Distance Education and Accreditation. ERIC Digest.

Overview & Synopsis

In 1997-1998, there were more than 1.3 million enrollments in college-level, credit-granting distance education courses; this is approximately double the almost 754,000 formal enrollments in 1994-1995. The number of courses offered also almost doubled, with the nearly 26,000 distance education courses offered by 2- and 4-year higher education institutions in 1994-1995 growing to more than 47,500 different college-level courses in 1997-1998. This rapid growth in distance education has created the potential for fraud and abuse. With so many courses and programs offered by so many providers, how can students determine which courses and programs are worthwhile and which ones are shams? This digest reviews information about distance education, discusses accreditation, the traditional method of determining the quality of higher education offerings in the U.S., and how accreditation is being applied to distance education today. Although the past five years have seen much controversy, debate, and uncertainty, it appears that the accreditation community has begun to adapt, in large and small ways, accreditation practices and standards and apply them to distance education programs and institutions. (Contains 19 references.) (CS)