Department of Education Advances Transparency Agenda for

Accreditation
Accreditations historic function serves as an important protection for both students
and taxpayers by assuring the quality of our postsecondary educational system.
Since accreditation is a prerequisite for schools participation in the federal student
aid programs, it plays a "gatekeeping" role in institutional access to the annual $150
billion investment in federal student aid. Accreditors are responsible for ensuring
baseline levels of acceptable quality and performance across diverse institutions,
degree types, and academic programs. In addition, given accreditors roots in a
voluntary, peer-based process for quality improvement, accreditation creates a
platform for sharing ideas and improving practices across institutions.
However, there is broad agreement and a sense of urgency about the need for
significant improvement in both the rigor and flexibility of accreditation. The
Administration signaled its interest in improving the accreditation system in the
2013 State of the Union address, when the President called on Congress to explore
incorporating measures of value and affordability into the existing accreditation
system or by establishing new, alternative accreditation pathways for higher
education models and colleges to receive federal student aid eligibility based on
performance and results. In his July 2015 speech on the future of higher education,
Secretary Duncan emphasized the importance of a new focus on outcomes and
greater transparency in higher education. He noted particularly that accreditors
have provided little accountability for some poor-performing institutions and that for
many accreditors, student outcomes are far down the priority list, saying, For the
most part, accreditation organizations are the watchdogs that dont bark. The
Secretary also acknowledged that the Department must do more to hold accreditors
responsible for their work, but that its role in accreditation and student outcomes is
narrowly outlined in statute.
This growing recognition that accreditation is in need of improvement has
intensified in recent years as a result of the failure of the Corinthian/Heald schools
while fully accredited, as well as recommendations from the bipartisan National
Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) in 2012 and 2015
and a December 2014 GAO report (GAO-15-59) calling on the Department to
strengthen its oversight of schools and accreditors. That activity has generated
bipartisan interest on the Hill, including hearings in the Senate and House; and
continued attention from policy analysts, advocates, and the press. A key
component of the Departments recently launched EQUIP experimental site is to
require supplementary quality assurance for non-institutional entities, testing
outcomes-based reviews in addition to the standard accreditor review of
institutions. Additionally, accreditors recognize that change is needed and
imminent.
The Administration believes it is important to ensure that the public can have
confidence in the current accreditation system. Today, we are announcing a series
of executive actions to improve accreditors and the Departments oversight
activities and move toward a new focus on student outcomes and transparency. We
are also proposing a suite of legislative proposals to guide Congressional action on
improving and reforming accreditation.

Executive Actions
Today the Department is taking the following steps to increase transparency and
promote outcomes-driven accountability under current law:

Publishing
outcomes

each

accreditors

standards

for

evaluating

student

Accreditors are required by statute to set standards for student achievement

for schools to maintain their accreditation status. Under current law, the
Department is barred from establishing any criteria for agency standards of
student achievement. This allows some accreditors to set low or difficult-tomeasure thresholds to maintain accreditation status, and others to rely on
reviews of thresholds established by the institutions they accredit. Today the
Department is publishing a chart with each agencys stated student
achievement measures, including any specific thresholds. This document
reveals significant differences in the form, specificity, and performance levels
among accreditors.

Increasing transparency
institutional oversight

in

the

accreditation

process

and

in

The Department identifies poor-performing schools through oversight of the

federal student aid system, while accreditors engage in their own reviews of
institutional quality. Today, in an effort to inform its own oversight activities,
the Department is requiring accreditors to submit decision letters when they
place institutions on probation. To be transparent, the Department will post
online all publicly releasable portions of such letters. Secretary Duncan is also
directing Department staff to explore additional accreditation documentation
that can aid the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) in safeguarding student
and taxpayer dollars and take further action on those issues.
As part of its renewed transparency effort, the Department has created a
new, simpler accreditation homepage at http://www.ed.gov/accreditation to
facilitate easier access to information about accreditation, including the
accreditation status of postsecondary institutions as reported to the
Department, an overview of the accreditation system and requirements, and
the new informational resources announced today.
The Department also encourages accreditors and institutions to make their
processes and decisions more open to the public and to students. One
agency, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and
University Commission, has taken a constructive step in that direction by
publishing final decisions for each school. Also, a few postsecondary
institutions publish their self-studies or final decision letters voluntarily, which
is another positive contribution to transparency and continuous improvement.
Additionally, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), through
its own recognition process for accreditors, requires that recognized
accreditors inform the public about the bases for all final accreditation
decisions.

Increasing coordination within the Department and

accreditors, other agencies, and states to improve oversight

among

Secretary Duncan is directing the Assistant Secretary for the Office of

Postsecondary Education (OPE) and the Chief Operating Officer of FSA to
report back within 75 days on strategies to improve information coordination
across accreditors, OPE, and FSA. These open channels of communication can
foster stronger oversight by helping all parties to better target problematic
schools and situations for timely attention and action.
The Secretary is also requesting through his memorandum that Department
staff provide further guidance and clarification to accreditors in
understanding the flexibility they already have under current law to apply
risk-based approaches in their oversight of institutions. Department staff are
also asked to work with accreditors as they explore additional opportunities
to direct their attention and resources to outcomes-driven oversight.

