Higher ed groups call for stricter oversight of accreditors
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
February 7, 2022
Dive Brief:
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Sixteen experts and advocacy organizations in higher education are calling for stricter U.S. Department of Education oversight of accreditors, particularly in how they handle colleges with poor student outcomes.
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The groups and individuals wrote to the Education Department late last month recommending ways to make the evaluation process for accreditors more transparent and asking agency officials to more closely scrutinize several major accreditors up for review in February 2023.
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Among their suggestions were that the Education Department should make certain documents public early in the process of accreditors seeking department approval, that it should spend more time reviewing accreditors that control access to federal financial aid funds than to those that do not, and that it should develop new regulations to make sure accreditors consider how institutions are serving disadvantaged students.
Dive Insight:
Critics have long argued the accreditation system is broken. Accreditation attempts to ensure the health of colleges’ academic offerings and financial operations, and it greenlights institutions to access Title IV federal financial aid.
But some say accreditors have little incentive to punish institutions in their purview, as colleges pay the accrediting agencies for membership. Kicking them out could therefore dry up revenue.
