“Accreditation.” It’s a word that creates a lot of confusion and trepidation. I would like to relate a conversation my wife and I had with a youth pastor and his wife two months ago. The four of us were eating lunch in the Dining Commons during their visit, and the conversation got around to accreditation. The wife sadly related that she cannot teach in the state in which they reside because she received her teaching degree from an unaccredited, four-year Bible college. After lunch I introduced the two of them to Dr. Bruce Jackson who is the Chairman of our Education Department. A few hours later I again saw the visiting couple them and asked if there was any hope after their meeting with Dr. Jackson. She smiled and said that she had a renewed confidence that she would be able to teach in her state. Of course, more classes will need to be taken and more tuition money will need to be spent, but in the end, she will be able to follow her desire to teach.
It is so important to investigate where your son or daughter attends college. Before settling on which college to attend, parents need to determine whether that institution will adequately prepare their son or daughter for their chosen vocation. How sad it would be to spend $60,000 for a four-year education only to find that before one could enter the work force more money would need to be spent on tuition, books, and lab fees.
In a nutshell accreditation is simply the opportunity for Maranatha to back up what we say we teach with supporting evidence. The accrediting agency looks at what we say we teach and then looks at what we do actually teach to make sure that our actions match our words. There is no dictation of curriculum, philosophy, or agenda; it is a tool to help keep us accountable. As you send your children and your money away to college, there should be comfort in knowing that both are going to a place that is actually producing the product that the institution claims.
That's one parent's perspective