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What's wrong with this picture?
A small religious college struggles to stay afloat. It needs to increase enrollments and improve retention. The president and the board develop a strategic plan and implement an ambitious campaign designed to attract and retain more students and ultimately draw more alumni contributions.
The accreditor moves to revoke the college's accreditation.
This is the story of St. Andrews Presbyterian College in North Carolina. In 2005, the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) placed St. Andrews on probation for what St. Andrews president Paul Baldasare calls "a disagreement concerning the college's strategic plan and how the college has structured its finances." And in June, SACS announced its intention to revoke St. Andrews' accreditation for failure to demonstrate that it is financially sound. Now the college is appealing the decision, and--in what would be a painful redirection of hard won resources--the trustees have authorized legal action if the appeal fails.
As ACTA shows in its recent policy paper, Why Accreditation Doesn't Work and What Policymakers Can Do About It, accreditors routinely overstep the bounds of their authority, and, as long as federal student aid hangs in the balance, there isn't a lot schools can do to resist them. The system urgently needs reform, and the first step is to break the corrupting link between accreditation and federal student aid.
St. Andrews is a perfect case in point: an accreditor micromanaging financial matters that are best left to the board while ignoring the issue that should be its primary and determining concern, educational quality. St. Andrews has been singled out by U.S. News & World Report, the Washington Monthly, the Princeton Review, by Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews, and many others for its innovative and effective curriculum. Even more to the point, SACS itself has praised the caliber of the college's programs. By SACS' own lights, St. Andrews is succeeding in its educational mission.
And yet, St. Andrews' future is uncertain because the overweening bureaucrats at SACS have decided to involve themselves in fiduciary matters and to second guess the trustees who are legally responsible for the institution. St. Andrews' financial plan may be wise--or not. But that's something for its trustees to decide, not its accreditor.
If federal student aid weren't tied to accreditation, St. Andrews could simply forego accreditation and forge ahead on its own. But as things stand, St. Andrews will lose everything it has worked for if it loses accreditation. Without accreditation, students who need federal aid will not be able to attend the school; they will go elsewhere, and the student body will decline in both numbers and economic diversity. SACS has St. Andrews in a stranglehold--one that arguably benefits no one but itself.
Posted by acta online at August 9, 2007 10:48 AM
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Comments
It really surprises me that most colleges and universities are proud of being accredited by the SACS, but should they fail to meet the standards set forth in the accreditation guidelines and lose the accreditation they were previously so proud of, they claim that SACS is being unfair.
Why any layman would claim that they know more about the inner workings of St. Andrews than the SACS is beyond me. SACS has visited the school, has looked at the financial records and the curriculum, and has found St. Andrews lacking. SACS did not all of a sudden make new rules that St. Andrews was unaware of-the school has been on probation for years!
The future for students at the school when is closes is not so gloomy as one might surmise. There are other schools with low GPA and ACT/SAT requirements that most students can apply to, some in the same geographic area, and in most cases at a much lower cost.
Many of those unhappy about the school closing are some residents of Laurinburg. They complain that poor St. Andrews is a benefit to the community, and what's more, the grounds of the school are pretty! In truth, the physical condition of most facilities on campus is poor. Maintenance, especially electrical, has been performed haphazardly in many cases, and is a potential danger to personnel.
As an institution where kids can attend, regardless of previous academic accomplishments, as long as they have enough money for tuition, St. Andrews excels. As a college, an institution of higher learning where the students are the priority, it is not up to the standards of more affordable institutions.
Posted by: S at August 28, 2007 03:15 PM
As someone who visits many campuses for accreditation, and not from the Laurinburg area, I not sure that one can truly say that the facilities of the campus are poor. Especially in comparison with other schools, including, most certainly, large public universities in the SACS region. As someone who has spent most of my career in higher education, a previous comeent "As a college, an institution of higher learningwhere students are the priority it is not up to the standards of more affordable institutions" I guess SACS would disagree, as the SAC evaluation did not cite academics, facilities, or accessibility. The later is significant--SAPC has a highly accessible campus for students with disabilities.
Why any layman would know more about SAPC than SACS is a naive comment. SACS evaluators are human, and SACS teams are not above personal biase swaying teams' reports. A SACS team evaluates over a limited period of time and based upon evidence presented, but still not a whole picture. The standards cited for removal of accreditation are limited to financial stability and documentation of that area.
I think this court case will provide a shift in higher education and accrediting bodies. It's all somewhat muddied by USDA loans/grants that are being challenged.
Posted by: Mark at August 30, 2007 06:21 PM
I have been following closely the case of St. Andrews, and I have just written a piece on the matter. It appeared today (November 21) on the web site of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. Here is the link:
Posted by: Robert Blumenthal at November 22, 2007 10:36 AM