Publishing key student and institutional metrics for postsecondary

institutions
arranged
by
accreditors
By publishing key student outcome measures for each institution alongside
its accreditor, we hope to indicate the performance of all colleges and
universities in each accreditors institutional portfolio relevant to those
measures. Data elements drawn primarily from the College Scorecard include
average net price for Title IV recipients, graduation rate, federal loan
repayment and default rates, median debt of graduating students, postschool earnings, enrollment of Pell Grant recipients, enrollment of students
over age 25 and part-time students, accreditation status, and heightened
cash monitoring status. Institutional accreditors are also listed on the College
Scorecards website (collegescorecard.ed.gov/data), where users can access
and analyze even more extensive data for each institution.

Promoting greater attention to outcomes within current accreditor

review processes
The Department will ensure that accrediting staff in the Office of
Postsecondary Education have access to critical outcomes data, state and
federal litigation reports, and other information about each agency's schools
prior to conducting their reviews. This information may help determine
whether the accreditor has appropriate processes in place with respect to
institutional outcomes and whether those processes were followed
effectively, and will assist reviewers in understanding how accreditors handle
institutions with weak outcomes and other flags. The Department will also
supply that information to NACIQI to support its training and policy
development activities, to help it frame a policy agenda regarding the agency
recognition process, and for its own evaluation of accreditor standards and
processes. In addition, the Department will encourage accreditors, within the
scope of its current authority, to apply outcomes-directed measures in
accreditation and monitoring of institutions that have weak outcomes.

Legislative Reform Proposals

The Departments authority related to accreditation and student outcomes is
narrowly defined in statute. The following legislative proposals build on the
Administrations efforts to highlight and improve outcomes in higher education and
will help to protect students and taxpayers.

Drive accountability through outcomes-driven and differentiated

recognition
The Department recommends that Congress repeal the statutory prohibition
on its ability to set and enforce expectations regarding student achievement
standards in accreditor recognition. Building off of todays executive actions
to publish the wide range of accreditors student outcome standards and the
performance of their institutions, we recommend that Congress provide for
the differentiated recognition of accreditors based on student outcomes and
other risk-based criteria. Such differentiation will allow the Department to
better reward high-performing accreditors with reduced burden, such as fasttrack recognition and less-frequent recognition reviews, and provide more
rigorous and frequent recognition processes for low-performing accreditors.
This critical reform would provide an incentive for accreditors to scrutinize the
student outcomes of the schools in their portfolios and focus their time and
attention on lower-performing schools; and would encourage low-performing
accreditors to improve their schools, and by extension their own,
performance.

Require robust teach-out plans and reserve funds for high-risk

institutions
As illustrated by the closure of Corinthian Colleges, sudden closures of
institutions that leave students with limited or no options to continue their
studies present a major challenge. While institutions are already required to
submit teach-out plans to accreditors following emergency actions or when a
school plans to close, this is too little, too late in most cases. The Department
recommends that Congress establish recognition standards that require
accreditors to request more complete teach-out plans from high-risk
institutions based on an expanded set of outcomes and other risk indicators.
Accreditors would also be required to ensure that there are resources
available to cover the costs of executing such teach-out plans to shield
students and taxpayers.

Establish a set of standardized, common definitions and data

reporting
Frequently, accreditors use different language and terminology to describe
similar things, often with significant variation across accreditors. For example,
show cause is a term that may mean a different action, depending on the
accreditor, which creates confusion and does not allow for easy comparisons.
In 2012, the American Council on Education encouraged accreditors to

reduce these discrepancies and to use a common vocabulary and

associated set of definitions, as well as to use statistical reporting
requirements that are consistent with existing state and federal definitions.
Regional accreditors recognized this same need and announced the
development of a framework of common terms in April 2014. The Department
plans to study those efforts and supports the formation of a clear and
consistent set of key accreditation terms, definitions, and reporting
requirements, which is essential in allowing policymakers and the public to
compare accreditation statuses, actions, and other key elements, and in
promoting transparency. While we should recognize variation, the
Department recommends that Congress require a single federal vocabulary
for major actions and terms, including sanctions and key outcomes.

Increase transparency on an expanded set of accreditation material

and actions
Transparency will shine greater light on the complex, often-opaque
accreditation process, and will provide information that policymakers,
analysts, and others can use to hold accreditors publicly accountable. Today,
the Department announced that it will begin doing what it can under current
law to increase transparency. However, more needs to be done.
The Department recommends that Congress require all final accreditation
documents relating to academic and institutional quality be made publicly
available for each eligible institution participating under Title IV, and
published at a federally maintained website. This includes any final report or
analysis of the agency or association, as determined by the Secretary in
consultation with NACIQI, regarding whether an institution or program is in
compliance with the standards of the agency or association.

For Further Reading

The Administration believes that accreditation serves a critical role in ensuring the
academic quality of an institution, but that action can be taken to improve the
process so that it better serves institutions, students, and taxpayers. The following
resources provide other recommendations and background to inform an open and
honest conversation about the need for reform.

2015 Accreditation Policy Recommendations, National Advisory Committee

on
Institutional
Quality
and
Integrity
(NACIQI),
July
2015:
http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/naciqi-dir/2015-spring/naciqifinalpolrecom-jul222015.pdf.

The Presidents Plan for a Strong Middle Class & a Strong America, The
White House, February 2013:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/sotu_2013_blueprint_
embargo.pdf.

Accreditation Policy Recommendations, National Advisory Committee on

Institutional
Quality
and
Integrity
(NACIQI),
April
2012:

http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/naciqi-dir/2012spring/teleconference-2012/naciqi-final-report.doc.