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Educational (e)quality on the Line

• The AAUP • Season 5 • Episode 6

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This episode of our special series “Academic Freedom on the Line” takes a look at accreditation, a seemingly complex but essential mechanism for safeguarding both the quality of education our institutions offer as well as the institutional and disciplinary autonomy that allows them to create and enforce standards of rigor without direct interference from the federal government. Robert Shireman of the Century Foundation joins us to demystify the role of accreditation agencies and help us understand why changes to accreditation threaten academic freedom in the United States. 


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(E)Quality of Education on the Line

​Bob: Nothing would be worse than having the government decide what is or is not intellectual diversity. I don't think they have the authority to require that, from what I can tell. but, uh, obviously having the authority is, uh, hasn't been stopping the administration from requiring or asking or demanding, uh, lots of things.

 I was thinking about it from the standpoint of, um, the, 2020 election and who won it, you know, are they gonna start investigating whether colleges, are telling students that Biden won the election? Uh, again, require some kind of alternative facts. be part of the curriculum. It is scary to think about the government being involved in that.

Vineeta - Intro: Welcome to another episode of Academic Freedom on the Line. A special series of AAUP presents created in collaboration with the AAUP Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom. Today we are joined by Bob Scherman. A senior fellow at the Century Foundation working on higher education policy with a focus on affordability, quality assurance, and consumer protections.

Bob advises the US Department of Education on accreditation issues through his appointment to the National Advisory Committee on institutional quality and integrity, and serves as a California governor appointee to the Western Interstate Commission on higher education. 

The first half of this podcast is essentially an explainer on what accreditation is and how it works around the 17 minute mark, we transition to talking about how the Trump regime is weaponizing accreditation . 

Welcome to the Podcast, Bob. Perhaps you can get us started by telling us a little bit more about the Century Foundation and the work that y'all do there.

Bob: Uh, yes. Uh, the Century Foundation is a nonprofit policy organization, a progressive think tank. Uh, we work on a number of policy areas, education, healthcare, labor, um, and others. And, uh, we've been around for more than a hundred years. Uh, we have, uh, do a fair amount of work at the federal level and then some state level work.

Our higher education team has done a lot of work focused on a problem of, uh, predatory for-profit colleges, online program managing companies, their impacts on education, quality and, and cost. Um, and, more recently have been getting more involved in some of the issues around college autonomy and academic freedom.

Vineeta: Okay, so I also understand that you're an expert in accreditation in particular. And as an academic worker, I know that accreditation is absolutely central to the American higher education system. But if I'm totally honest with you, I don't really think I understand it.

Hm. So do you have like a version of Intro to Accreditation that could help people like me get a baseline understanding of what we're talking about when we talk about accreditation?

Bob: so I think it's useful to think of a accreditation as, uh, as a standard setting organization. And when you think about a standard setting organization, um, think about it like. You see those signs on buildings that say leads certified, meaning it was an energy efficient, uh, it's an energy efficient, uh, environmentally friendly building when it was, uh, when it was built.

And some experts looked at everything about the building and said, yes, this qualifies. Or the, the thing you, you see these, the letters UL on a light bulb, underwriters laboratories, and these are experts who say, yeah, this is a safe light bulb, but you can screw this in and probably not kill yourself. Um, so those are standard setting organizations and the government uses those standard setting organization when it's aiming for, uh, certain goals.

And it'll say, you know, a, a local or state government might say, we want LEED certified buildings. Uh, many, um, uh, safety, uh, uh, e efforts use UL listing. There's many other things like this. And accreditation, well, just like UL and leads is a private, voluntary. Thing, the government latches onto it and says, we need experts to help us figure out what a quality higher education is.

Or at least one that is adequate quality for the federal government to be letting students take their federal aid to go there. Or providing grants to, from NIH or NSF or other agencies. Um, so we need somebody to tell us what's a valid cause a college, because anybody can say they're a college. Um, and so that's what accredit that for, for government purposes.

That is what the role that accreditation serves. 

