When six Southern public university systems this summer formed a new accreditation agency, the move shook the national evaluation model that higher education has relied on for decades.
The news wasn’t unexpected: It arrived a few months after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in April overhauling the nation’s accreditation system by, among other things, barring accreditors from using college diversity mandates. It also came after U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in May made it easier for universities to switch accreditors.
The accreditation process, often bureaucratic, cumbersome and time consuming, is critical to the survival of institutions of higher education. Colleges and their individual departments must undergo outside reviews—usually every few years—to prove that they meet certain educational and financial standards. If a school is not accredited, its students cannot receive federal aid such as Pell grants and student loans.
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