and fix it https://thefederalist.com/2017/05/15/stop-complaining-start-fixing-americas-higher-education-crisis/
In my mind, there are two things that need to happen in order to fix higher ed: 1. Eliminate private institutional accreditation 2. Eliminate Title IV Financial Aid For number 1, I get it, we want the government to have less control. The problem is that the current patchwork of accreditors causes massive expense. Not only are schools shelling out enormous fees for accreditation but they are shelling out mucho dinero to consultants, often former accreditor employees, to help them overcome the obstacles along the way. The result is that education costs a ton. The barriers to entry are intense. I'm not suggesting one should be able to easily or casually set up a university. But if a group of academics gets together and comes up with, I'll call it, a boutique college they should be able to try it out without requiring VC backing. The fact that we're in a place where a state's department of education approving a school is seen is virtually meaningless compared to the imprimatur of numerous private entities is, in my opinion, backward. It would be like if a state stepped away from driver licensing and an individual had to choose from one of 7 private licensing agencies, but some agency licenses were better received than others, and special endorsements required you to go to another private agency. It would make driving a mess just like it did to higher ed. For number 2, as long as colleges are getting government welfare the costs will remain high. A school can charge $50k a year knowing they will get, at a minimum, government funds for a sizable chunk of their student population. Make public schools survive only on public funds. Make private schools survive only on private funds. The survivors would be stronger and society would be better off.
Yes, we do want government to have less control. Killing universities' freedom of association isn't a great fit with that. Moreover, it's not necessary to do what you say you want to do here. All you really have to do is kill Title IV, so long as killing NACIQI (And ED recognition of accreditors in general) is part of that. Without Title IV, private accreditation can go back to focusing on its legitimate job of being a means through which academic quality and institutional stability are externally verified. If it's truly voluntary at that point, then it's not a barrier to experimental initiatives or WISR-style boutique institutions.
It has nothing to do with freedom of association. Schools are free to join whatever groups they want. Despite the common trope that accreditation is "voluntary" among U.S. institutions we know what category that gets a school relegated to. In order to function as a university in the U.S. you need some form of institutional accreditation. Beyond Title IV we've tied the ability to receive research grants to that association. That's just on the college side of the requirements. For the degree recipient we see requirements for accreditation, often times specific private organizations, or else your degree is not only unacceptable for public employment but may constitute a crime. That isn't a matter of "free association." That's a matter of a monopoly that was established to create absurd barriers to entry into higher ed, adds to the complexity and expense of university administration and doesn't actually offer you much by way of assurance that you're getting a "good" education. Schools should, of course, be free to join whatever clubs they want. But the government should not be endorsing those little clubs and giving them the force of law to keep them afloat. That government interference is far more egregious.
That's fine, but you called to "eliminate private institutional accreditation", and that means joining a little club with specific membership requirements. It doesn't intrinsically indicate government approval of same, and the regionals operated for a long time without that.
Then let me rephrase, "have all of the private institutional accreditation you like but eliminate ANY government endorsement of it." That means that it won't grant a school access to federal funds. That means that the government should not impose any private accreditation requirements for employment or licensure. Let it appear in the "About Us" section of a school's website. But it needs to take a backseat to government approval (rather than the other way around).
The thing is, there's general agreement on what the laws of the road are and what illegal driving is. There's less agreement on what a good education is and how to recognize when it occurs. I personally favor specialized accreditors that are associated with professional organizations. Let the professional Whatever's set the standards for education in Whatever-ing. Who knows more about it than them? When it comes to general institutional accreditors, I think that it's probably valuable to have several of them available in a single locality, so that they can perhaps emphasize different things.
