The Agenda Behind Accreditation ‘Reform’

Every seven years, I am one of the producers of an accreditation show at my institution. And what a show it is! It starts with the presentation of a lengthy written report that features glossy photos of diverse students smiling at each other like maniacs as they walk between classes, interspersed with campus factoids (“Old Main was built in 1874 using stones mined from a local quarry!”) and long, detailed descriptions of the teaching, research and service activities completed over the last seven years. It concludes with a multiday site visit from a team of seven to 10 faculty and administrators who endure hours and hours of mundane question-and-answer sessions (“describe a time when you worked with a student who was struggling to succeed, what you did about it and what was the outcome”) and face the prospect of writing a 50-page essay while receiving nothing in return other than two boxed lunches and dinner at one of our community’s finest restaurants (often the Olive Garden).

While I poke fun at some of the silly and performative aspects of college accreditation, I strongly support its two primary goals: to ensure students are receiving a good education and to promote institutional improvement. And having been on both sides of accreditation visits, I was interested to see President Trump sign an executive order last month called “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education.” The primary concerns expressed in the executive order are:

• The six-year undergraduate graduation rate (64 percent in 2020) is too low,
• The financial payoff from some degree programs is too low relative to the program cost (a “negative return on investment”),
• Too many graduates do not find success in the labor market and
• Accreditors require colleges to adopt “discriminatory practices” related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

At face value, these concerns seem to have merit. Who doesn’t want 100 percent of students to graduate in four years and have high-paying employment waiting for them? Who doesn’t want students to be treated fairly, no matter their demographic characteristics? But upon closer inspection, these concerns are exaggerated and distorted for the purpose of giving the Trump administration more political control over higher education institutions.

Let’s start with the six-year graduation rate. There are two easy ways to increase graduation rates: 1) admit only the top students (Harvard, for example, graduates 86 percent of students in four years, and 97 percent in six years) or 2) have short programs and easy courses. Hopefully you see the problems here. Admitting only the top 5 to 10 percent of students leaves out every other student who would benefit from higher education. And in America, the land of opportunity, shouldn’t there be a way for those who are not in the top 10 percent but still want higher education to at least try, even if that means some of them do not make it through?

Yes, institutions must do all they can to support students’ success, and most institutions can do more. But colleges must also be generous in their admissions processes, recognizing that great students are made, not born, and every student has a different pathway to success. The other option—shortening programs and removing rigor from courses—while a short-term solution for student success, undermines the importance of the educational experience itself.

Concerns around degree cost and labor market success are similarly problematic. Yes, the costs of a college degree have increased, but a big part of that is due to the reduction in public spending on higher education and the continuing high costs needed to pay for salaries and benefits (especially health insurance) for highly educated employees. On the labor market side of the equation, recent graduates’ employment successes have much more to do with the conditions of the labor market at the time of graduation than the quality of the graduates’ preparation.

For instance, students who graduated before the Great Recession in 2007 had much better job placement success and higher salaries than their peers who graduated just one year later (notably, those with college degrees still had much better employment rates during the Great Recession than those with only a high school diploma). In addition, many disciplines that serve critical public needs, such as social work and teacher education, lead to careers that are chronically underpaid. Should accreditors punish colleges for investing in teacher-preparation programs because teachers are underpaid? No, because our communities need great teachers! If we want to increase the financial benefit from a degree in teacher education, the solution is simple: Increase teachers’ salaries.

As for concerns about accreditors “compelling adoption of discriminatory ideology,” much has been written elsewhere about DEI and its value to colleges, students and communities. Rather than attempting to replicate that work, I would like to step back and look at the issue from a broader perspective. Public higher education institutions are intended to serve the people of the communities where they are located. National data shows large disparities in degree completion between racial and ethnic groups, by gender, and by family income. If we want higher education to work for everyone, accreditors must have the ability to hold institutions accountable when institutions do not effectively serve everyone.

These exaggerated and distorted concerns are being used to push an agenda for higher education accreditation that:

• Values degree programs that prepare students to enter high-paying fields, rather than degree programs that prepare students to serve their communities and be well-rounded, critically thinking, engaged citizens,
• Promotes rapid and efficient degree completion, rather than transformative learning experiences, and
• Prohibits the consideration of race, ethnicity or sex in student outcomes data, rather than empowering institutions to address historic, societal, cultural and institutional factors that caused and perpetuate inequalities in college access and degree attainment.

Having participated in numerous accreditation cycles, I do agree with the Trump administration that there are opportunities to reform and improve accreditation—it could be more efficient, less expensive, less prescriptive, more transparent and more focused on student learning. But I disagree vehemently with the Trump administration’s efforts to turn accreditation into a bludgeon to enforce its political agenda.

If the Trump administration continues in this direction with its plans for college accreditation (which seems likely right now, given how little resistance the Republican-led Congress has shown to Trump’s plans), institutions that care about providing students with transformative learning experiences, offering public service–oriented degree programs and serving the full population of students in their communities will need to find or build new consortia and collaborations that can help them achieve those goals.

There are numerous opportunities institutions might consider. The American Association of Colleges and Universities offers several initiatives, such as the TLA Framework and the VALUE Scoring Collaborative, and numerous events and conferences to share best practices and improve institutional performance. Institutions might contemplate joining institutional benchmarking organizations that collect and share data on performance and provide opportunities for institutional improvement, such as the National Community College Benchmark Project or the University Benchmark Project.

Colleges may decide to create or grow regional institutional networks or work with members of their athletic conference to develop collaborations for institutional success. Institutions might also consider joining state, regional or national networks that focus on organizational improvement across a range of types of organizations, such as the Baldrige Performance Excellence program.

As someone who cares deeply about the work of ensuring and improving student learning, I am dismayed to see accreditation being weaponized for political ends. But I am lifted when I acknowledge that accreditation is not the only way for organizations to engage in this important work. And I try, on my best days, to see this not as a disaster, but as an opportunity to chart a new path forward for serving students and transforming lives.