When your school gets new accreditation

Here is the question:

If I have a degree from a non-regionally accredited college (let’s say it’s nationally or state-approroved) and the school later acquires regional accreditation from one of the regional accreditation agencies, how does that affect my degree? Does it automatically fall under the new regional accreditation, or is there a time frame (grace period) where it falls under the new accreditation?

P.S. If this question has been asked before (and it probably has), please don’t bless me out. It’s being asked again so answer the question if you can and will.
aranoid:

 

Regional accreditation isn't generally retroactive. If your degree was NA, or state-approved, when you earned it, then technically it will stay that way -- even if the school later becomes RA.

In practice, I suspect that most employers don't scrutinize degrees with this level of detail. For example, American Public University System was accredited by DETC in 1996, and then became RA in 2006. So people today typically think of "American Public University" or "American Military University" as RA schools. If you got a degree from APU/AMU back in 1996-2005, then technically it's an NA degree (not RA), but my guess is that most employers would neither notice nor care.

If it's a situation where professional licensure is involved, and a certain form of accreditation is legally required, then a licensing board would probably recognize the distinction between pre-accreditation and post-accreditation degrees. But I suspect that the average employer probably wouldn't.

 

One other wrinkle: if a school is pursuing RA, then there will be a period of a few years when it will be an official "RA Candidate", before it achieves full regional accreditation. For example, AMU/APU had official "RA Candidate" status in 2004 and 2005, before achieving full RA in 2006.

The regional agencies don't grant official "RA Candidate" status unless they are reasonably sure that a school will eventually achieve full accreditation. So in practice, "RA Candidate" schools are generally treated the same as RA schools for purposes of credit transfer, financial aid, etc.

So this is kind of like a "grace period". If you graduate from a school that has moved far enough along in the accreditation process to achieve official "RA Candidate" status, then your degree will probably be accepted as an RA-equivalent degree, even if the school doesn't achieve full RA for another few years.

 

The only issue there is the public perception of the school that lost its accreditation, and it is likely to be negative.

 

That is true. Conversely, the public perception of a school that wins accreditation is likely to be positive. And a positive change in public perception will benefit all graduates of the school -- even if they have old degrees that are technically unaffected by the new accreditation.

 

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Love ya'll.
Ann G.

 

Just curious, not that this applies to me...

My transcripts from all of my schools mention the school's accreditation on them. If I attended an NA school which later became RA, and if the school mentioned accreditation on the transcript, if I requested a transcript of my coursework and degree after the new accreditation, wouldn't it appear my degree was RA?

-Matt

 

My guess would be that the regional accreditation agencies are sensitive to this issue, and that they may require the registrar's office to distinguish pre-RA transcripts from post-RA transcripts in some way, as a condition of accreditation. But that's just a guess.