Hello and welcome back to The Markup, Inside Higher Ed’s weekly roundup of all things higher ed policy. I’m your host, Jessica Blake, IHE’s federal policy reporter, who is still mentally stuck in “Stick Season” as I relive Wednesday night’s Noah Kahan concert at Nationals Park.
But let’s snap back to reality and address the more pressing matters of higher education policy.
Medical schools continue to be a focal point for the Trump administration as it cracks down on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in higher education. This week, the Department of Justice took aim at the University of California, San Diego, claiming that its medical admissions office discriminated on the basis of race over the course of three application cycles. At least 15 other med schools are currently under investigation.
In another DOJ trend, department officials announced their 13th lawsuit against a state for allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition—this time the target was Maryland. Some states the DOJ has sued, largely those led by a Republican governor and attorney general, sided with the federal government, agreeing to raise tuition costs for undocumented students. But others, largely Democratic states, have challenged the lawsuits. So far one state, Minnesota, has won in court.
This Week’s Big Story
Contours of the Trump administration’s new accreditation landscape started to take shape this week as the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity held its second meeting of the year Wednesday and Thursday.
It was the first time NACIQI has met since the Accreditation, Innovation and Modernization negotiated rule-making committee approved a regulatory package in May that could set entirely new standards for student outcomes and upend accreditors’ historic peer-review model.
The new regulations have yet to be finalized, but during the meeting NACIQI members debated whether they could and should begin to factor them into their evaluations of accreditors. The topic became a heated point of debate Wednesday, when the committee voted to deny renewed recognition for the National Accrediting Commission of Career Arts and Sciences—one of the nation’s largest cosmetology and massage therapy accreditors.
The majority of members found NACCAS out of compliance with a variety of standards—including but not limited to the new, higher bar for student outcomes. So the best solution was to terminate its status as a recognized agency. But one member, Jennifer Blum, questioned whether the committee had the authority to consider student outcomes and other variables before the new regulations were finalized. (Two other members joined Blum in opposing the denial for a 9-to-3 vote.)
Another key development at the NACIQI meeting came during Under Secretary Nicholas Kent’s opening remarks, when he announced that three programmatic accrediting agencies had withdrawn their petitions for renewed recognition. Kent portrayed the withdrawals as a sign that agencies were “unwilling or unable” to meet new standards, sparking pushback from at least one of the programmatic accreditors. Policy experts and the accreditors themselves say it’s more complicated than that.
Expect accreditation to continue to be a hot topic throughout the remainder of the year; the next NACIQI meeting is scheduled for September.
