Accreditation

The goal of educational accreditation, according to the United States Department of Education, is to ensure that programs provided by institutions of higher education meet acceptable levels of quality.  ENQA, the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, describes the role of external quality assurance in education as one that "combines both accountability for the reassurance of the public and an objective and developmental role for enhancing quality in institutions".  In the area of online education, it is important to avoid unaccredited diploma mills that offer fake degrees, as these are unfortunately common. Students seeking valid online degrees should obtain proof of accreditation from an appropriate accrediting body.

In the United States, online colleges that are fully accredited have earned a widely recognized form of university accreditation from one of six regional accreditation boards.   Each of six geographic regions of the United States has one of these boards, a non-governmental agency that oversees and accredits degree-granting institutions headquartered in their areas. The U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) recognize the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) as the accrediting organization for distance learning institutions and education programs that offer online degrees. However, DETC accreditation is commonly (though not universally) viewed as inferior to regional accreditation, and regionally accredited schools may refuse to accept transfer credit from DETC-accredited schools more often than they would refuse credit from other regionally-accredited schools.

Outside of the United States, other national and regional standards of accreditation hold, and may be highly supportive of distance education. For example, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, or Open University of Catalonia, has been accredited by AQU, the Agency for Quality Assurance in the Catalan University System (a full member of ENQA), since its inception in 1995, and has been called a "significant success story" as "the world's first continuous, and sustainable, virtual university".