The current system of quality control in higher education, overseen by six regional accrediting organizations, is not working and should be replaced, says a new report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
The center's director, Richard Vedder, a professor of economics at Ohio University, is a longtime critic of the system of regional accreditation. He was an outspoken member of a commission, appointed by then-Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, that in 2006 called for a major overhaul of accreditation.
"Why do we need accreditation? We don't accredit automobiles or can openers, yet Americans buy these and are generally satisfied with their quality," Mr. Vedder, who contributes to The Chronicle's Innovations blog, said at a forum sponsored by the Heritage Foundation this month.
The new report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, produced with the help of a grant from the Lumina Foundation for Education, restates many of the same criticisms and renews the call for a completely new system of evaluating the quality of colleges.
"Our current system of higher-education accreditation is broken," concludes the report, "The Inmates Running the Asylum? An Analysis of Higher Education Accreditation."
The accreditation system "is mired in secrecy, delivers imprecise and largely unhelpful information, is clouded by possible currents of self-interest, restricts entrepreneurial initiative, is often costly to administer ... and is not sufficiently outcomes based," the report says.
In place of a system that relies on volunteer peer reviewers and reveals little about its results, a new process should focus on quality assurance by fully disclosing concrete measures like costs, degree-completion rates, and student scores on standardized examinations in individual disciplines, the report recommends.
In addition, institutions should receive numerous indications of their quality from accreditors, including scores evaluating individual schools or programs within an institution.
Judith S. Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, which represents some 3,000 accredited institutions, said that the study does not actually call for eliminating accreditation and said that outcome "'is probably not possible or even desirable.'"
While the council has "long worked with accrediting organizations to address issues raised in this report and is an advocate for changes that will strengthen accreditation," Ms. Eaton says that her organization remains a strong advocate of self-regulation and peer review.
Kevin M. Corcoran, a program director at Lumina, said the foundation doesn't necessarily endorse Mr. Vedder's report—one of three that the center received money to write. But the foundation also thinks it's important to foster conversation from a variety of viewpoints, he said.
Comments
1. laundrydishes - October 20, 2010 at 12:35 pm
OK, just read this article, got curious, and scanned through the report. Its title ("inmates running the asylum" - really?) and a few other instances of flippant, passive-aggressive rhetoric notwithstanding, it appears to be a genuine attempt at reframing the conversation about accreditation. And there may well be some good ideas here (need to read more). I must say, though, that I'm not holding my breath: Serving as bookends to the section entitled "Move Away from Binary Decisions" (i.e., yes/no judgments of quality) are two tables with, you guessed it, binary judgments of current accreditation practice (e.g., "+" and "-" marks). Were the report's authors attempting to be funny/ironic?
2. henr1055 - October 20, 2010 at 04:29 pm
It seems to me that the accreditation should have national standards, that is they should be the same for each region. We know that a prominant for profit institution was accredited in the west and it is doubtful it is could be accredited by at least one other association. If an instituions is going to teach in a region they need that regions accreditation or we need to make the requirements identical for each region. Then we will have a place to start when we propose a restructuring of accreditation.
3. unabashedmale - October 20, 2010 at 04:46 pm
The simplest solution should be that same one we use to evaluate high school education - Standardized achievement tests in the Senior year of college. You could have the same general competencies tested in English and Math, with addition tests in any specializations.
They are already given for licensure and certification in many skill areas by industry or professional groups. They really do seperate the wheat from the chaff.
That will cut through all the other crap.
4. cdwickstrom - October 20, 2010 at 05:04 pm
The other option is, of course, to simply bite the bullet, and do what every other developed country on the planet does, and have a single national system of accreditation (not necessarily done by the Dept of Ed)for the non-professional degree programs (liberal arts, humanities, social sciences). We have close to 100 national "professional" accreditors, why do we persist in maintaining the regionals for the generic programs. Economies of scale would seem to scream for a single source.
5. glenthomas - October 20, 2010 at 08:00 pm
If I am not mistaken, the current regional accreditation system probably was established well before the federal government got so involved in running higher education, which also happened when they got well into federal financial aid as a means to control college education programs and outcomes. Probably also before there was a Department of Education in DC? As Congress has forced greater fiscal restraint on the accrediting agencies to manage Title IV funds, the reality of true liberal arts education has been diminished by government. That cannot serve the nation and our liberal arts educational base.
6. reformhigheredu - October 21, 2010 at 08:42 am
Accreditation is a joke, especially Middle States. Two site visitors actually stated they wanted to work for the university (aren't they trained not to say such things and to not be biased? They really are unethical and care only about themselves). The self-report (absurd concept)the university wrote was lacking data and contained many grammatical and orthographical errors, yet they passed with flying colors. The dean proudly stated that since Middle States does not make it mandatory for a university to report employment rates of graduates, all they have to say to CIE is that they go by what Middle States says. I hope Mr. Vedder is able to crack down on the corruption that has been going on for far too long at universities (with the blessing of agencies like Middle States).
7. bonobo - October 21, 2010 at 09:42 am
Perhaps it isn't fair, but given that Dr. Vedder and the CCAP are perhaps best known for evaluating, rating, and ranking colleges using a scheme that weights RateMyProfessor.com evaluations and alumni self-reports of salary at payscale.com as the two most highly weighted outcome measures, I cannot take anything that they have to say about the evaluation of colleges seriously.
http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=79147
8. mslibraryghost - October 21, 2010 at 11:00 am
Author of Comment # 1 - thanks for encapsulating the irony. Well done.
This description sounds like the administration at too many private universities and colleges:
"is mired in secrecy, delivers imprecise and largely unhelpful information, is clouded by possible currents of self-interest, restricts entrepreneurial initiative, is often costly to administer ... and is not sufficiently outcomes based," the report says.
Must be contagious.
A professor at a __CS supervised university contacted the agency to note that the (Carnegie I private) university with which he is affiliated regularly uses unqualified people (lacking 18 hours of work above the BA in the field and holding an MA from an accredited university) to teach certain kinds of required credit courses.
The agency told the professor that if several people made the complaint that they would look into it. According to this person, access for reporting abuses is not highly accessible either. So much for worry about standards in Higher Education.
In another instance, a department head at another U claims to have a degree from a university that to my knowledge did not offer that degree at that time (1960s-1970s). Who on the accreditation team is going even to wonder about that claim? (Someone who was in education in that state at that time; what are the chances?)
Does someone need to police the accrediting agencies for conflicts of interest and slippery reports? Of course. Someone/agency with standing needs to do some surprise auditing of their reports.
The poster who said the "self-study" is absurd is right; the SS sets the foxes monitoring the hen houses and figuring out how to cover their misdeeds in advance.
9. 12096136 - October 21, 2010 at 11:42 am
The college I worked for just copied what was in another college's self-study. The self-study was so full of lies, but North Central doesn't spend enough time with the institution to check anything that is in the report. It is a JOKE
10. tallenc - October 21, 2010 at 01:35 pm
I have no doubt that accreditation could be improved, but surely people shouldn't choose a college the way they choose a can opener. A can opener is a useful tool, but one that you simply throw away and replace if it breaks; a college helps you establish an educational and philosophical basis for a rewarding and productive life. Your choice of college, unlike your choice of can opener, is going to change your life forever.