Accreditation and Your Education Masters Degree

– How Accrediting Organizations Differ

When you choose to get your Masters in Education degree, it’s important to get your degree from an accredited university or college. If you don’t graduate from an accredited institution, the degree program may not be considered to be valid when you apply for a teaching position. Accreditation is a guarantee that your degree is valid and you graduated from an accredited university. One of the reasons that it’s so important for you to enroll at an accredited university or college is that most of the financial aid from public sources and benefits provided by corporations for education depend on the student graduating from a school that’s accredited to prevent any instances of fraud. Another reason to get your Masters degree in Education from an accredited school is that when you’re transferring credits they won’t be accepted unless you graduated from a school that’s officially accredited.

For an Education Masters degree, there are two different types of accreditation.

National accreditation is usually for technical or trade schools. The second kind is regional accreditation, which is usually for college or university degrees that are traditional. However, if you have graduated from a technical school and decide later on you want an Education Masters degree, it will be very difficult to transfer the credits. Universities that offer traditional Bachelors and Masters degrees are accredited regionally. It is usually easier to transfer credits between universities or colleges that are from the same regional accrediting source. Although it can be done, it’s much more difficult to transfer credits to a school that’s accredited in a different region of the country.

When you attend a vocational school or technical school, you would have to attend a school that’s accredited nationally in order for your credits to be valid.

Most often, rather than getting a degree for your coursework, you would be awarded a certificate at the conclusion of the program. This is the reason it would be difficult to transfer credits to a regionally accredited university for a Masters degree in education. You could conduct a search for any schools that would actually accept the credits, but this is a practice that’s seldom done. The NCATE, or National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, provides accreditation for educators with a Masters degree in education. This council provides additional proof that a college or university meets the standards that are accepted nationally for teacher education. It’s also a form of accreditation for some certificate programs.

Another of the accreditation organizations for education master’s degree students is the CHEA, or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

The main function of this organization is to work as an entity that recognizes all of the other accreditation bodies in the United States. The membership of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation includes at least 3,000 colleges and universities, and nearly 60 different organizations. There are differences between the different forms of accreditation. The organizations often provide some of the same functions so that each can complement what the other does. If you plan to get your masters degree in education online, you should enroll in a program that’s accredited in its region, but also is accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, which will provide even more validity to your degree. An important consideration is that if you choose to get your Masters degree online, make sure the program you plan to enroll in meets all the requirements for accreditation or your degree may not be accepted.

Proper accreditation is also important if your employer participates in a tuition reimbursement program. In this type of program, the employee initially pays the tuition for continuing education programs. Paperwork is submitted so that the tuition is reimbursed. If the accreditation isn’t valid, reimbursement won’t be paid. The academic program at a college or university is what makes the biggest impact on an employer, but when the school has more than one accreditation, it makes an additional impact and is better for the reputation of the school. In order to be licensed by the state as a teacher, it’s important to have a Masters in Education from an accredited college. If the school doesn’t have the necessary accreditation, your license might not be valid without taking additional coursework.