Thank you, that was incredibly clear. Um, could you also help us understand how accreditation emerged historically?

Yes. Well, in the, uh, early 19 hundreds, uh. We had, uh, first enormous growth in high schools.

There was this big push for everybody to go to high school, and you also had growth in colleges. But there was actually a little clarity at the time of about which was which, like people would get educated until age 12, 13, 14, and they would go somewhere and it might be called a college, it might be called a high school.

And really some of the earliest, um. Uh, accrediting agencies were, people who run colleges getting together and say, okay, let's decide, what a college is. Um, let's do peer review to say, okay, This is at the level of a college. Um, that helped them just to distinguish them from the,K 12 schools, uh, and also to help them decide, among transfer.

So when students were, uh, going, deciding to change from one college to another, transferring from one to the other, the first year, the second year, uh, was essentially the same kind of, um, same level of education. These accrediting groups of colleges emerged. Regionally, which makes sense at the time with where people mostly operated on a regional basis.

If you were gonna transfer, you weren't gonna be going, you know, It was likely to be within state or within, uh, a few state regions. So that's why the accrediting agencies that most of our traditional colleges, um, have been part of, um, have been regionally based. 

Vineeta: Okay. Thank you so. With all of that in mind, can you help us understand what the process of accreditation looks like today? You know, what is the landscape of accreditation agencies look like and how do they actually work? 

Bob: So think of, um, uh, think of Chev, um, and people in other states won't know what Chev is, but it's the state agency that oversees higher education. That structure is different in every state think, I think it's best to think of that as kind of like the state business license for a college.

 Um, obviously if it's a public institution, it's related to actual public control and public governance of the institution. If it's a private institution, it's more like a business license, that has some consumer protections associated with it.

Um, but it's pretty, it's pretty basic. Um, as opposed to sacs, uh, the accrediting agency, that has a much more detailed and rigorous. Um, a review that really involves a lot of different parts. Um, and the way that usually works is that an institution, um, sometimes it's every 10 years, sometimes it's, less than every 10 years.

But an institution will, uh, usually start by going through a self-study process. And the self-study process. You pro, if you're a faculty member, you've probably heard this. We're doing our self, we're starting our self study, you know, because in two years we're, you know, we have to submit all of our materials.

To our accrediting agency. And, um, the self-study basically tries to cover all of the different topics that are listed in the standards of the accrediting agency. And that's going to be how do we make sure that our faculty are, are well qualified? How do we assure that students are learning? How do we, what is, what is our curriculum?

What are our procedures for changing the curriculum? Um, some accreditors have standards that are about how are we involving faculty and staff in our decision making process when we're making big changes at our college or university. Um, How do we take and handle complaints when students have concerns that are that, that are raised with us?

 so there is a, a long list of various standards and, um, the self-study process is basically the universities. own statement. Often many hundreds of pages with many attachments adding up to thousands of pages, um, that are about here's how we operate. And, um, here's how the public, if they were gonna look at all of this detail, would know that we're doing everything we can to do a great job for students.

 after the self-study. Um, there is usually, and each accrediting agency has different kinds of approaches. There'll be some kind of a staff review of data that's been provided, et cetera. Um, and then there is a visiting team that is assigned, and these are folks usually from other colleges around the country, sometimes some public members who might be a business person, um, or, or a, retired person who's just interested in, in college, higher education quality.

And, um, this visiting team comes to the college. And, um, visits different departments, uh, visits. The, the folks who are, the administrators and key faculty, um, usually they, they establish some kind of an input, um, process so that if, um, if they're a good accreditor, they're asking for, uh, anonymous feedback or confidential feedback if anybody has something they want to raise with the accreditor.

Um, and then the visiting team, you know, looks at all of that information, including what they've heard from, uh, people on the ground. Um, and, puts together a visiting team report that says, you know, here are areas where the university seems to be doing a great job. They've really followed up on the past, uh, feedback that we've had.

