Things are changing in the wonky, weighty world of college accreditation, and in some ways, Georgia is at the center of the national overhaul.
A recent example can be found in Decatur, home of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. At least, that was its name until this month. SACS, one of the most prominent accreditors in the country, is undergoing a makeover. From now on, the agency that accredits nearly every university in the state will be known as The Commission on Colleges and Universities.
In a vacuum, the change is unremarkable. CCU president Stephen Pruitt said it denotes how the accreditor formerly known as SACS, which he led, has expanded beyond the South to recruit universities nationwide.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
But zooming out, the rebranding is emblematic of a much larger moment in American higher education. As conservatives have accused SACS and other major accreditors of growing too powerful (or even “woke”), President Donald Trump is shaking up the system.
Some believe the archaic system — wherein federally recognized accreditors set standards that universities must follow to receive vital federal funding — could benefit from an overhaul. More competition, they say, will lead to innovation that reduces bureaucracy and ultimately reduces costs for students.
Skeptics, however, remember Trump on the campaign trail calling accreditation his “secret weapon” to reclaim universities “from the radical left.” They fear not only that increased competition could lead to accreditors who offer less protection for students but that the administration could be weaponizing accreditation to police what universities teach.
“For so long, accreditation was very sleepy, and not a ton of people paid attention to it,” said Madison Weiss of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. That’s changed under an administration she said is using it “as this lever for broader higher ed reform in a way we haven’t seen in the past.”
New rule, same accusation
Last month, the U.S. Department of Education proposed significant changes to the process it uses to recognize current and emerging accreditors. The changes, according to the media release, aim to “break up entrenched accreditation monopolies” that “prioritize ideological agendas” over student outcomes.
The accusation is consistent with a theme from the White House and other conservatives who claim the most prestigious accreditors harbor a liberal bias. SACS became a political lightning rod for such attacks, particularly from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“People are smart. Just changing your name is not going to move the lightning rod,” said Pruitt, who was named SACS president last year. But he does think the name change signifies, “a new day that we have here at the commission. That we’re under new leadership, we are under new philosophies.”
His leadership has brought changes beyond a new name. In addition to releasing a draft of updated standards this summer, the organization has sought “to make things less burdensome on our institutions,” Pruitt said. “The changes we’ve made have been changes that our members have said that they wanted.”
Most recently, it announced an initiative to help credits transfer when students move from one SACS school to another. “Students transferring to other colleges often lose a large portion of the credits they have already earned, which increases the time and cost needed to finish a degree,” the organization explained.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Race to the bottom
Last year, Trump issued an executive order encouraging the formation of new accreditors to rival legacy agencies. The University System of Georgia and five other Southern states answered the call by creating their own accreditor last year. In the first cohort of universities it will accredit, The Commission for Public Higher Education selected 10 SACS schools, including Columbus State and Georgia Southern universities. Their potential departure from SACS would mean less revenue for the agency because accreditors collect membership dues from their schools.
Pruitt said the SACS changes, “really have not been about the competition or even about the current administration. It’s been about how do we best serve our members.”
While proponents say more competition, and making it easier for schools to switch accreditors, is good for schools and students, others worry it could create a “race to the bottom.” With more accreditors to choose from, universities could switch to agencies with more relaxed standards. That could incentivize abandoned agencies to lower theirs.
“We could potentially see a dynamic in which we see a reduction in consistency and rigor in accreditation that ultimately increases harm for students,” said Weiss. “We’re likely to see more risks that students end up at institutions that are poorly run, or even vulnerable to closure, or they’re earning a degree that is potentially not very valuable.”
Intellectual diversity
The Education Department’s push for “intellectual diversity” has raised concerns that it could police who schools hire and what faculty teach. The term is used more than a dozen times in the department’s August rule change proposal.
“This vague and ambiguous language may create the opportunity for the department to threaten accrediting agencies with loss of federal recognition unless they begin to more closely and carefully police the ‘range of academic perspectives’ expressed on campus, a strategy that the department has already used to pressure accreditors to remove DEI standards,” according to July research from CAP.
It’s a fair concern considering the administration’s recent history, said Kathleen Rzucidlo, an accreditation expert at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which supports historically Black colleges and universities.
“We have already seen a threat to academic freedom and an increased control over what professors and universities teach from this administration’s attack on DEI, extreme oversight of syllabuses, lesson planning, and course discussions,” she said.
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