Accreditation Information
Overview
Many prospective safety, health, & environmental students contact ASSE
with questions about accreditation. Although accreditation has been important
in higher education for over a century, the development of accreditation
mills and fraudulent internet-based degree programs has made identifying
accredited programs even more confusing for prospective students. Whether
you are pursuing a traditional on-campus degree or an online degree, ASSE
has the resources you need to help you identify legitimate institutions
of higher education.
What is Accreditation?
Accreditation is a process
of external quality review created and used by higher education to scrutinize
colleges, universities and programs for quality assurance and quality improvement.
What is an Unaccredited Degree?
One way a degree may be considered unaccredited is if the accreditation
body is not approved by the US Department of Education and The Council
on Higher Education Accreditation. There are accreditation organizations
that do not meet the standards established by these organizations and
thus, they are not recognized as legitimate accreditation bodies.
Another way a school may be unaccredited is if they have not sought national
or regional accreditation from a legitimate accrediting body.
There are three basic kinds of accreditation:
- National accreditation
- Regional accreditation
- Specialized and professional accreditation
National and regional accreditation are mechanisms to establish institutional
accreditation. Why does this matter? If you attend an institution that has
not received either national or regional accreditation, you may run into
problems later in your academic and professional career. An unaccredited
degree means that you will not be able to receive student financial assistance
and you will not be able to transfer credits if you decide to transfer to
an accredited school later in your academic career. If you ever intend to
pursue CSP or ASP certification, you will find that the Board of Certified
Safety Professionals (BCSP) will not allow you to sit for the certification
examination if you have a degree from an unaccredited institution.
Regional Accreditation
There are regional accrediting organizations out there whose purpose
is to ensure the quality and integrity of colleges and universities in
specific regions of the country by performing a comprehensive review of
all institutional functions. Regional accreditation organizations are
generally considered to carry more weight than national accreditation
organizations. Legitimate regional accrediting organizations are recognized
by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation.
The question to ask a prospective school: Is this school
regionally accredited and if so, by whom?
What to do with the answer: Go to the CHEA website
and make sure that the accrediting organization is recognized. That way,
you will know that the accreditation is legitimate.
Specialized and Professional Accreditation
Enrolling in a program
(such as a bachelor’s degree in Occupational Safety and Health)
that has program-specific accreditation is a great value-ad for your academic
career. Attending a school with an accredited program means that an organization
specializing in your subject area has evaluated the program’s curriculum
and infrastructure and has given it their stamp of approval.
If you plan on majoring in a SH&E-related degree program, it’s
beneficial to attend a school that has been accredited by the American
Board of Engineering Technology or ABET. ASSE has worked with the ABET-ASAC
commission to develop criteria for safety-related degree programs that
achieve a set of standards established my members of the safety profession.
To employers, graduate schools, certification, and registration boards,
graduation from an ABET accredited program signifies adequate preparation
for entry into the profession.
The question to ask a prospective school: Is the Occupational
Safety and Health program ABET accredited?
What to do with the answer? Check the ABET website to
confirm the accreditation status! www.abet.org.
National
Accreditation
There are national accrediting organizations out there whose purpose
is to ensure the quality and integrity of colleges and universities by
performing a comprehensive review of all institutional functions. Legitimate
national accrediting organizations are recognized by the Council on Higher
Education Accreditation and the US Department of Education.
The question to ask a prospective school: Is this school
nationally accredited and if so, by whom?
What to do with the answer: Go to the CHEA website
and make sure that the accrediting organization is recognized. That way,
you will know that the accreditation is legitimate.
Understanding Diploma Mills
There are two kinds of diploma mills. Some diploma mills are honest with
their “clients” and openly sell degrees for money. The
diploma mill and the customer know the degrees are illegitimate. Other
diploma mills, which are more dangerous to prospective students, pretend
to be legitimate schools and allure students with promises of
obtaining a degree in a few weeks or months.
If you are wondering whether a prospective school is considered to be a
diploma mill, the first thing you need to do is check the US Department
of Education or CHEA website to see if the school is accredited by a recognized
organization. If the school is not listed in either of those two sources,
you can visit the websites of states that have laws prohibiting the use
of unaccredited degrees. These include:
Michigan – http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Non-accreditedSchools_78090_7.pdf
Maine – http://www.maine.gov/education/highered/Non-Accredited/UnaccreditedSchools-07-06-07.pdf
Oregon – http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.aspx
Texas – http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/AAR/PrivateInstitutions/NoTX.cfm
Resources
For a list of the organizations that perform national, regional, and program
accreditation visit:
http://www.chea.org/pdf/CHEA_USDE_AllAccred.pdf
For general information on national and regional accreditation, visit:
Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) http://www.chea.org/
US Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/index.jhtml
Oregon Office of Degree Authorization http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/
For information on SH&E-related program accreditation, visit:
Accreditation Board of Engineering Technology (ABET) http://www.abet.org
