Accreditation Primer
Accreditation Primer
The purpose of this page is to support decision making by OSE regarding its plans to work within the educational system of the US.
Overview of Accreditation Landscape in the US
The big purpose, not ever stated for accreditation, and relevant to the effort, is the distributed protection of federal money from misuse. The feds give student aid, either from department of ed or veterans benefits or tuition assistance for active military and they want it to only be spent on accredited programs.
Institutional Accreditation
Accreditation is done by accreditors who themselves are accredited through a central organization CHEA (council of higher ed accreditation). They maintain a list of department-of-ed approved accreditors. Those accreditors in turn accredit colleges and universities which thereby gives those institutions authority to administer financial aid funds. The Higher Learning Commission has a page on the process.
Veterans Administration Approval
The VA still needs to approve an institution for aid, as well, and relies on their own rules and the existence of accreditation for that institution.
State Approval
Accreditation depends on state approval of an educational provider. The state's interest has been to protect the consumer and regulate the programs at the state's public colleges and universities to ensure that public money is spent the ways the state (and its politicians) want it to be divided up among the public colleges. The protection of students is about the for-profit and private colleges, and Missouri has a separate branch to regulate "career colleges" which includes private, not for profit, like OSE wants to be. A money making presence in MO for an institution requires it to be approved to operate. Whether that extends to a service-providing contractor, I'm not certain. The agency in Missouri is called MHEWD (Missouri Higher Education and Workforce Development).
Visas via Student and Exchange Visitor Program Approval
The approval to offer various educational visas is granted through the Department of Homeland Security and called the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. It grants authority to an institution to offer F and M status visas. The M status may work best for OSE since it is for vocational programs. The expedient route is through partnership with a SEVIS-approved institution.
Programmatic Accreditation
An additional wrinkle in the landscape are the programmatic accreditors, like ABET - the accrediting board for engineering and technology - that accredit specialized degree programs. These are not a requirement for OSE, but may be for potential partners of OSE. Assuming the need for speed, partnering is recommended for OSE.
Accredited Partnerships
UMKC is approved as a public college in Missouri. That qualifies them to participate in accreditation with the Higher Learning Commission, the largest of the regional accreditors which happens to cover 17 states and over 1000 institutions. HLC initially accredited and multiply reaffirmed UMKC's accreditation and hence ability to offer financial aid.
An approved partnership between UMKC and OSE depends on the form of the arrangement. Missouri approval may be needed ,,![check this] and working with a non-accredited partner would require UMKC to notify and possibly seek approval with HLC.
HLC list the approval options to consider for a contractual arrangemet.