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The U.S. Department of Education does not directly accredit educational institutions and/or programs. However, the U.S. Secretary of Education is required by law to publish a list of nationally recognized accrediting agencies that the Secretary determines to be reliable authorities as to the quality of education or training provided by the institutions of higher education and the higher education programs they accredit, within the meaning of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended.

An agency seeking national recognition by the Secretary must meet the Secretary's procedures and criteria for the recognition of accrediting agencies, as published in the Federal Register. Some of the criteria for recognition, such as the criterion requiring a link to Federal programs, have no bearing on the quality of an accrediting agency; however, they do have the effect of making some agencies ineligible for recognition for reasons other than quality. The recognition process involves not only filing an application with the U. S. Department of Education but also review by the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which makes a recommendation to the Secretary regarding recognition. The Secretary, after considering the Committee's recommendation, makes the final determination regarding recognition.

The U.S. Secretary of Education also recognizes State agencies for the approval of public postsecondary vocational education and State agencies for the approval of nurse education. These agencies must meet the Secretary's criteria and procedures for such recognition and must undergo review by the National Advisory Committee.

The U. S. Department of Education does not accredit institutions in foreign countries. However, the Secretary of Education does appoint members to the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation. The law gives that Committee the responsibility for reviewing the standards that foreign countries use to accredit medical schools to determine whether those standards are comparable to the standards used to accredit medical schools in the United States. The comparability decisions made by the Committee affect whether U.S. students attending foreign medical schools can receive loans under the Federal Family Education Loan Program.

Only post-secondary institutions that are accredited by an agency on the U.S. Department of Education's list of nationally recognized accrediting agencies are eligible to apply for a .edu Internet domain name (although there are a few non-qualifying organizations which hold .edu domains based on their acquiring them prior to the establishment of this rule). Most such agencies accredit only US institutions, so very few non-US institutions qualify, and .edu remains an almost exclusively American top-level domain.

In 2006 it was reported that Bush Administration officials in the Department of Education were calling for accreditors to make increased use of measurable "learning outcomes," such as graduation rates, in their processes, but the department's National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity expressed reservations about adding this type of requirement.^[1]

• Educational accreditation
• Accreditation mill
• Council for Higher Education Accreditation
• Diploma mill
• List of unrecognized accreditation associations of higher learning
• List of recognized accreditation associations of higher learning

1. ^ Can You Say NACIQI?, Inside Higher Ed, December 5, 2006.

• "Accreditation in the United States" by the US Department of Education