Accreditation is how the educational world assures quality control, just as a manufacturer might look for various kinds of certification. A school seeking accreditation is voluntarily choosing to measure its programs against objective outside standards for curriculum, faculty, facilities, quality of instruction and a host of other criteria. The process varies between programs, but generally boils down to the same three steps. First the school evaluates itself, then it is reviewed by a group of peers, and finally the accrediting body makes a decision on whether to grant accreditation.
The difficulty with the accreditation process, for a student, is that there are a bewildering number of accrediting agencies. Most of them are legitimate, but others exist only to provide an impression of legitimacy for dubious institutions. The role of CHEA and similar agencies is to provide a process of accountability to the accrediting agencies, as they themselves do for their member schools. As of February 2011 CHEA recognized over 60 accrediting bodies and over 3000 degree-granting colleges and universities were CHEA members.
CHEA does not accredit schools directly. CHEA and similar organizations certify accrediting agencies, which in turn accredit the individual schools or programs within a school. Prospective students can search CHEA's database of accrediting agencies, then follow that to find specific schools or programs. Alternately, a student may survey several schools about their accreditation, then follow the chain of accreditation back to CHEA.
The CHEA website contains a number of resources that may be useful to current or potential students. In addition to the database of accrediting agencies, the site includes links to other databases, international accrediting agencies and a range of research and publications. A quantity of useful information about degree mills and accreditation mills is a useful feature, with links to lists of schools and agencies that are known to be dubious.