The Online Degree Dorm Room

engineering degree online : accredited or “state approved”?

Posted by bposton on October 28th, 2006 — Posted in engineering degree online

I’m sure if you’re read anything about online degrees you’ve heard about
accreditation. But I’ve run across another interesting term for
colleges called “state approved”.

You don’t hear about this one that much so I thought I’d pull up the covers
on it and let you know what the difference is between accreditation and state
approved colleges.

First and formost, State approval and accreditation are not the same.

“State approval to operate” or “state approved” means that the institution in question has
satisfied certain minimum requirements established by a state.

Accreditation means that an institution has attained a threshold level of academic quality.

Here’s the big difference - in most states, approval to operate does not require accreditation.

So that means you need to pay close attention to any college or university that claims they are “state-approved” and check closely with the particular institution and its accrediting organization, to determine if a particular institution meets anticipated needs.
There may be more, but it seems that California is the state has the most colleges
that say they are “state-approved”. They have 253 state-approved or exempt private
postsecondary and vocational institutions.

Ben