Um, here are some concerns we heard and I. then that report the report then goes to, um, kind of the board that decides, um, you know, are we giving this college, uh, another 10 years be, you know, before their full review or, uh, are we putting them on some kind of sanction?

It might be a, a warning, a, you know, you need to fix your complaint handling process. you need to address. Um, some of these concerns that have been raised, uh, you know, within the next year or something like that, um, more severe would be something called a show cause, and that's basically a, you need to tell us why we should not take away your accreditation.

Um, and obviously those are the kinds of things that, um, our feared

Vineeta: . Could you give us like examples of the kinds of problems that an accreditation agency would identify and, uh, encourage a university to fix, 

Bob: well, some of the kinds of things that, uh, an accrediting agency, um, would find are around, um, kind of care and attention to, to students and making sure that, um, students are getting through the process, getting adequate information.

Um, kind of the, the teaching and learning side of things. Um, also financial reviews, making sure that, um, especially if, if a, um, university is in a. Tight financial spot that the decisions they're making, um, are, uh, to the benefit of students and, uh, not, you know, unfairly taking advantage of them. Um, frequently, the actual findings, the ultimate findings uh, are financial, uh, because they're more easily kind of proven, but they're often related to, uh, educational quality issues that are going on at a college.

And the agency, um, kind of finally brings down, brings down the hammer and says, you, You, you can't actually afford to have all of these different program lines in your, with your current budget. You've gotta make some tough decisions.

 Uh, sometimes it's around, around hiring and quality of faculty, uh, um, uh, making sure that, um, there's not the, the kind of turnover that can be a, a warning sign that, um, it's not a good place to work 

 and, um, uh, that helps to make sure for students that that they can have some confidence that they'll get a good education. 

Vineeta: So it's sort of also maybe an equity, uh, assurance.

So students know that students at comparable institutions are getting comparable educations.

It's a, it's peer review that, you know, that, that they're where folks from other institutions are coming in and saying, okay, I see that the content that these students are getting in their, uh, in their economics class or whatever else is, is the kind of content that is appropriate for, um, for the, um, level and selectivity of the institution that, that, uh, that another inti another similar, uh, institution or another institution that is thought of as similar, um, could expect that, that a student transferring from there or going to grad school would have, uh, the content background and, uh, that, that, uh, that would be appropriate.Okay, so it sounds like these are pretty powerful agencies. 

What tools do we have to make sure that they're actually enforcing quality for for students and other academic workers and not just, you know, um, pushing forward a particular, say political ideology.

Bob: They, they typically are, are, um, run by a board of people who are, mostly college and university, um, administrators or faculty, more often administrators, uh, with some public members.

 the federal government's use of accreditation as the, um, as the way of determining whether a college is, is, good enough for fed, for federal aid has been really important in preventing, uh, federal control of education, of higher education in particular, um, which obviously is a big issue right now where, where we have a president of the United States that, uh, that seems to want to control not just colleges and universities, but law firms and, um, and the media, uh, you know, just, uh, very much an authoritarian playbook.

And, um, the accreditation makes it harder for, uh. the president of the United States to just come in and say, and turn off the spigot of federal funds. Now, obviously that threat has, is happening almost daily for, for some of the, most, you know, name brand colleges in the country. Um, but it doesn't happen, um, instantaneous, instantaneously, and, um, it has been slowed down by the fact that, 

Um, they, they can't just go in and say, we, we don't like these classes. You're taking, they're, they're trying to say, you know, anything about DEI, diversity, anything like that, which obviously needs to be a part of our educational system. Uh, they want to go in and say, you know, and eliminate all of that.

Um, and, there are a lot of steps that they'd have to go to, to, to really make that. Uh, happen. Um, of course fear can make it happen, um, even if they don't have legal authority. And we're, and we're seeing, a lot of that. But, um, accreditation has helped to protect institutions from, that kind of direct control 

Vineeta: Okay. Wow. I think like a lot of other academic workers, I've heard accreditation agencies, uh, mentioned by leaders in a way that assumes an antagonistic relationship between the institution and the agency, but. 

