Is Aspen University Regionally Accredited or Nationally Accredited? What is the difference?

There are two types of accreditation recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, Regional Accreditation & National Accreditation. There is no fundamental difference between the two forms of accreditations. Both are conducted by non-profit associations established by consent of a group of institutions. Both accreditations are based on the principal of voluntary application by an institution, both are institution-wide in scope and both use peer reviews to judge whether an institution meets published standards of academic quality and institution integrity.

Regional Accreditation generally applies to what most people consider a “traditional college or University” – Harvard, UCLA, and University of Phoenix are all institutions that prepare an individual for an advanced degree.

National Accreditation generally applies to what most people consider to be a “vocational or institution college” – ITT Tech, and The Art Institute are examples of National accreditation that focus on a specific field of study and provide a more career focused curriculum to their students.

Aspen University is a Nationally Accredited institution, who is accredited through the DETC (Distance Education Training Counsel), and recognized The Department of Education and CHEA (Counsel for Higher Education Accreditation).

DETC (A National Accreditation body) enjoys the precisely same national accreditations as the regional bodies do, and DETC has the same kind of accreditation standards which address; curriculum quality, faculty qualifications, student services, and ethical & business practices.There are some interesting differences; DETC is an expert in distance learning technique and specializes in accrediting distance education structure. It has over half a century of experience doing this. DETC evaluates institutions completely every five years, where the regional accreditations are conducted ever decade. Between five year reviews DETC does a comprehensive subject specialist curriculum evaluation of every new program before students may enroll, while regional associations do not. But at the core, the accreditations are very similar, and both virtually identical in philosophy and scope of activity.

To determine one more acceptable or better than the other would not be accurate in the least. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_national_and_local_accreditation