Columbia Southern University, in Orange Beach, Alabama, USA, is a privately held for-profit online-only institution of higher education. It offers associate, bachelor, graduate and postgraduate programs in fields including fire science, criminal justice, business administration, information technology, human resource management, organizational leadership, and occupational safety and health. Columbia Southern has been accredited by Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) since 2001. DETC is an accreditation agency recognized by both the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Columbia Southern is also a member of the Higher Education Transfer Alliance (HETA), a voluntary group of accredited institutions that are concerned with the importance of student mobility, enhancing success in transfer of credit, and affirming the responsibility and prerogative of individual institutions with respect to acceptance of transfer credits.