ACTA's Must-Reads
« What's in a name? | Main | "Really?" »
Momentum
Accreditation continues to be a hot topic in higher ed news, and ACTA's recent policy paper, Why Accreditation Doesn't Work and What Policymakers Can Do About It, continues to galvanize important debate on the issue. The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) found two of ACTA's recommendations "fundamental to the future of accreditation and how it operates," agreeing that there is a problem with allowing accreditors to decide which schools are worthy of receiving federal student aid, and agreeing, too, that accreditors need to be more publicly accountable. Writing at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Alan Contreras agreed with ACTA's points about breaking the tie between federal student aid and accreditation, about restoring a core curriculum, and about improving accountability.
Now, at Inside Higher Ed, Jane Shaw of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy is weighing in on accreditation--and is adding her voice to the growing chorus of those who believe that in tying federal student aid to accreditation, the government gave excessive power to accreditors:
Unwilling to back up the expanding federal aid with direct monitoring of institutions-- and nudged by a few scandals--government officials eyed the regional accreditors as gatekeepers. The accreditors received, in turn, an enormous increase in prestige and power.
This support from the federal government has enabled the six regional agencies to function in a way that economists would call a cartel. They divide up the country and operate without competition--while holding life-or-death power over the institutions that they "represent." This arrangement stifles innovation and slows to a crawl the creation of new institutions (such as independent online universities).
It's good to see both debate about accreditation and a building consensus about what some of the system's most pressing problems are. Surely this is a sign of good, constructive change to come.
Posted by acta online at August 16, 2007 06:15 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.goactablog.org/blog/mt-tb.cgi/397