U.S. Panel Wants Higher Ed Accreditors to ‘Step Up’
Katherine Knott
August 7, 2023
Report says current rules set inconsistent and sometimes inadequate expectations regarding student achievement, but it stops short of suggesting “bright-line” standards for agencies.
After years of discussions over whether college accreditors should have bright-line metrics to gauge college performance, a federal advisory committee declined to pick a side in a new report that makes several recommendations on how to clean up or improve accreditation rules.
The members of the subcommittee of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) who wrote the report said the rules are a “mess,” allow accreditors to set flexible standards or none at all, and lead to inconsistent expectations in terms of student achievement.
“Not only does this latitude risk accountability, it creates an unhealthy and dangerous variety and inconsistency of expectations regarding student achievement across institutions,” the report says.
