American Public University System (APUS) is a for-profit, online learning institution that is composed of American Military University (AMU) and American Public University (APU).

APUS is wholly owned by American Public Education, Inc., a publicly traded private-sector corporation.

APUS maintains corporate and academic offices in Charles Town, West Virginia and administrative offices in Manassas, Virginia.

APUS offers associate, bachelor's and master's degrees, in addition to dual degrees, certificate programs and learning tracks.

An auxiliary power unit (APU) is a device on a vehicle that provides energy for functions other than propulsion.

They are commonly found on large aircraft and naval ships as well as some large land vehicles.

Aircraft APUs generally produce 115 V alternating current (AC) at 400 Hz (rather than 50/60 Hz in mains supply), to run the electrical systems of the aircraft; others can produce 28 V direct current (DC).

APUs can provide power through single- or three-phase systems.

Distance education or distance learning is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school.

Traditionally this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via post.

Today it involves online education.

Courses that are conducted (51 percent or more) are either hybrid, blended or 100% whole instruction.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs), offering large-scale interactive participation and open access through the World Wide Web or other network technologies, are recent developments in distance education.

A number of other terms (distributed learning, e-learning, online learning, etc) are used roughly synonymously with distance education.

Educational accreditation is a type of quality assurance process under which services and operations of educational institutions or programs are evaluated by an external body to determine if applicable standards are met.

If standards are met, accredited status is granted by the appropriate agency.

An academic degree is a qualification awarded on successful completion of a course of study in higher education, normally at a college or university.

These institutions commonly offer degrees at various levels, typically including bachelor's, master’s and doctorates, often alongside other academic certificates, and professional degrees.

The most common undergraduate degree is the bachelor's degree, although in some countries lower qualifications are titled degrees (e.g. associate degrees in the US or foundation degrees in the UK) while in others a higher-level first degree is more usual.