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Today, there are many private and public, non-profit and for-profit institutions worldwide offering distance education courses from the most basic instruction through to the highest levels of degree and doctoral programs.

Levels of accreditation vary: some of the institutions receive little outside oversight, and some may be fraudulent diploma mills, although in many jurisdictions, an institution may not use terms such as " university " without accreditation and authorisation, often overseen by the national government – for example, the Quality Assurance Agency in the UK.

In the US, the Distance Education and Training Council ( DETC ) specializes in the accreditation of distance education institutions.