However, the accreditor claims that its members are heard and do n’t interfere with its activities.
According to a previous Department of Education standard, southern states may update their rules to allow for the selection of new accreditors.
States like Florida must update their demands that some universities submit to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, according to Adam Kissel, a senior colleague at the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy.
Though the fee again had a useful monopoly, the Trump Administration, where Kissel served as a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Education, changed approval rules to allow for nationwide contest.
Yet, some colleges still default to the Southern Association of Colleges, Kissel ( pictured ) said. In a telephone interview with The College Fix, he went over more details.
In a phone interview, Kissel stated that “access to Federal Student Aid programs requires certifications.”
” So, accreditors have a tremendous amount of power, and they abuse their power”, he said. ” What is exciting is that accreditors are secret associations, no part of the government”, he said, noting they set their own requirements so long as they also uphold national legal requirements.
Kissel made his claims both in a short last year for the Texas Public Policy Foundation and in a new short for The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. He gave instances of accreditors, including SACS, going beyond what he thought was appropriate and influencing factors like course load or political searchers.
According to Kissel,” a lot of colleges in America ca n’t function without having access to subsidized student loans.” ” It had probably reduce their ability to pay for college if students had to look for loans on the private market.”
Kissel claimed that account is declining and that accreditors are setting their own standards, despite the fact that each school has the reputation of a membership organization with its accreditor and has a claim in the standards as a membership organization.
” Over time membership has waned because the accreditor sets its own standards, and they do n’t do a poll asking the members ‘ well, what do you think of this standard,’ they just impose the new standard”, Kissel told The Fix during the interview.
Further: SACS attempted to avert two Republicans from submitting applications for president positions.
” For instance, if an accreditor decides to have a DEI requirement, it does n’t ask its members what they think of the requirement”, he said. ” There might be a comment period, but at the end of the day, the advice and feedback from the members is n’t a vote, it’s just advice. Somebody must cooperate or disapprove of the accreditor’s decision.
SACS rejected required DEI remarks, as recently reported by The Fix.
Because there was no other accreditor in the region, according to Kissel, the issue with regional accreditors is that, prior to the Department of Education removing those regional restrictions, colleges could n’t simply leave the accreditor without losing their student loan status.
He noted that schools may simply accredit a new school because it must be recognized by the Department of Education and demonstrate that it complies with all federal regulations and has account corporations. By leaving an now recognized accreditor, he claimed,” A university is putting all of its Federal Student Aid dollars in danger.”
He claimed that the lack of various accreditors permitted to operate within a location and the need for federal student aid make it possible for accreditors to abuse their authority.
SACS’s interference with leadership has had an impact on large state systems in the southeast.
SACS disagrees with Kissel’s description
According to Sandra Jordan, the firm’s chief of staff,” The allegations that Mr. Kissel is interfering with college management are based on a lack of understanding about professional standards, who reviews the organisation, as well as the function of approval and how approval works,” according to an email sent to The Fix.
That statement fails to acknowledge that all of the formal regional accrediting organizations in the United States share very similar standards, Jordan said. There is a very good chance that an institution will be found non-compliant at any of the accrediting bodies if they are cited for failing to maintain a standard at one.
Additionally, dividing the states into regions of accreditation was not a” cartel” decision, but a financial one.
Jordan stated in a phone interview that one of the benefits of being regional was the cost control over the costs of our member institutions. ” Airing within a region is less expensive than traveling across the nation.” Additionally, the issues that accreditors face differ from region to region. For example, the funding in California is a lot different than the funding in Alabama”.
She wrote that aside from the federal and state mandated standards, the membership institutions make the standards, not SACS.
The organization “does not create the standards that govern the organization’s work.” Those are created by the membership, reviewed every five years by the membership, and voted on after the reviews by the entire membership”.
” It is rather odd to claim that we are influencing an ideology when we are a professional organization whose members determine the standards, or best practices, for the profession”, Jordan said.
She stated in her email that both the reviewers and the public are members of the membership regions.
” Every year, some 5, 000 peer reviewers and ultimately the board are involved in institutional reviews”, she said.
According to Jordan,” These are seasoned higher education professionals who make recommendations to the Board based on best practices described in our Principles of Accreditation.”
The process can take two years and has three committee, including one tasked just with overseeing the review, Jordan said.
The only way to create new standards or create new ones would be to form a committee made up of our institutional members, who would review the standards and make recommendations, she said on the phone.” All of our members get a vote on any new standards,” she said.
Any items that the member institutions do not recommend will be put up for a vote.
She said,” We update our membership institutions frequently during the review process to prevent surprises.”
” Is SACS interfering in institutional governance”, she asked rhetorically in her email.
” Not according to our 781 institutional members, and not according to the profession across this nation”.
MORE: Rein in higher ed accreditors, former DOJ attorney says
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