I graduated from a nationally accredited community college last year with an A.S. in Information Technology. Recently, I have been looking to go back and get my B.A. in Computer Science. My only problem is the college I went to is nationally accredited, and all of the universities I have looked at are regionally accredited. I had not known this when I went to the community college, otherwise I would not have gone in the first place. My thinking was, if I can do two years at a community college and get those credits transferred to a university, I could save some money. But, no one told me about accreditation, so, here I am.
I can’t seem to find a list of regionally accredited schools that accept nationally accredited transfers. Any suggestions or comments would probably help me at this point, because I am completely lost as to what to do. I feel like my only option is to start over, but there has to be a college out there for people in the same position as I am in.
What is the “national” accrediting agency called? I never heard of such an organization.
Do you mean that the IT program was nationally accredited?
The school/program is accredited by Council on Occupational Education (COE), which is a national accreditation. A lot of universities are regionally accredited, but I heard that some will accept transfer credits from a college that has national accreditation. Just can’t figure out which ones.
Is this a public community college or a private trade school? The COE seems to accredit trade and technical programs, not academic programs. Public community colleges are generally regionally accredited. Without regional accreditation your college is not recognized as an academic institution and credits will not likely transfer.
As a practical matter, IT course work is usually not technical enough to count for subject requirements for a CS major, even if the credit is otherwise accepted (i.e. it may only count as general elective credits even if it is accepted).
Please provide the name of your college. You may be confusing technical accreditations (like ABET) with college accreditations.
There is no list of regionally accredited institutions that accept credits from nationally accredited institutions.
You need to ask each college/university that is on your current list separately, whether they accept credits from the place(s) you have attended previously. Yes it is a drag, but that is the way it is.
You also can ask at your previous program for information about where their students have transferred. If it was a true community college with public funding from the state where it is located, it is likely that at least some of the programs offered will have credits that are accepted at some of the public colleges and universities in that state. If it was a private two-year institution, all bets are off.
The college is Northshore Technical Community College (Louisiana). It is a public community college.
Yeah, this is why I came to a forum, because I literally just found out about accreditation, trying to apply to a university. I was told my credits would not transfer because of the school’s accreditation. I know not all of my credits are going to transfer, but looking at the coursework for computer science at some universities, most would. It is just really frustrating, I have an AS degree, but I feel like I am back at square one, because I might have to take all of these courses again.
Looks like Northshore Technical Community College is listed in LSU’s transfer credit database at https://sites01.lsu.edu/wp/admissions/become-a-tiger-2/transfer-students/tiger-transfer-tables/ . You may want to check other Louisiana public universities.
It is a disservice for a public community college that offers transfer preparation courses not to have regional accreditation, since it limits the colleges that the student can transfer to.
Check out Louisiana’s public colleges. Northshore Technical CC should have agreements with them. However because it’s primarily a vocational school the academic content may not be considered on par with what a 4-year or even another CC may offer.
Some more Louisiana public universities that accept some NTCC courses:
Louisiana Tech: http://admissions.latech.edu/transfer-readmit/tes.php
Louisiana - Monroe: https://webservices.ulm.edu/flightpath/transfer-search/results?state=LA&school=905065
For any university you may be interested in, do a web search for “[university name] transfer credit” to see if any NTCC courses are transferable to that university.
You might also consider having your coursework and any work experience evaluated for college credit. I know Charter Oak State College is one of the colleges that does this.