I read this interesting thread on Excelsior planning to accept [selected] NA credit: http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20360&highlight=accreditation+excelsior My question, then, is: What is the basis of Excelsior College's regional accreditation, and in particular its MBA program, if: over 83% of credits can be transferred in (thus, only 2 additional courses are required), and even DETC-recognized NA credits, such as those MBA credits from Columbia Southern, will be accepted? Is Excelsior's accreditation based on the accreditation of the institutions at which the student obtain the transferred credits?
over 83% of credits can be transferred in (thus, only 2 additional courses are required), what is the answer to the first question though?
Actually, Excelsior's accreditation would have nothing to do with the accreditation of the institutions from which its students would transfer credits. Every school is free to develop and implement its criteria for accepting credits from non-RA schools (many accept such credits). Excelsior's accreditation is based upon successfully meeting the standards of its accrediting body, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Excelsior (and it predecessor, Regents College) have been accredited with association for 28 years. It was chartered (along with Charter Oak State College and Thomas Edison State College) to be an evaluation institution for adult transfer students, to award degrees primarily based on work done elsewhere. These three colleges differ from some other institutions discussed in this forum in that they they do not award degrees or give massive amounts of academic credit for unverified "life experience". Here is Excelsior's listing with its accreditor: http://www.msche.org/institutions_view.asp?idinstitution=170
I transferred in or tested out of 100% of my BA credits when Excelsior was the Regents External Degree program of the University of the State of New York. As far as I know, you still can. It seems to me that the accrediting body, Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, is the best place to ask for an explanation. As far as program accreditation by professional organizations goes, Excelsior's nursing degrees are accredited by the National League of Nursing. Its electronic and nuclear engineering technology degrees are accredited by ABET. From their site, there appears to be no business association accreditation of the MBA program.
Regional and National accreditation can be explained as follows: The goal of accreditation is to ensure that education provided by institutions of higher education meets acceptable levels of quality. Accreditation in the United States involves non-governmental entities as well as governmental agencies. Accrediting agencies, which are private educational associations of regional or national scope, develop evaluation criteria and conduct peer evaluations to assess whether or not those criteria are met. Institutions and/or programs that request an agency's evaluation and that meet an agency's criteria are then "accredited" by that agency. Last time I checked, there was approximately 350 RA schools accepting NA credits. I would have listed the schools, but the thread was too long You can also check the CHEA/HETA website for a list of RA schools accepting NA credits: http://www.chea.org/default.asp?link=8
The following was written while the posts immediately above were made, and so there may be duplication of what's written above in what's written below. But I took the time to write it, dammit, so I'm posting it anyway! First let's get the second item out of the way: The acceptance by a regionally-accredited institution of national-accredited coursework in transfer does not mean that said regionally-accredited institution is "slumin' it." Many -- and I mean many -- regionally-accredited (RA) institutions accept nationally-accredited (NA) coursework in transfer. The arguments we have around here about the utility of NA versus that of RA is, in largest measure, about perception, not about objective quality. NA institutions jump through approximately as many hoops to become accredited as do RA institutions; and NA coursework is arguably as rigorous -- in some cases, more so -- as RA coursework. The common denominator is that both NA and RA is approved by the US Department of Education (USDE) and/or its Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). It's that fact that allows RA institutions to be able to accept NA coursework and still be able to sleep at night. The refusal of RA institutions to accept NA coursework, when that's the case, is usually about said RA institution having its nose in the air about NA; and/or said RA institution believing (usually wrongly) that in the eyes of its benefactors, or its alumni, or its potential students, that associating in any way with NA will somehow sully its reputation; and/or said RA institution simply being wrong about and/or misunderstanding NA (usually because it's been misinformed about NA by its regional accreditor. Don't assume that just because the personnel at a given institution know as much about accreditation as they really should know just because said institution is accredited. If one can cite examples of RA institutions that are more rigorous, just generally, than NA institutions (and one can, because there are many examples of that out there), it's probably wrong to attribute said increased rigor merely to said institution's regional (as opposed to national) accreditation. If you dig more deeply into said RA institution, you'll probably find that it's more rigorous than alot of other RA institutions, too; and that its reason for being more rigorous than NA institutions is simply because it's a darned good institution, notwithstanding its accreditation. So please don't assume that just because Excelsior will (if it even does) begin to accept DETC-accredited coursework that it is letting its standards slip. That, if you believe that's the case, would be wrong assumption. As for the first issue: The basis of Excelsior's accreditation if, after all, it's accepting most of a degree's coursework from other institutions and only delivering a tiny bit of said coursework itself... ...let's not forget that that's not the only way, or the circumstances under which, Excelsior grants degrees. We think so much of Excelsior, COSC and TESC -- the so-called "big three" of distance education/degree completion -- as places where a person can transfer-in nearly 100% of the coursework and then get a degree, that we forget that Excelsior, COSC and TESC have regular distance learning students taking regular coursework from those institutions, too. Those places are real colleges and/or universities, just like any other college and/or university. They have full-time students who begin as freshman and end as graduating seniors who took most or all of their courses from said institutions. Degrees at those places are granted in that way, too. And to do that, Excelsior, COSC and TESC need to