Understanding Accreditation in Higher Ed
A look inside the process
The one thing most people know about “accredited institutions” is that they qualify for federal financial aid money (grants and loans). It’s an important gatekeeper role. Losing (or even the risk of losing) accreditation can mean the death knell for most smaller institutions.
Critics of the accrediting bodies1 complain that they are overly proscriptive, mandating what institutions must do and limiting innovation.2 Yet others complain that they aren’t demanding enough and should mandate certain completion levels or limits to tuition costs. Others complain that the accrediting bodies don’t understand the uniqueness of a particular segment of the higher education landscape3 and are trying to fit all universities into the same cookie cutter mold.
I have been a “peer reviewer” for two decades and have visited schools in three of the former accrediting regions. This week I chaired an institutional visit on behalf of the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). I figured that my recent experience provided an opportunity to share the internal logic of how institutional accreditation works.4
The visit I chaired is what’s call a comprehensive visit and occurs every ten years. In between comprehensive visits, the institution submits annual reports and in the fourth year a team of reviewers looks over a mid-course update.5 If the institution adds programs or makes major changes, there’s another group that reviews that from a distance.
I was on the team with four other educators, selected because of their likely understanding of the institutional context.6 Each one of us serves as primary reviewer for one of the five HLC criteria for accreditation and backup on another. Roughly one month before the visit, the team gets access to what’s called the Assurance Argument.
In the Assurance Argument, the institutional representatives provide a narrative that outlines the ways in which the university meets the criteria and associated core components. They support that narrative with links to pieces of evidence that defend the claims that are made. In addition to the assurance argument, the institution completes a federal compliance document that goes to the Department of Education.7
[I’ll note that this process is vastly better than the prior process which required hundred of pages of narrative, an “exhibit room” containing volumes of files, documentation of the number of library books, and detailed personnel records. That former process invited teams to dig around in minutiae, almost begging them to find something amiss.]
Over the course of the month before the visit, the team carefully reads the argument and follow the links to the supporting evidence. We develop questions we want to explore further during the visit either to clarify points of confusion or to dig into areas where the criteria and core components might be amiss. As chair, I worked with institutional representatives to build a schedule for the visit that would help us answer any questions and give our due diligence to the process. In addition, we schedule a meeting with the Board of Trustees and three open fora relating to the criteria (we did criterion 1, criteria 2&5, and criteria 3&4); the fora are open to anyone in the institution. There is also an opportunity for individuals to “drop in” on team members.
It’s really important that the first criterion is about Mission. That statement informs institutional operation, its approach to teaching and learning, its understanding of retention and completion8, and financial planning. The institution demonstrates how it meets accreditation criteria, not in the abstract, but in specific awareness of its mission and the population it serves.
The visit itself begins early Monday morning. The first meeting is usually with the president’s cabinet and lays out the process of the visit and what happens after. I have two metaphors I tend to use during this opening. The first is that our task is as researchers evaluating the validity of the claims in the assurance argument. The second, far more importantly, is that we are amateur anthropologists who have a day and a half to gain a sensibility of what it’s like to be part of the institution.
Throughout the day, we work in pairs on a variety of meetings. We ask questions, explore examples, review both history and future plans, and try to take lots of notes. After dinner Monday night, we compare notes and see if there are any special concerns we need to dig into on Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning involves some more meetings and follow up on details requiring attention. The day ends with the same group it started with and we’re done before lunchtime.9
Tuesday afternoon, evening, and Wednesday morning are focused on three issues. First, there is an evaluation as to whether we think the institution has met the criteria and core components. We have three options: “met”, “met with concerns”, and “not met”. If the result is "met with concerns”, we have the second task of determining what kind of interim report should be filed for the institution to show it has remediated the issue. Third, we are writing our own report for the HLC Commission. We actually have an initial draft completed before leaving our hotel on Wednesday at noon.
It then falls on me as chair to do final edits on the full team report. Once completed, I submit it and it gets sent to the institution for correction of “errors of fact”.10 When the inevitable errors have been corrected, it is formally submitted. The institution receives the final report and has an opportunity to write a formal response. The assurance argument, the team report, and the institutional response are then read by members of HLC's Institutional Action Committee. It is the IAC who makes the determination on reaccreditation for another cycle and any interim reports, if any, that will be required.
There are many things that commend this process. First, the visiting team always keeps focus on the institutional mission and resists the temptation to force the school into the mold of the institution they came from.11 Second, it keeps the institution in the driver's seat in terms of how well they meet HLC criteria and core components. This is essential as the goal is actually institutional improvement in which they are better aligning their practices and not dependent upon outsiders telling them what to do.12 Third, the team develops a remarkable sense of camaraderie and collaboration both in preparation for the visit and during the time onsite.13
Is it perfect? Of course not. But it does provide a careful external look at how the institution is doing, what its current challenges might be, and what steps it could put in place to remedy them.
I often leave an institution on Tuesday a little wistful. I’ve been somewhat successful in my anthropological task and just as I’ve begun to feel like I understand the institution better, it’s time to go home. In all likelihood, I will never return to campus and, at best, may see a representative of the school at a future HLC conference and then catch up for ten minutes.
But I am confident that the institution is better than it was before we arrived on Monday. And for that I am exceedingly pleased to have played my small part.
Formerly called Regional Accrediting bodies but are no longer bound by their geography.
See my newsletter about Ben Sasse’s appointment to the University of Florida.
I heard this a lot from Christian college personnel over my career.
It’s safe to say that even most faculty and staff don’t know much about this process, save for a few. They may know that THEY are coming on such and such a date. They’ve likely been briefed a few times on the process, but generally go about their business with little regard to what’s happening (even during the visit).
I’ve done four of these in recent years. The team reads and responds to the report but no visit is necessary.
We had all had experience in relatively small, private institutions.
The Federal Compliance report has a separate reviewer who is not part of the visit team. If they find areas for further exploration, they ask team members to look into that.
You read retention and graduation rates very differently when looking at a highly selective institution compared to one driven by a mission to first generation students.
In the old days, these visits lasted two and a half days which was a terrible burden for the institution (and for the visiting team).
For example, I may have called the chief academic officer the Vice President for Academic Affairs when the proper title was Provost. But it does not include a critique of the substance of our report.
It’s more common to hear team members say, “I like that approach! I’m telling our folks to see how we might do something similar.”
We aren’t proscriptive, but are likely to include phrases in the report like “the institution might consider…” or “Further discussion around … could be very beneficial”.
I can brag that this was one of the best teams I’ve every worked with.