A school is either accredited or not accredited. The last I checked, Pan Am is NOT accredited. What I mean by accredited is that Community Colleges, Universities and private post secondary vocational schools are normally accredited by an accrediting body like the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology (ACCSCT) which is the one that FSI and Comair is accredited through. A school can be big and bad, but they don't always have to be accredited.
This site on
Overview of Accreditation can explain it better.
Here is the
ACCST site to learn more about the process.
Before you spend a bunch of $$ on school, make sure you know and understand about regional and national accreditation!! Like I said, a school that is accredited is a plus for different reasons.
One thing to note is that it's more difficult to transfer credits from a nationally accredited school or college to a regionally accredited school or college, but not vice-versa.
If I'm not mistaken, nationally accredited schools mostly base their education on a specific core curriculum (eg. flight training, computer training, etc.) Whereas a regionally accredited college bases their education mostly on an academic curriculum that doesn't always involve "hands on training" (like Flight, Computer, etc). There are a few that are different however, and I'm no educational expert, so I might be totally wrong. If someone can explain it better, that would be great. At any rate, DO YOUR HOMEWORK on this so you are aware!!
As far as the complaints about Pan Am, there are quite a few on the
Pan Am forum.
Erik.