For prospective college students, an institution’s or program’s accreditation status can be a strong indicator when it comes to educational quality, graduates’ professional success and access to financial aid.
What Is College Accreditation?
Higher education accreditation agencies are private organizations that peer review the quality of institutions and programs across the country. These agencies work alongside state and federal governments to form a three-part regulatory system:
— The U.S. Department of Education regulates how schools receive and use federal aid funds and ensures equal access to education.
— Individual states authorize a school’s operations within the state and ensure compliance with consumer protection laws.
— Accrediting agencies ensure that higher education programs and institutions meet certain quality standards.
Experts note that an accreditation’s value often varies by agency.
The Education Department releases an annual list of recognized accreditors — both institutional and programmatic — it considers to be reliable. Accreditation from such agencies gives those programs and institutions access to federal financial aid and helps coordinate the transfer of credits between institutions.
The Council for Higher Education Accreditation, a group of degree-granting universities and colleges, is the only national nongovernmental organization that recognizes both institutional and programmatic accrediting organizations for higher education, focusing on academic integrity and student outcomes.
“If an institution is receiving federal funds, absolutely the accrediting organization needs to be recognized by the federal government. But also by CHEA, because our foci are different,” CHEA president Cynthia Jackson Hammond says. “We want to make sure that when a student graduates from an institution in a particular field, he or she is able to succeed.”
How Does the Accreditation Process Work?
While standards and methods vary by accreditation agency, many share the same general process. That process begins with an institution or program applying for accreditation, which can take from one to three years.
Once an organization becomes a candidate for accreditation, it submits a self-study that analyzes the state of the organization from administrative, faculty and student perspectives.
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Heather Perfetti, president of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, an accreditor based in Pennsylvania, worked with such agencies from an institutional perspective before joining the commission. She says the self-study process is a great opportunity for growth and internal reflection.
“I always found it exciting, and an opportunity to take a real pause for a reflection that made the entire college, and experience for students, improve as a result of those activities,” Perfetti says.
Much of the accreditation process is conducted by committees of peer reviewers acting on behalf of an agency. These teams review self-study documents, visit the campus and interact with students and faculty during the institution’s or program’s candidacy.
“The beauty of the American system is that it’s a peer evaluation system. My staff and I — all we do is facilitate these efforts,” says Sonny Ramaswamy, president of the Northwestern Commission on Colleges and Universities, an accreditation agency based in Washington state.
The evaluation process usually occurs over several years. Agencies look at things like degree program design and delivery, student support systems, job placement post-graduation, how the administrative bodies are structured and overall planning and growth. They also often require a clear statement of and adherence to a core mission or set of goals.
After the committee members have finished their evaluation, they recommend an action to the agency’s board, which decides whether or not to accredit.
Once accreditation is granted, most agencies begin a cycle of reviewing the institution or program, usually over a period of seven to 10 years. Experts say this generally consists of annual reports, with more involved analyses at the start and halfway point of the cycle.
An institution or program found noncompliant with accreditation standards may face a warning, probation or a “show cause,” which requires it to demonstrate why it should maintain accreditation. This often comes with additional surveillance from the agency, and failure to resolve an issue may result in a loss of accreditation.
Institutional vs. Programmatic Accreditation
Institutional Accreditation
Institutional accreditation agencies focus on entire schools, typically judging the holistic quality of education across a college’s or university’s schools and programs against a set of standards designated by the agency.
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Lawrence Schall, president of the New England Commission on Higher Education, says NECHE fulfills two main roles as an accreditor.
“We have a sort of dual purpose,” he says. “We can think of areas for quality improvement, working alongside institutions to help them through an in-depth study using peers to look at what they do well and where they can improve. We also have a consumer protection piece: to make sure that when we accredit institutions, the public and families can be assured of the quality of that institution.”
Exact standards vary among agencies but often include financial health, academic performance, job attainment rate of graduates and the institution’s adherence to its own stated mission and objectives. A common reason colleges lose accreditation and fail to regain it is that they do not show enough evidence of future long-term financial viability.
Programmatic Accreditation
Programmatic agencies often focus on entities within an institution, such as a particular college within a university, a certain degree program or a specific course curriculum. Many online programs also require proper accreditation.
[Understand Accreditation of Online College Degree Programs: What to Know]
Donald Balasa, president of the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs, says programmatic accreditation has value even at an institutionally accredited school.
“The role of institutional accreditors is not to look at specific programs in the school to the depth, breadth and rigor of a programmatic or specialized accreditor,” Balasa says.
In certain states, some professions — like nursing or cosmetology — require completion of a properly accredited program to practice.
What Does Accreditation Mean to a College’s Applicants?
For students seeking to use federal financial aid, which includes Pell Grants, federal student loans and work-study benefits, it’s crucial to verify that an institution or program is accredited by an agency recognized by the Education Department. And experts warn it can be difficult to transfer academic credits from an institution lacking accreditation.
Even if an institution is accredited by the Education Department or a CHEA-recognized agency, it’s important for prospective students to be aware of any specific program accreditation that might be necessary, Balasa says.
“Sometimes the student will find out too late that the program did not meet the requirements for state licensing in the profession and therefore either will have to attend another program, or work in another state,” he says.
Experts caution students to also check if an institution or program has been placed on probation or has received warnings from its accreditor. Colleges that lose their accreditation and can’t gain it from another agency often have to close.
“There are opportunities for an institution to return to compliance and not necessarily face that issue again as part of their accreditation activities,” Perfetti says. “But certainly students should be paying attention to the accreditation status of the institution they are interested in attending.”
That institutional or programmatic information is usually available on the accreditation agency’s website.
Experts also recommend reviewing the standards and methods an accrediting agency uses when conducting accreditation in order to best understand what a school’s or program’s accreditation stands for.
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Why College Accreditation Matters originally appeared on usnews.com