Actually, we're all on the same team. Uh, the goal is to ensure a specific quality of education, but it's also conferring protections on the institution from the arbitrary exercise of federal power.

Bob: I think it's sometimes hard for people to, to realize, because I, I would say that a lot of colleges and universities just find accreditation annoying. You know, it's like, oh my gosh, look at all the work we have to do. Um, but it, but for it to be meaningful, it has to be fairly robust.

And the reality is that some of the accredited agencies that, that accredit, um, less reputable institutions, um, they do far less, you know, they do these check boxes where it's It's, it's a, not a, um, not a robust process at all. Um, and, um, uh, that, that's hazardous when it comes to, um, actual student learning and quality, quality education.

Vineeta: . That makes so much sense. Okay, so we did start talking a little bit about the recent executive order, but I guess before we really dive into that, I did wanna ask you about, um, Florida. So I know that in 2019 then Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued new rules which made it possible for states to, uh, essentially allow colleges and universities to select their own accrediting agencies.

So can you tell us a little bit about that change and then we can start talking about, you know, the future of accreditation.

Bob: So, um, it's always been true that colleges could change accreditors, um, it, it, it wasn't something that a traditional college, um, would choose to do. And that was because as I mentioned in the early history, these regional accrediting bodies developed where you had southern colleges in one Midwestern colleges, in another western colleges in another agency, and.

Those agencies were restricted to those particular states until 2019. So if you were a college in Florida or a college in California, um, there were some national accreditors that you could choose instead, but, um, from a, um, prestige standpoint, um, those national accreditors were mostly accrediting some for-profit colleges, and it, it wouldn't look good.

And so no one would sort of volunteer to do that. Um, and so as a practical matter, um, you basically were, you know, stuck uh, with your regional accreditor, uh, which means you need to take seriously, um, any issues that were raised by that accreditor. Um, and the, the Trump administration changed that 2019 went into effect in 2020 that basically removed those regional lines, um, letting those regional accreditors, 

 uh, allowing them to offer their accreditation to anyone, to any college, uh, nationwide. Um, what happened in the Florida situation? 

Um, well, basically, uh, Ron DeSantis and, and some of his friends found sacks, their accreditor found them annoying. um, they investigated when there were allegations that, uh, there was political meddling, um, in some hiring practices and in, um, whether some faculty members could testify.

Uh. Uh, on some voting rights issues in Florida. Very important issue, and the accreditor should absolutely investigate. Sacks investigated and found that there was not not any political meddling that raised any accreditation issues, but Governor DeSantis and his, um, allies didn't like that that the investigation even happened.

They did not like that the accreditor did its job. And so they took the extreme, step of requiring all Florida colleges, all public Florida colleges to, uh, leave sacs I mean, it was, it. I just think it's insane expensive. Um, and 

 the one, I think funny thing about all this is of the regional accreditors SACS was the only one that had no DEI policy.

So these colleges are all going to someplace else that probably does, or at least did that May. Those may, they may disappear, but yes, it was, um, it was costly and un unnecessary and really based on, um, you know, based on nothing ultimately. 

Vineeta: So is the executive order essentially expanding what we saw in Florida to a national scale?

Bob: The executive order is very much like, an expansion of, of the, um, of the Florida situation.

Not in the sense of forcing anyone to, uh, leave an accreditor, but the main focus or a primary focus of the executive order is, um, to speed up the process of. Um, approving new accrediting agencies and allowing schools to change accreditors on a whim. Um, the potential huge problem with that is that, um, accreditors often bring up legitimate problems at colleges.

We don't wanna have a situation where. Just as an accreditor is identifying problems at a college. The college then jumps to a different accreditor with lower standards.

That is a race to the bottom where colleges will actually have no accountability for quality if they can just jump to a, to another accreditor on a whim. And so the, the danger of, implementation of the executive order, um, is that it will, you know, we'll, we'll see. And a repeat of some problems in the past where, um, accrediting agencies that aren't doing their jobs are the ones that are growing quickly.

