1. Regionally accredited – the highest and most useful.

2. Nationally accredited – real, but not as recognized or useful. Yes it is less than regional accreditation, which isn’t intuitive.

3. Unaccredited

Be sure to check here before you enroll: http://www.chea.org/search/

There are some fly by night ones that have no accreditation like Kennedy Western, Warren National, Belford, Rushmore, Almeda (That’s the one where a reporter bought one for his cat), etc.

That being said, there are hundreds of regionally accredited options out there. From the mostly online ones (University of Phoenix, DeVry, Franklin University) to the purely online ones, to those of State schools such as Penn State, Peru State (Nebraska), Boise State, etc.

There are so many options, you’ll have to break your question down.

A great many of the colleges that exist only online won’t ever be able to earn accreditation (is that the word?) because there’s no way for them to be evaluated.