Vermont’s Center for Cartoon Studies recently announced that it will now be offering MFA degrees–a achievement for which I congratulate them heartily. Much of the reporting on the event, and discussion thereof, though, has conflated two separate but related concepts: degree granting, and accreditation. I myself made the same mistake when I first heard this news a while back from someone at the school, so for the sake of clarification, here’s the deal:
The school has been granted “approval from the State of Vermont Department of Education Board to award Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Degrees.” This means that they can confer MFA degrees–this is something that is granted by the state.
Accreditation is something else. Accreditation in the U.S. is granted by a private organization, usually The Council for Higher Education Accreditation–although, in the case of CCS it would likely be The National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). This accreditation is not the granting of a legal status by any government institution; however being accredited is sometimes a requirement for getting grants and can affects transfer credits between schools, etc. While most degree-granting schools are also accredited, it’s not unusual for a new institution, or one whose curriculum doesn’t fit nicely into previously established standards, to be degree-granting but not accredited–certainly CCS fits into both categories.
Confusion-aside, congrats!
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