Accreditation is the voluntary certification process for universities and colleges in meeting minimum requirements designated by an accrediting agency. Although graduating from an accredited online school does not guarantee a job, it may facilitate such achievement since most employers recognized online degrees from accredited schools. In fact, an online degree program that is accredited will give confidence and trust to its students and the employers in the job to accept job applicants with online degree from accredited schools.
However, you have to watch out for any school that claim for accreditation as well because not all of them are legitimately accredited. Since accreditation information has become an indicator for students to find the best online education program, it has been misused by diploma mills. Nowadays, diploma mills also claim to be accredited, but they are accredited by "fake" accrediting agencies. So you have to watch out and make sure you read and confirm the school is truly accredited by a legitimate accrediting agency before you sign up its online degree program. Don't become a victim of diploma mill!
How to determine an online degree program is accredited?
There are a few ways to ensure the legitimate accreditation of an online school and its degree programs, but the best way is to check with the U.S Department of Education (if you leave in US or want to pursue an online degree offered by one of the universities at the United States of America) at http://www.ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. This is a database that contains almost all post-secondary education institutions that have received accreditation from accrediting agencies recognized by the Department of Education. Assuming that the online school is accredited, you can determine if the particular online degree program is accredited by checking the following websites:
- APA: http://www.apa.org/education/grad/program-accreditation.aspx
- ASPPB (maintained jointly with the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology): http://www.nationalregister.org/desig_about.html
- CACREP: http://www.cacrep.org/
- CORE: http://www.core-rehab.org/
- COAMFTE: http://www.aamft.org/iMIS15/AAMFT/Education_and_Training/Accreditation/Content/COAMFTE/Accreditation.aspx
- MPAC: http://www.mpcacsite.org/mpac/accredited-programs/
- NASP: http://www.nasponline.org/certification/ApprovedPrograms0603.pdf
