Trump Education Department Taking Steps to Overhaul Accreditation

Trump Education Department Taking Steps to Overhaul Accreditation

This is long overdue. As they get closer to achieving their goals, expect a major outcry from the left.

Inside Higher Ed reports:

Trump’s Accreditation Overhaul Advances

After four days of dense and occasionally contentious discussions over the Trump administration’s proposed overhaul of accreditation, an advisory committee tasked with reviewing the plan reached consensus on the slate of changes.

Now, the Education Department can move forward on the next steps to finalize the regulatory changes, which include receiving and reviewing public feedback. If the department issues the final accreditation rule by Nov. 1, the overhaul will take effect July 1 of next year.

Negotiators on the Accreditation, Innovation and Modernization Committee spent the better part of four days this week in a windowless room at the U.S. Department of Education hammering out the proposal. While there were occasional flashes of tension in public view, many of the disagreements were hashed out behind closed doors with ED officials and committee members calling multiple caucuses across the rule-making session to resolve points of contention.

Education Department officials argue that the proposals advanced this week will overhaul a broken accreditation system, which they cast as a costly barrier to innovation and competition. They also claimed that the package will help lower the cost of higher education.

“Accreditation is no longer a reliable indicator of quality, but with this committee’s work, we are moving toward a system where accreditation once again means something,” Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent said Thursday. “The changes agreed to today will make it easier for new accreditors to gain federal recognition, introducing competition and choice into a stagnant system. It will make it easier for institutions to leave dysfunctional relationships with legacy accreditors that engage in ideological coercion or interfere in decisions properly reserved for state governments, boards of trustees or institutional leadership.”

The administration’s proposal will extend the responsibilities of accreditors in significant ways, requiring such organizations to police institutional First Amendment compliance and research misconduct. Both provisions proved contentious this week.

As part of the proposed package, accreditors will be required to ensure that public institutions uphold First Amendment freedoms on campus. Some committee members raised concerns about whether it was appropriate for accreditation agencies to take on that role.

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