Last week, Armand Alacbay, ACTA’s Chief of Staff and Senior VP of Strategy, sent a letter to the Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE) commending their work to create new standards for accreditation, which rightfully center student outcomes and academic excellence over bureaucratic box-checking. Mr. Alacbay provided several recommendations to further strengthen these policies, including advocating that CPHE explicitly require that institutions demonstrate that their policies on curricula, academic freedom, and program length clearly demonstrate their value. This focus on the assessment of outputs over process reflects a growing call for accreditors to fulfill their promise of being true guarantors of educational quality.
Read the full letter HERE.
In this episode of Higher Ed Now, ACTA Policy Research Fellow Kyle Beltramini and Third Way Education Policy Advisor Emily Rounds discuss how accreditation became a mainstream political issue overnight.
President Donald Trump and his allies are using a little-known but powerful corner of higher education — college accreditation — to exert pressure on colleges and universities, an effort that threatens the independence of accreditors and the stability of the institutions they approve.
A recent press release by the U.S. Department of Education has created a bit of confusion, leading many to believe that the Trump administration is seeking to revoke Columbia University’s accreditation. As with most matters related to the byzantine process of accreditation, the truth is more complex and less attention-grabbing.
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