How to Check a University's Accreditation

"Accredited" appears on almost every university website, so the word alone doesn't help you choose. What helps is knowing which kind of accreditation a claim refers to, who recognizes the accreditor, and how to confirm the claim with a source the university doesn't control. This guide covers those three steps and the limits of what accreditation can tell you.

What accreditation is, and who oversees it

The U.S. Department of Education describes accreditation as part of a "Triad" of oversight: non-governmental accrediting organizations, the federal government and state governments. Accrediting agencies are private educational associations that set evaluation criteria and run peer evaluations. Institutions or programs that request a review and meet the criteria are accredited.

The Department does not accredit schools or programs. It "recognizes" accrediting agencies that it judges to be reliable authorities on educational quality, publishes a list of them, and defines the scope each recognition covers. Recognition matters directly to students: only agencies recognized by the Secretary of Education can serve as the gatekeeper that lets the institutions they accredit take part in federal student aid programs.

Institutional vs. programmatic accreditation

There are two layers, and they answer different questions.

Institutional accreditation covers the whole university. The Department keeps separate lists of institutional and programmatic accrediting agencies. The agencies you will most often see on online degree pages are institutional ones, such as the Higher Learning Commission, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) and the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

You will see these described as "regional" or as "institutional" — both labels appear on university pages. Purdue Global, for example, calls the Higher Learning Commission "an institutional accreditation agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education," while Bellevue University calls the same agency "a regional accreditation agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education."

Programmatic (specialized) accreditation covers a single program or school within the university. It matters most in fields that lead to a license or a professional credential. The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), for instance, is recognized by the Department for accrediting nursing programs at the baccalaureate, master's, doctoral and certificate levels, "including programs offering distance education." Examples from university pages:

• Bellevue University's online MS in Clinical Mental Health Counseling "is accredited by CACREP."
• Arizona State's online MSW is described as "CSWE-accredited."
• Drexel's Dornsife School of Public Health "is fully accredited by the Council for Education in

Public Health (CEPH)."

Programmatic accreditation is granted for a set period. Capella University states that its MS in Clinical Mental Health Counseling is accredited by CACREP "through March 31, 2028." Recognition of accreditors is time-limited too: MSCHE reports that the Department announced its continued recognition "until May 31, 2028."

Federal recognition and CHEA recognition

Two bodies recognize accreditors, and they work separately. Federal recognition is the one tied to federal student aid. The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) also recognizes accreditors, and seeking it is voluntary. MSCHE, for example, announced that it "earned recognition with the Council for Higher Education Accreditation" on September 29, 2026, for a seven-year term — describing it as a "return to recognition" — while it already held Department of Education recognition.

So an accreditor can be recognized by one body and not the other at a given time. For an online degree, the most practical check is whether the institution's accreditor is recognized by the Department of Education. If CHEA recognition also matters to you, confirm it with CHEA directly at chea.org.

How to verify a school yourself

1. Read the university's accreditation statement. Federal rules require institutions to make

available the names of the agencies that accredit, approve or license the institution and its programs. They must also provide the documents describing that accreditation on request, along with contact information for filing a complaint with the accreditor.

1. Look the institution up in DAPIP. The Department's Database of Accredited Postsecondary

Institutions and Programs (ope.ed.gov/dapip) holds accreditation information as reported to the Department by accrediting agencies and state approval agencies. Search for the university by name and check that the accreditor listed matches the one on its website.

1. Check the accreditor's own site. Accreditors describe on their own sites what they

accredit. The Commission on Colleges and Universities says it accredits institutions awarding associate through doctoral degrees, "including those offered via distance and correspondence education."

1. For licensed fields, check the program, not just the university. Find the programmatic

accreditor named on the program page and confirm it on that accreditor's site. You can browse nursing and healthcare programs and check each one this way.

Names change, so a mismatch isn't automatically a problem. Western Kentucky University refers to "The Commission on Colleges and Universities (formerly the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, or SACSCOC)." Many other pages still use the older name.

Red flags

• An accreditor you can't find among recognized agencies. If an agency doesn't appear on the

Department's lists, its accreditation can't open federal student aid.

• An accreditor that has lost recognition. The Department's accreditation page records that on

August 19, 2022, the Deputy Secretary issued a final decision on the appeal of ACICS, an accreditor whose recognition the Department terminated. Check that a school's accreditor is still on the current lists, not just that it was once.

• Degrees for "life experience." Under federal regulations, the Secretary does not consider an

institution to provide an educational program if it does not provide instruction itself and merely gives credit for things such as "life experience."

• Vague wording. "Fully accredited" with no agency named, or an agency named without a website,

needs a follow-up question before you go further.

What accreditation does not tell you

Accreditation is a quality floor for the institution or program. It does not tell you:

• Whether the degree meets licensure requirements where you live. That is a separate, state-by-state

disclosure. See our guide to professional licensure disclosures.

• Whether the program is available in your state. State authorization is separate from

accreditation.

• How the program is delivered, whether it requires campus visits, or what it costs.

Use accreditation as the first filter, then work through the rest of our checklist for choosing an online university. Our methodology explains how we record each university's accreditor from its official pages.