minds, is associated with public services and well-intentioned intellectuals in non-profit institutions that just want to spread their knowledge. However, for-profit schools turn these assumptions on their head. A for-profit school is like any other big-name corporation with, at times, massively compensated executives and money-centered practices.
However, the federal government has been slow to figure out how to reign in these educational corporations; and quite honestly do not want to write the check that would be needed to do it. This is why accreditors are feeling the pressure.
However, online schools are still causing uncertainties for those trying to measure their quality (which is a vague and at-times arbitrary issue). Accreditors are finding that online schools (as reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education), “can be just as good, or as bad, as face-to-face courses” and measuring their quality is an inexact science.
What You May Not Have Known About Accrediting Agencies
The problem is that accrediting agencies set standards for quality, but do not have the power or authority to conduct actual investigations to ensure it. Not only that, but accreditors are actually not even paid – it is voluntary to review a school (which therefore maintains their impartiality). Accreditors are also usually from traditional colleges and universities; which means they are just as unfamiliar with the new corporate structure of online colleges as the government, if not more so.
Manning states, “Accreditation should primarily be about preserving and improving the quality of an education, while allegations of fraud and deception in disbursing financial aid should fall to federal regulators” (as reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education). Accreditors cannot do it all.
Which is also why prospective students should conduct their own research and investigations and not stop at whether or not a school is accredited in determining its quality. Look into who will be teaching the classes, what is required in the curriculum, student reviews of their experience where ever you can find them, and find out the retention and graduation rates of students each year.
Read more in the Chronicle of Higher Education about accreditors’ attempts to keep up with online schools.