Um, because the colleges that are also not doing their job in, in teaching students and offering fair value, um, are jumping to those accrediting agencies, 

you may well have some accreditors that have a, uh, better, a strong reputation and 

There may be some colleges that, that want that, and there, there are some benefits to that. Um, uh, but we really have to be cautious of The downside and preventing that. 

 

Vineeta: The accreditation agencies, how are they funded? What is the economics of all of this? 

Bob: Um, the accrediting agencies, um, uh, are generally funded by fees from their member schools. Um, and when a school is going through accreditation, when it's going through the process, it's, I.

Paying some higher fees for that. Um,fair amount of money that goes into it. And, the cheaper accreditors are not as robust in their review. Um, and, uh, uh, we've definitely seen situations where folks rush to the, to the discount accreditor.

Vineeta: Okay. So then it sounds like there would be an incentive for accreditation agencies to recruit as many institutions as possible to join their group. Right. And then also from the perspective of a less than entirely scrupulous administrator, uh, they could also present this as a cost saving measure, right?

 

Bob: It's, you know, not that different from some of the problems we saw with, uh, credit rating agencies that contributed to the, uh, crash in credit markets 15 years ago.

 Uh, and led to our recession. Um, credit rating agencies, on the one hand wanted to do a good job of judging. Credit instruments, but on the other hand, they wanted customers who were asking them to judge their credit instruments. Um, as a result, they didn't do a very good job of, of really looking into, uh, that the products that were being offered.

Um, I did wanna mention, um, one other piece of the executive order So it calls for accreditors to make sure that colleges are, um, offering, intellectual diversity and, um, I'm saying that in quotes because, uh, nothing would be worse than having the government decide what is or is not intellectual diversity.

You can absolutely imagine, especially an administration that is so very close to the kind of right-wing Christian nationalists, um, requiring that institutions, you know, include creationism along with evolution or, you know, alternative, uh, theories for, um, the, the, the age of the universe or the age of the earth and things like that, that, um, are not scientific and do not belong in the science classroom.

Um, they indicate that they'll, they will want accreditors to do that. Uh, I don't think they have the authority to require that, um, from what I can tell. Um, but, uh, obviously having the authority hasn't been stopping the administration from requiring or asking or demanding, uh, lots of things.

Um, I was thinking about it from the standpoint of, um, the, 2020 election and who won it, you know, are they gonna start investigating whether colleges, uh, are telling students that Biden won the election? Again, require some kind of alternative facts, be be part of the curriculum. It is scary to think about the government being involved in that.

Um, and it's inconsistent with their claim of wanting a market of accreditors like they wanna market where, where colleges can choose, but then they're gonna make the accredit. Every accreditor do something like that. Um, I'd say that's one of the most worrisome part worrisome parts of the executive order.

Vineeta: it really militates against expertise. Yes. Or like the abil, uh, an institution's ability or even, a faculty member's ability to, enforce what they understand as rigor. 

Bob: Yes, absolutely. Both in it is a, a threat both to institutional autonomy and the academic freedom of, of faculty and, and the disciplines.

Vineeta: I also, I understand that, uh, that we're starting to see a bunch of new accreditors, uh, emerging and being approved. 

Bob: There are, uh, there are several, um, organizations, uh, calling themselves accreditors that are, have been emerging over the last couple of years, um, that are in the, in the process of seeking, 

Approval by the Department of Education as, what are called recognized accreditors. Accreditors recognized by the US Department of Education. Um, and, uh, it remains to be seen. Um, which ones will, uh, reach the point of, um, getting that kind of approval. It will, it will be, I'd say at least a year before we start seeing that.

Um, but it could be faster. I mean, they, the, um, the Department of Education following on the executive order, did issue some new guidance, kind of clearing some of the brush out of the way so that those agencies could, could move forward in the process. Um, so we, we may see that happening. Um, as I mentioned earlier, though, there are.

