Council on Occupational Education?

Is the Council on Occupational Education considered a regional accreditation? Do their credits transfer to regional universities? Their website says they used to be a unit of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) until they split off in 1994.

It looks like several of their members are state schools.
AVTEC ‐ Alaska's Institute of Technology
Reid State Technical College - Alabama
Cape Coral Institute of Technoloogy - Florida
L.E. Fletcher Technical Community College - Louisiana
National Park Community College - Arkansas


Here's their website
Council on Occupational Education

 

COE is recognized by the US Dept. of Education as a national accreditation agency (like DETC). It is not a regional accreditation agency.

COE does have roots in SACS, which is a regional agency. Before 1995, COE was part of SACS and granted regional accreditation, but only to non-degree-granting institutions, like career schools.

Eventually career schools wanted to start offering applied associate's degrees. So COE wanted to expand its role, so it could accredit degree programs. This apparently wasn't possible within the SACS framework, so COE separated from SACS around 1994 and became an independent accreditor.

So COE is now a national accreditor with the authority to accredit associate's degrees in technical fields. It also continues to accredit non-degree-granting career programs.

COE does accredit some 2-year public schools, but these schools may also have regional accreditation (like for example National Park Community College, which is also accredited by HLC-NCA)