The DEAC was established in 1926 as the National Home Study Council (NHSC), a trade association for correspondence schools.
[2][3] Its formation was in response to a Carnegie Corporation study that found a lack of standards to ensure quality in correspondence schools and protect their students and the public from fraud.
[2] Under its first director, John Noffsinger, the NHSC developed a list of minimum standards for proprietary schools.
The NHSC adopted the name Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) in 1994 and its current name in 2014.
According to the DEAC, it is made up of over 100 distance education institutions located in 21 states and 7 countries.