Online College Rankings : Rankings by Years Accredited

Accreditation is an important element of a college’s reputation–as it should be. Accreditation not only implies recognition and prestige, but more importantly it ensures that colleges’ courses and curriculum meet the highest academic standards. Accreditation is also a prerequisite to qualify for most federal funding financial aid programs. For our rankings, we only included online colleges accredited by an institutional accrediting agency that is recognized by the Office of Post-secondary Education, an agency under the authority of the US Department of Education.

For each college, we’ve looked at how long its maintained its accreditation status (“# Years”), since a longer period of accreditation equates to more name recognition and prestige, as well as continual academic competence.

^{*Ranked 2011}