While the higher education accreditation process has evolved through competition among agencies and federal policy shifts, there are opportunities to refine agency approaches and implement technology to bring the process into the modern age. Other sectors have embraced technological transformation, yet accreditation remains reliant primarily on a model of periodic, point-in-time evaluations that consume institutional resources without driving just-in-time improvement and responsiveness.
As public confidence in higher education erodes and congressional scrutiny intensifies, accreditation reform is one area where policymakers and institutional leaders could find bipartisan agreement to transform the procedural formality into a more modernized, substantive engine for continuous improvement.
The National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity—the federal quasi-governmental entity that reviews and recognizes accreditors—may also benefit from technological advancements, reducing paperwork burdens and expediting reviews.
Read more at AEI.
