Searching 4 Accredited School

♑ Capricorn ♑ · Feb 28, 2012

National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission - NLNAC Homepage

Also check your state board of nursing to see if your school/nursing program is listed.

elkpark · Feb 28, 2012

There are two kinds of accreditation you need to think about when "shopping" for a nursing program. One is nursing-specific accreditation. That is the NLNAC (or CCNE) accreditation for which Capricorn posted the link. NLNAC or CCNE accreditation is voluntary; there are lots of nursing programs that have not sought accreditation, because it's expensive and complicated to get, that would provide you with a perfectly good nursing education. However, a growing number of healthcare employers, including some of the most desirable healthcare employers in the US (the US military, the entire VA system, lots of academic medical centers) will only hire graduates of accredited (meaning NLNAC or CCNE) programs, and I don't see any point in closing off any future employment opportunities for yourself this early in the process. Also, most programs for furthering your education in nursing will require that you be a graduate of an (NLNAC or CCNE) accredited program to be accepted. So, that is one important consideration.

The other kind of accreditation to consider is general academic accreditation (the accreditation of the entire school, not the nursing program specifically). ITT Tech is a proprietary (private-for-profit) school. These kind of schools are accredited by different organizations than the organizations that accredit "regular" colleges and universities. (They actually created their own accrediting organizations, which only accredit proprietary tech-voc schools.) If you ask one of those schools if it is "accredited," the representative will tell you "yes," which is a true statement, and hope that you don't know enough to ask any further questions about accreditation. However, because these schools are not accredited by the same regional organizations that accredit "regular" colleges and universities, and don't have to meet the same academic standards that those schools do, credits from the proprietary schools often can't be accepted for transfer/academic credit at "regular" schools. So, if you want to further your education at some point, you'll basically have to start "from scratch," because you can't transfer the credits from the proprietary school. (This is not true of all proprietary schools; you have to check on each individual school to be sure. However, I would not just take the school's word for it; I would contact other colleges and universities in the area and ask them if they accept courses from that school for academic credit. A lot (again, not all) of the proprietary schools will tell you whatever you want to hear in order to get you to sign up.)

A lot of people post here asking about schools like ITT Tech, get responses like what I just said above, and say things like, "That's not a concern for me, because I know I'm never going to want to go back to school." I would caution to be v. careful about this. Many, many nurses started out thinking that, once they got through nursing school, they would never want to go back to school for more education, and they just wanted to do bedside nursing for their entire career, only to find a few years later, after becoming more familiar with the wide range of possibilities and opportunities within nursing, that they had changed their minds. Look at all the threads just on this site about nurses returning to school to complete a BSN or attend graduate school ... Again, IMO, it would be a big mistake to close off any future educational and professional opportunities this early in the process by choosing a school that is going to create problems and barriers for you down the road.

Best wishes for your journey!

nguyency77, CNA · Feb 29, 2012

I definitely agree with the above poster; watch out! Do some serious Googling, and make sure that it's on your state's list of approved nursing programs. There are many, many loopholes with these proprietary schools and you really need to know what you're looking for. To be safe, I'd probably just look for an approved AND accredited school. Make sure the accreditation is from NLNAC and not from the tech school itself. You should also how much it will cost to attend.