Accreditation and the Winners (or Losers?) of Tighter Policies

The recent article on InsideHigherEd.com, Raising the Bar on Quality Assurance, really struck a chord with me. Now let me say up front, I’m not sure if it was a positive or negative chord but it got me to thinking and debating with myself at any rate. The article talks about the Western Association of Colleges and Schools (WASC) accrediting body considering how to find a way to make their institutions more accountable for student outcomes. One of the major components they’ve considered is requiring five graduation proficiencies including written and oral communication, critical thinking, quantitative skills and information literacy. Other components include an “offsite review process,” comparing your institution to others for graduation proficiencies and making the accreditation process more translucent. For now, the only component that is being mandated is that colleges define a “stated level of proficiency” for each of the five graduation proficiencies.

There are pros and cons to the WASC, or any accrediting body for that matter, increasing accountability and structure. Just from the article and what I thought immediately:

Pros:
• Students almost guaranteed to graduate with core proficiencies
• Colleges are held more accountable for the education they’re providing
• More competition could mean more consistency across accrediting bodies
• Focus on retention and graduation
• May make public more aware of regionally accredited institutions and the implications of attending a non-accredited institution

Cons:
• How do you prove proficiencies without implementing standardized testing?
• Could lead to all institutions looking the same and therefore losing individuality
• More accreditation policy means heavier government involvement and more work to be done by everyone involved. How is this maintainable?
• Heavier focus on retention and graduation rates may not always be focused on student development and learning.
• More policy will only require institutions to “do what they have to do” to comply
• Comparison of institutions could lead to more pressure on ranking systems (example US News & World Report)
• Could lead to competition across accrediting bodies that lead to inequality in institutions

The issue of regional accreditation policies and what that means for students is something that affects my job every day. While the space of this blog doesn’t allow me to go into how I feel about every one of the pros and cons listed above, I’d like to share one of my biggest concerns and know what others think about this topic.

One of the worst parts of my job is having to tell a student that they went to an unaccredited institution that UNC will not accept credit from. To be fair, I wonder how many high school/college-aged students know what an institution being regionally accredited (or not) even means. I didn’t know anything about accreditation until I started working at UNC, and I count my lucky stars I went to a regionally accredited institution without knowing better.
A pro to further discussion of the WASC to have stronger requirements is that perhaps this would bring the topic into common conversations and news and bring a larger awareness of regional accreditation and what that means for students attending non-accredited institutions. Honestly, however, this is probably a pipe dream; it will only become a common place conversation if media outlets and the government decided to bring it to the fore-front of policy decisions.

The con to this is who suffers when there are harsher restrictions on regional accreditation? I would venture to say that it is first-generation students and those who do not know which questions to ask who are getting recruited to non-accredited institutions (a topic that could be an entire different blog topic in itself). If I’m a first-generation student and maybe a minority and do go to a regionally accredited institution without knowing better, will I have the support to not only make it through my education but then pass a proficiency exam after working hard through school?

I think there is a lot to be considered when looking at tightening regional accreditation. I definitely don’t think it’s all bad but I think the focus needs to remain on the student and consideration should be had about who is really being affected.