Lanier Tech receives full accreditation

OAKWOOD - Lanier Technical College has earned full accreditation.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges voted Tuesday to accredit the Oakwood-based school.

"This is the culmination of a five-year effort by Lanier Technical College," said Lanier Tech President Russell Vandiver. "Regional accreditation by a body such as SACS-COC is the gold standard for academic quality. This accreditation, along with our long-standing affiliation with the Council on Occupational Education, assures students they are getting the very best in workforce development education."

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the regional accrediting agency for the southeastern United States, is recognized by both the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation with full accrediting authority. Regional bodies such as SACS-COC focus on academic quality. The Council on Occupational Education (COE) is a national body focusing on the standards necessary to ensure quality career and technical education.

"We've been accredited by COE since 1988, and it's been a good fit," Vandiver said. "Workforce development - career and technical training that puts people to work in good jobs that pay good wages - is at the heart of COE's mission, and it's at the heart of our mission. It's what we do. SACS-COC accreditation doesn't change that. It adds to that."

With this vote, Lanier Technical College joins nearly 800 other regionally accredited colleges in the south and southeast, including University of System of Georgia schools such as the University of Georgia and Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as private universities such as Emory. All SACS-COC accredited schools are held to a high standard of integrity and academic rigor.

One immediate benefit for LTC students is their associate degree general education coursework will now more readily transfer to other colleges and universities. All colleges have the right to set their own standards for accepting transfer credit, and can accept or deny transfer credit from another school, whether regionally or nationally accredited. Many colleges, however, have policies specifying that only credit from regionally accredited schools will be accepted for transfer.

"We want our students to be successful in life. Their success is our report card," Vandiver said. "A recent study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that on average people change jobs 11 times between the ages of 18 and 44. For a lot of people, that means going back to school at some point. With regional accreditation, their academic work at Lanier Tech will more readily count toward future degrees."