be accredited... in this case (in the case of all three, actually, regionally accredited. Excelsior, COSC and TESC are no different from any other regionally-accredited colleges/universities in that they accept transfer credit from other regionally-accredited colleges/universities. The difference is that Excelsior, COSC and TESC are willing to accept more regionally-accredited coursework in transfer than most other -- nearly all other, in fact -- regionally-accredited institutions. And the regional agencies that accredited Excelsior, COSC and TESC allow this. In fact, how many courses or hours of credit a given regionally-accredited institution may or is willing to accept is entirely up to said institution. Most regionally-accredited colleges/universities limit the amount of coursework/credits they'll accept. Many will only accept maybe 25% to, at most, half of a given degree's coursework/credits in transfer from another institution... others less, a very few maybe a little more. What makes Excelsior, COSC and TESC different from most other institutions is, among other things, their willingness to accept either nearly all, or even all, of a given degree's credits as transfer credits. But when Excelsior, COSC or TESC does accept transfer credits from other regionally-accredited institutions, it's not also transferring-in said other instituion's accredited status and somehow calling it its own. In fact, it's never that way with any regionally-accredited institution that accepts another regionally-accredited institution's credits in transfer. Excelsior, COSC and TESC have their own regional accrditation. They accept the coursework/credits of other regionally-accredited institutions and, having done so, effectively make them their own. In Excelsior's case (since that's really the only institution about which you were asking), said credits then become that which makes-up an Excelsior regionally-accredited degree, not a degree from whatever regionally-accredited instituion(s) its credits originally came. Excelsior, COSC and TESC can rely on the regionally-accredited coursework that it accepted in transfer to be at least as good as its own coursework because that's the very benefit of regional accreditation in the first place. Regional accreditation ensures that all coursework at all regionally-accredited institutions will meet at least the minimum standards that any course must meet in order to be worthy of being called a course in the first place. Regional accreditation ensure that the course was at least minimally rigorous and wasn't just a joke that the student could sleep through and still pass the course. Regionally-accredited coursework -- in fact, pretty much all coursework that's accredited by an agency that's approved by USDE and/or CHEA -- is, from the standpoint of the institution that's accepting it in transfer, guaranteed to meet the minimum standards that will ensure its willingness to call it its own. That doesn't mean that there aren't regionally-accredited courses that aren't better, harder and more rigorous than other regionally-accredited courses. If the RA coursework being transferred-in to Excelsior for a degree that will ultimately be awarded by Excelsior happens to be from an RA school that's simply a better school than Excelsior, then more's the better for the student for his/her having benefitted from a better quality course. But, if so, then all that means is the course was better and of higher quality than maybe Excelsior might have delivered had the student taken the course there. But at least the course, regardless how much better or worse it might have been had Excelsior delivered it instead of whatever other RA institution actually did, meets, because it's regionally-accredited, the dead minimum standards that a course needs to meet in order for Excelsior to, in effect, "adopt" it and make it its own (accept it in transfer) toward an Excelsior degree. Accreditation provides that benefit. It's one of accreditation's main purposes. Excelsior's beginning to accept DETC (which are NA) credits, in addition to the RA credits that it has always accepted, will not be a step down for Excelsior. DETC coursework is nationally-accredited; and national accreditors like DETC are USDE- and/or CHEA-approved... which means they went through very much the same sort of hell to become accreditors as did any of the regional accreditors; and institutions accredited by national accreditors go through very much the same kind of hell to get accredited as do institutions accredited by regional accreditors. If you think that a DETC-accredited school didn't have to sweat just as many gallons of pirspiration to get accredited as did a regionally accredited school, think again. It's arduous and rigorous and expensive and honorable. A school that's nationally accredited has just as much to be proud of as does a school that's regionally accredited. It's the regional accreditors, and all who believe their propaganda, that will try to tell you otherwise.
Their accreditation is based upon being an institution that awards degrees based upon sufficient levels of student achievement, and has the administrative capability--and financial basis--for continuing to do so. In other words, it is accredited because its accreditor feels it meets accrediting standards. You're operating under the fallacy that the circumstances you describe are somehow disqualifiying. They are not.
Right. I was under the (false) impression that accepting DETC credits, since they are not RA, may stand in the way of an institution trying to qualify for regional accreditation. Sort of by the same principle used in the security arena that an organization is as vulnerable as its weakest link. Thus, by extension, the quality of the education at an institution is only as high as the lowest quality credits it accepts in transfer toward a degree. [But, then, I am still a newbie to accreditation criteria trying to make sense of it for myself.]
Their accepting non-RA is fine by me. They have the right to make those decisions. I was just wondering what the perspective of the accrediting bodies, such as the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools or the MSCHE, would be. I have not checked Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, but MSCHE, for example, states that, regarding transfer credit, “courses, programs, and other learning experiences are judged on their learning outcomes, using valid evaluation measures…” How can an RA institution feasibly verify that the “evaluation measures” used at this other, non-RA institution meets its standard every time and for every course? More likely, they will rely on validity established through intimate knowledge of the education quality through years of experience in a partnership with the institution or some other accreditation such as that of the DETC, or validation method such CLEP. I would imagine that this assurance would be all the more important for an institution that transfers in a vast majority of its students’ credits.
