Engineering Degrees

All institutions of higher education must receive accreditation in the same way. The process entails undergoing a rigorous self-examination, applying to an accrediting agency and being found to meet the quality standards set by that agency. Contrary to popular belief, the federal government does not have a hand in deciding how colleges are accredited, although the U.S. Department of Education does provide a helpful database of universities that have been examined by legitimate accrediting agencies. The government leaves this important duty to independent agencies, which provide accreditation to the university as a whole (institutional accreditation) and to the individual programs offered by that university (programmic accreditation).

When looking for an online engineering program from any university, the most important consideration should be that the program itself is accredited. While institutional accreditation by agencies such as the Distance Education and Training Council are important for the university as a whole, it will be good to know that the engineering program has been individually scrutinized for quality. An example of a well-known accrediting agency for engineering programs is ABET, Inc. (Accrediting Board for Engineering & Technology). While ABET, Inc. is not the only agency that can accredit an engineering program, agencies like ABET, Inc. examine universities' engineering departments closely to determine if the programs will be able to adequately prepare students for careers in an engineering profession.

Aside from the U.S. Department of Education's database mentioned above, there is another great resource you can use to verify that a university or its programs are accredited. That resource is the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). CHEA is a nonprofit accreditation advocate that maintains a database of more than 7,700 institutions and more than 18,700 programs (including engineering programs) accredited by recognized accrediting agencies. CHEA's database also lets you know how recently the university earned its accreditation status.

Checking out the accreditation status of a university and its engineering program is important because it can give a potential student a certain level of confidence in the quality of the school and program. During the review process, the agency makes sure the university is operating legally, is accountable for its finances, has goals in place to improve the university and its programs, and has enough resources to accomplish its educational objectives.