7-20-07 Scathing Report Issued on Higher Education Accreditation System

Volume 20 For Publication Date: July 20, 2007 No. 16

Scathing Report Issued on Higher Education Accreditation System

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) just released a report concluding that the accreditation system for higher education in the United States essentially does not work, and there are many reasons for this condition. The report goes on to provide recommendations to help ensure that accreditation is something that works for higher education.

The History

In the late 19^th century, the accreditation system began as a voluntary process for educational institutions to follow in order to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack. Free market forces existed because colleges were not required to be accredited for any reason other than the college’s own internal purposes.

In 1952, the eligibility for federal student aid funds was linked to accreditation in the GI Bill. In the Higher Education Act of 1965, new student aid programs were created for non-veterans. These two actions meant that student aid was becoming more important in higher education institution finances, and the link between accreditation and student aid caused the accreditation system to become much more of a requirement than a voluntary system.

The Concerns

The ACTA report concludes that accreditation does not work for several reasons. For one thing, the focus tends to be on inputs rather than outputs as a measurement of educational quality. Accreditation focuses on ensuring that the institution is “. . . following what the accreditors think is the proper formula for a successful educational institution, not whether an institution is in fact successful at teaching students,” according to the ACTA. Student learning, instructional quality, and academic standards for student progress, knowledge, and competence, are not concretely measured as a part of the accreditation process.

Another reason that the accreditation process does not work is that it can undermine the individual autonomy and diversity of the various institutions. The Higher Education Act, in addition to the types of standards specified in the Act, allows accrediting agencies to adopt “additional standards not provided for.” There are many examples cited where accrediting agencies have adopted standards that go beyond those mandated by the act, which the ACTA asserts allows accreditors to push their agenda on the institutions. This has also allowed accreditors to develop one-size-fits-all standards that can interfere with the mission and role of an institution and its governance structure. Because the accreditation process has become what the ACTA refers to as “a federally-mandated monopoly,” where regional associations are the accrediting agencies and there is no competition among these associations for the institutions’ business, the accreditors have significant power to impose the standards that they develop.

Another reason that the accreditation system does not work is that virtually all institutions are accredited, and rarely is an institution’s accreditation suspended or terminated—and if so, it’s typically due to financial and not educational issues. Termination of an institution’s accreditation has debilitating consequences—students are ineligible for federal student aid and the institution will lose many—or even most—of its students. Therefore, accrediting agencies are reluctant to take such action. If there are serious concerns, a grace period is typically allowed in order for the institution to make improvements according to the standards.

The report also cites that the accreditation process unnecessarily increases the cost of education. The cost of the accreditors is relatively minor compared to the cost of making adjustments in order to meet some of the standards, as well as the opportunity cost of diverting significant college resources to the self-study and accreditation review process.

Lastly, the report cites concerns of conflicts of interest and secrecy within the process. The conflict of interest comes into play because the institutions are members of the accrediting association and pay dues to the association, so accreditors could be reluctant to impose sanctions on dues-paying members. Also, the accreditation team members are typically employees of other institutions—institutions that will also go through an accreditation process at some time in the future, for which the team may include personnel from the institution that they are currently assessing. The report expresses concerns about the secrecy of the process as well, as there is little public information provided on the evaluations of the various institutions, including no rankings of institutions and no evaluation of individual programs or departments.

The Recommendations

The report delves right into a very significant change in the process, recommending that the link between federal student aid and accreditation should be severed. While it had a purpose when the GI Bill was enacted—ensuring that federal funds were only provided to institutions that offered quality programs—the fact is that very few institutions lose their accreditation, and the ACTA concludes that the way the accreditation process works does not ensure that all accredited institutions provide sufficient quality programs.

The report asserts that removing the tie to federal student aid would eliminate the guaranteed market for the accreditation agencies and provide for competition among the agencies, especially if the California Department of Education (CDE) and state governments require institutions to solicit bids for accrediting services. According to the report, a free market in this area should not only reduce the cost of the accreditation process but should also cause accrediting agencies to “. . . start acting in a manner more akin to business consultants than monopolies.”

The report also recommends that financial responsibility of institutions should not be a part of the accreditation process, since the CDE already oversees that duty function. If there are instances where an institution has not appropriately handled federal funds, then those individual cases should be investigated and sanctions should be applied.

Accrediting agencies should also focus on educational results rather than inputs, and the report goes on to suggest that the standards to ensure excellence should differ among the institutions—another reason why it would be more appropriate for an accrediting agency to use the “business consultant” approach. The agency can lend its expertise to develop the best means of assessment for each institution that it reviews. Further, the results of these studies should be made public.

The report also suggests that there be an “Expedited Reaccreditation” process made available, whereby in order to renew, the institution already accredited needs only to certify key information in lieu of a full accreditation review. This should be offered as an alternative to the full process but should not apply to an institution that has been sanctioned or one that has gone through significant changes in structure or purpose.

The ACTA’s report is entitled, Why Accreditation Doesn’t Work and What Policymakers Can Do About It, and can be found in its entirety at http://www.goacta.org/publications/reports.html.

—Sheila G. Vickers