What is the difference between national and local 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 principle 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 institutional integrity.

DETC enjoys the precisely same national recognitions as the regional bodies do, and DETC has the same kind of accreditation standards which address curriculum quality, faculty qualifications, student services, and ethical and business practices.

There are some interesting differences: DETC is expert in distance learning technique and specializes in accrediting distance education instruction. It has over a half century of experience in doing this. DETC evaluates institutions completely every five years, while regional accreditation is conducted once each decade. Between five-year reviews, DETC does a comprehensive subject specialist curriculum evaluation of every new program before students may enroll, while the regional associations do not.

But at the core, the accreditations are very similar, and both are virtually identical in philosophy and scope of activity. To term one more acceptable or better than another is not at all accurate.

More details read an excellent article by Accreditation Guru by Michael Lambert posted on this website; http://www.military-advanced-education.com/article.cfm?DocID=2040

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