How Are Online Criminal Justice Colleges Accredited?

Ensuring that a school is accredited is important when choosing a college in which to enroll. When a school is accredited, it means that its educational programs have met the quality standards of an accrediting agency, indicating that the school’s courses have been tested and approved, as opposed to the programs of schools that are unaccredited and therefore untested. Accreditation also attests to the legitimacy of an online degree. Earning a degree from an accredited online college shows that you worked just as hard as a traditional campus student to earn your degree, as opposed to buying a fraudulent degree from a diploma mill. Earning college credit from an accredited university also ensures that the credits are transferable to other online colleges and even brick and mortar colleges.

Accreditation is not given by the government. Instead, the responsibility for accrediting higher education institutions rests on private educational agencies that operate either on a regional or national scope. Unfortunately, there are some accrediting agencies that have low standards for schools to meet and therefore their accreditation is not an indicator of academic excellence. For this reason, the U.S. Secretary of Education publishes a list of nationally recognized accrediting agencies which have been deemed reliable scouts of quality educational programs, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

To obtain accreditation, online criminal justice colleges must volunteer their institutions for accrediting agencies to look over. Depending on their location, colleges may apply for accreditation from several different agencies. The schools then must understand the minimum requirements of the accreditation standards and adhere to those requirements. Many schools work hard to meet the criteria for accreditation, improving on their existing structures and methods in order to gain accreditation. Members of the accrediting agency will then inspect the school, looking over curricula, training, records, classrooms, as well as meeting with the school commissioners. Once an accrediting agency decides that the institution meets all of the accrediting criteria, it will begin processing the paperwork for the school’s accreditation status. Accreditation must be renewed every five to ten years to keep schools current.