What Accreditation Is and Is Not; Why It’s Time for Change

Posted on October 24, 2007 by David Gray

A college or university’s accreditation status is on almost every parent’s and student’s check list. That’s a good thing. And yet, it is a widely misunderstood and often overly trusted metric. If you want to immerse yourself in the nuance of accreditation from an independent source, here’s a Wikipedia overview of the current system. But here’s my position on the matter.

Accreditation is an often misunderstood and overly trusted metric for several reasons: the accreditation agency for a college or university on the west coast is a different agency, separate and apart, from an accreditation agency on the east coast. There are, in fact, six separate and distinct independent non-profit regional accreditors in the United States. While they all share a common objective – making sure a college or university in their region is delivering a quality education – and a common peer-review framework, each goes about its work independently. The U.S. is atypical in taking this rather fractured approach to the accreditation of colleges and universities. Perhaps the most troubling outcome of this regional system is that the various accreditors don’t adhere to a common, or necessarily very rich, set of data gathering and sharing policies. As explicitly acknowledged by the U.S. Department of Education on its web page explaining accreditation in the United States, “institutions of higher education are permitted to operate with considerable independence and autonomy.” Operational autonomy is a good thing up to a certain point. But, the autonomy principle should not outweigh the public’s reasonable ability to compare institutional quality according to some common criteria.

Our regional accreditation framework means no one can reliably assume that two universities in separate regions with parallel but differently-administered accreditations are of equal status. And, it also means that depending on the data demanded by, or offered to, the accreditation agency on the part of colleges and universities, you may get a very good or not very good understanding of whether or not a given institution is right for you. I’m not the first to say this, and not everyone agrees with me, of course. But if you want an overview of the various important implications of the current system, with an emphasis on how it affects what you are able to know about a university of interest to you, see this March, 2007 item in The Review, which is the University of Delaware’s independent student newspaper. It’s not an exhaustive summary of all the issues and concerns, but is worth scanning. For a more timely review, this item from Inside Higher Ed, entitled, “New Legal Challenge for Accreditation,” summarizes the opposing viewpoints on the subject being played out in a California court room before a federal judge.

Currently, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) vets the accreditation agencies in accordance with some very broad overarching standards. But with an eye toward the U.S. Constitution and the age-old, often-complicated debate over states rights versus federal authority, the ED has been traditionally reluctant to impose common process and data gathering standards. While I agree in principle, I ask why is it not possible to have a single, consistent, independent national body which adheres to an agreed-upon set of fact-finding standards and educational criteria so that parents and students can compare apples to apples?

The regional accreditation systems took root at a time when geographic distances and regional cultural distinctions were of greater implication than they are today in our more mobile and more interconnected world. It’s my position that continued regionalism in the accreditation process overlooks the reality that for a student in California to attend a Massachusetts university presents comparatively trivial issues of distance and cultural adaptation today. But until a consistently applied accreditation system can be developed, students and parents remain at a disadvantage when evaluating and comparing institutions in different regions of America.

But as always, I’m interested in your position on this. Do you think the current system and its limitations are well-understood? Do you think a national independent body could advance the system and enrich the data gathered to a common standard? For that matter, does there come a time when we should consider a (gasp) more global approach to educational quality and accreditation?