Accreditation and Online Doctoral Degrees

We cannot stress the importance of college accreditation enough when discussing online doctoral degrees. Here we will discuss how accreditation is an important measure of quality for doctoral-granting online universities, and how accreditation gives legitimacy to your online doctoral degree.

First of all, let’s talk about the foundation required for you to enter an online doctoral degree program. It is important to know that you will not be accepted into any accredited online doctoral degree program if your bachelor’s and master’s degrees have not been earned from an accredited university; any credits from coursework done at unaccredited universities will be rejected and will not transfer. Secondly, online doctoral degrees from an unaccredited online institution are not taken seriously in academia or in the job market.

If your online university is accredited, that means the university has undergone an independent peer evaluation by a private accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) and/or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). These recognized accrediting organizations can be regional or national in scope, but all have established sets of criteria that a university must meet to receive accreditation. Using these criteria, accrediting bodies can make sure that a doctoral-granting online university is operating legally and offering students a sound education.

The purpose of accreditation is not only to compel higher education institutions to rise up to meet a standard, but also to help prospective students choose an acceptable university.

You can check to see whether your online university is accredited by entering its name into a search box on the USDE database of accredited postsecondary institutions. You can also search for accredited universities by state using this resource.

Using nearly the same method, you can search for accredited institutions using CHEA’s database. The database maintained by CHEA contains more than 7,700 accredited institutions, along with more than 18,700 accredited programs. Here you can also read a short description of the accreditation status of the program or institution and the last year that status is accurate. After all, you don’t want to get on board with an online doctoral program that used to be accredited, but no longer meets all the required criteria for accreditation. Accrediting organizations do periodically reevaluate universities and programs.

Remember: An online university or online doctoral program can be listed on the USDE database, the CHEA database or both.