The specific requirements and standards of each accrediting body are unique. However, any institution or program accredited by a recognized accrediting body must:

• Have an overall stated purpose (often called a mission) that defines the students it serves and the objectives of the institution’s or program’s activities;
• Control the resources necessary to achieve its purposes; that is, the institution must control its own financial resources, employ adequately prepared faculty and instructional staff, admit only those students whose qualifications make them able to benefit from the programs offered, and present educational programs in a coherent and current manner;
• Be effective in achieving its immediate objectives;
• Give evidence that it will continue to achieve those objectives for the near future.

Accreditation of individual programs (called programmatic accreditation) imposes the same equirements as accreditation of institutions, but narrows its focus to the particular program rather than the whole institution. Consequently, there are usually some requirements for programmatic accreditation that are specifically related to the practice of the particular profession concerned.

All accrediting associations have two purposes: to assess the performance of an institution or program in relation to its stated mission and the accrediting body’s standards, and to foster improvement in member programs or institutions.

Recognized accrediting bodies follow a three-step process to ensure quality:

• The institution carries out a self-study and writes a report that is submitted to the accrediting body. The self-study and report include the institution’s mission, academic programs, faculty, information resources, student services, physical facilities, and system of governance.
• This is followed by a visit by an outside group of academics, whose job is to validate what the institution has said about itself in its self-study, make suggestions for the improvement of the institution or program, and submit a report for consideration by the accrediting association’s governing body.
• The governing body then decides whether or not to grant accreditation. Accreditation is never partial, and there is no difference between the terms “fully accredited” and “accredited.”

Once an institution has successfully had an accreditation visit and decision, the process continues. Institutions or programs must file annual reports, reply to any rulings made by the accrediting body, and undergo regular visits at least once every five to ten years. They must also notify their accreditors if they undergo any significant change – for example, in ownership, mission, location of campuses, or offering of a degree at a higher level.

Accreditation is not a way to rank member institutions. Rather, it is a process that validates the integrity of an educational institution. For the student, it is an indication that the institution or program meets certain standards of excellence. Accrediting associations require that institutions engage in constant self-assessment in order to keep their programs as current as possible. Such assessment ensures that the institution’s graduates are prepared for the current needs of society, and that they have developed the capacity for continued learning, which will allow them to meet the demands of society in the future.