When it comes to college or seminaries, what is better regional or national accreditation?

Answer 1

It depends upon what you mean by national accreditation. Some people refer to national accreditation as a program accreditation of just a program or group of programs at a school, ie. AACSB for business programs. Others describe national accreditation as accreditation of an entire institution by a national accrediting body, ie. DETC accredits an entire institution.

A regional accreditation is accreditation of an entire institution by one of six regional accrediting agencies. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) is an example of a regional accreditor. Typically, schools that have program accreditations like AACSB will also have regional accreditation. Basically, levels of accreditation, from best to worst, are the following.

1. Regional accreditation with a program accreditation, ie. school is regionally accredited by a regional accrediting agency and the programs are accredited by a specific program accreditation. ie. AACSB for business, ABA for law schools, APA for psychology, etc. Most large state universities and some small ones will have all of these accreditations.

2. Regional accreditation only. This is less desirable than what is described above. Schools that are only regionally accredited will be most community colleges, and some of the small state universities. Many of the for-profit schools are only regionally accredited. ie. University of Phoenix and Kaplan.

3. National accreditation only by a national accrediting agency that accredits the entire institution. Examples of accrediting councils at this level are DETC and ACICS. Examples of schools that are accredited by these agencies are PennFoster Career schools and ITT Tech. If you watch an ITT Tech commercial, it will state that credits are unlikely to transfer. This is because regionally accredited schools will not accept some or all of the credits earned at a nationally accredited school.

4. State approved but unaccredited. A school that is acceptable to the state it is in, but will not be acceptable in most other locations. Credits earned will most likely not transfer anywhere.

5. Unaccredited or accredited by an unrecognized accrediting agency. These are diploma mills. Absolutely unacceptable anywhere.

You can check on accreditation of schools that are acceptable to the U.S. Department of Education at http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/Search.asp You can learn more about accreditation at http://www.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/index.html

Good luck

Answer 2

Regional accreditation is the bare minimum for any school. Do not even think about getting a degree from any school that is not regionally accredited.

In some subject areas there are national accreditations that are done by national organizations that specifically look only at their own type of program - say, Business administration, or Physical Therapy, etc.

Schools that have been accredited this way are proud of their qualifications and usually present them prominently on their websites. But there are some bogus fake accrediting groups. So you should also try to find some ranking lists that tell how well the schools are respected by people in academics. You don't need to go to an absolute top ten school, but you should try to find a program in your subject that is ranked in the top 50 - 100 schools nationally. Then you will be sure that your degree will get the respect you deserve.

Answer 3

National is always a better recommendation than a regional one.

A regional one is "specific" in nature, and not well known. Like Ohio State is a "nationally known" college, but, a place like Bowling Green is a regionally known and no one knows about them because its such a small university, and not known for anything in particular.

I wish you well...

Jesse

Answer 4

I have bachelor degree in social sciences with economics as an option