Ccanadian Athabasca University in Edmonton is US RA

It appears to me that they want to compete for their Canadian students to remain local against USA DL schools by providing DL education that will have grater acceptance in USA and abroad.
Also attract USA and other international students.

Learner

 

It's the latter (attracting US students), Lerner... don't kid yourself.

Athabasca's accreditation status is fairly well-known around here.

 

I don’t get how a regional accreditation agency can reach for institutions outside their jurisdiction. Maybe someone can explain the rational behind it to those of us that are not smart enough to get it.

Thanks!

 

It's the opposite. The RA agencies don't reach out to the institutions to give accreditation. The Institutions reach out to the RA agency and ask for accreditation. The RA are independent self contained associations made up of institutions of higher learning.

 

Each of the six RA agencies are assigned a certain part of the non-US part of the world, though... right? I mean, for example, Canadian schools cannot reach out to just any of the six, can they? Er... well... of course they can reach out to whichever of the six RA agencies they want, but then aren't they just referred by said agency to whichever other RA agency has been given (by the US Department of Education) Canada as part of the non-US world that is its exclusive non-US territory? I thought that was how it worked... that each of the six RA agencies have been given roughly one-sixth of the non-US world as exclusive territories within which they may accredit non-US institutions... no?