A lot of accreditors. There are about 60 accreditors and um, it's not as if colleges have not, or potential colleges that are seeking accreditation have not had options. They've had options. Um, uh, so it won't necessarily be a revolutionary for there to be some new accreditors. Um, but, um, we'll see 

Vineeta: we also know that you're an an appointee to the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. What is naiki? Did I say that right? 

Bob: Yes, indeed. 

And what role do they play in the accreditation process? NAIKI is what's known as a, an advisory committee, a federal advisory committee, and uh, every few years accrediting agencies.

Uh, that are recognized by the Secretary of Education undergo a review by the staff of the Department of Education, and then this advisory committee, um, comments um, and makes a recommendation for whether, uh, the accrediting agency deserves to continue to be recognized, or. Um, or has some deficiencies that should be repaired or should have its, you know, recognition, removed.

And, uh, these new agencies that are coming on board, uh, at some point, uh, will also go through that process of a education department staff review, and then an appearance before a, a public meeting of naiki. These happen typically, uh, twice per year, um, where the agency officials come and, we review a lot of documentation that they provide and are able to ask, uh, to ask questions.

Um, if anybody's wondering, how is it that I'm serving on a Department of Education advisory committee right now? Um, well, this committee has, uh, bipartisan, uh, representation. I'm one of the, uh, house Democratic appointees. Um, then it has some Department of Education, appointees and Senate House and Senate appointees from both.

Parties. so it is, uh, it is an attempt to at least provide some transparency on the process. Um, Naiki, I do not represent Naiki. Um, I should make clear on on the podcast. Uh, but I am a member of Naiki and We'll, and, and therefore a part of that review process, Um, well, while we are a required part of the process, our recommendations are just recommendations.

And so the Department of Education, secretary of Education can ultimately either take our recommendation or do something different from what we recommend. Um, but it does provide a very useful, um, opportunity for the public to kind of see how is this agency presenting itself? How is it responding to concerns that have been perhaps, uh, raised?

Um, and. Is the Secretary of Education, taking the recommendations of staff and the advisory committee. 

Vineeta: Thank you. Alright, I have one last question for you.

so in June 24, June of last year, you published a report. Academic freedom is under attack, college accreditors may be the best line of defense. So we're gonna link to that report in our show notes. Okay. Um, and then in there you argue that accrediting agencies are the most appropriate organizations to continue holding colleges and universities accountable for maintaining academic freedom.

That's the end of the quote. So is that still the case after the executive order? 

Bob: Um, I would hope so. so accrediting agencies generally the, the, the, the formerly regional agencies that we've been talking about, um, all of them have some academic standards, some freedom of inquiry, uh, standards.

And um, uh, the example that we gave from SACS was, was more institutional autonomy, but protection from external. Uh, entities kind of trying to control the university. Um, and accrediting agencies have the authority to review those kinds of things, to review problems that are emerging. Um, we should take, uh, the words of, uh, the Trump administration that they sup they claim to care about, uh, free speech, um, claim to care about, uh, quality, academics, and, and, and we should encourage, uh, accrediting agencies to highlight the fact that they have standards on academic freedom, that they play that role.

Um, and that it's much more important role for the accreditors to play than for the government to play. Um, the danger, as I've already indicated is, um, if the government comes in and starts trying to tell them exactly how to do that, um, their own definition of, of intellectual diversity or, um, 

 what the boundaries of, of discussion or what the boundaries of a discipline should be, that really should be about the institution, the faculty, and when appropriate.

Um, the accrediting agency, when there, when there are disputes that go on that, that go on, the disputes should not bubble up to the federal government. 

Vineeta: A big thanks to Bob for helping us understand how accreditation agencies provide quality control for higher education, as well as protections for institutional autonomy. To learn more about these topics, please check our show notes for the links mentioned in the conversation including a fact sheet on this executive order. Thank you for listening to this episode F, academic Freedom on the Line. I'm Vineeta Singh, and this is AAUP presents.