Two New Accreditors and One Old One Seeking Recognition

Republic Report describes how the National Association for Academic Excellence (NAAE), the American Alliance for Accreditation of Short-Term Education Programs (A³STEP Accreditation), and the American Academy for Liberal Education (AALE) could potentially become recognized by the DOED, in AALE's case a return after having lost recognition in 2010. Republic Report is on its brand in its criticisms.

Meet the Would-Be Accreditors Tied to Predatory For-Profit Colleges (Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Republic Report, April 28, 2025)

 

Old wine in new (cracked) bottles.

If I'm running CHEA, I'm putting together a war chest to fight this in the public arena. People don't generally understand accreditation, and Trump's diploma mill friends will take as much advantage of that as possible. Time for PSAs, talk shows, news shows, podcasts, and anywhere else they can get a simple-but-direct message across about what is and is not a legitimate institution, including reminding people of the billions of taxpayer dollars lost on something Trump seems determined to resurrect.

 

What is with these people and competition? Competition causes some people to cut corners. Accreditation is about quality assurance, not beating the other guy.

There are some things that are inherently not market-based. This is that.

 

Are you saying that competition betweeen accrediting agencies brings about innovation?

 

And they weren't the only one. Walden did this, too (from Florida to Minnesota). So did the University of Phoenix (from California to Arizona) and Northcentral (ditto).

But is that competition or just accreditation shopping?

But I contend that developing and applying standards is the key. I always felt CHEA failed to do this, allowing for the disparities between regionals as well as between the RAs and the NAs.

 

I feel like there's a few ways accreditation can go in the U.S.

We scrap the system, and leave accreditation in the hands of the states. Pennsylvania and Oklahoma formerly held Dept of Ed approval as accreditors (a long time ago). New York still does. Notably, NY and PA do not have a religious exemption or at least not one that works like FL, VA or LA where anyone can open up shop as long as they make it vaguely religious.

Fed can say "Here are the guidelines, states. Do this, according to this rubric, and anyone you accredit can access federal dollars."

We can scrap the federal dollars and leave it to the market to dictate which accreditors are valuable or not. If the market is cool with DEAC then let it ride. If the market decides only RA accreditors matter then go that direction.

But the current system is confusing and horribly expensive. And, I'm going to be really critical here, it isn't like traditional B&M schools are knocking it out of the park and it's just shady online or for-profit schools that are a problem. I've had more than a fair number of people cross my path with degrees from ostensibly good schools, sometimes even advanced degrees, who I have to question their basic literacy. I recently met someone with an M.S. in Exercise Science from a very expensive little liberal arts school with a nice reputation and I'm not quite sure how that happened given that even the most basic correspondence reads....troublingly.

So I'm not really convinced that the sky would fall if a typical school would accept the Gen Ed courses in transfer from Penn Foster. I feel like the expense and the creation of a cottage industry around "consulting" on matters of accreditation has far, far outpaced any sense of "academic standards" accreditors are supposed to be keeping up.

As for the ability to shop? Again, someone needs to authoritatively set a standard. Self-regulation gives way to an echo chamber very easily. So whether the answer is more or less regulation I think the important thing is that SOMETHING has to give. There are employers who will circular file a resume with UPhoenix on it. Doesn't matter if they pick up AACSB and a royal charter. Their reputation is not great. So we need to start trying to wrap our minds around the idea that accreditation is only one factor of how we view a school. Outcomes are only one factor. We need to take a holistic view of education. My local community college isn't a failure because most of those who enroll never graduate. It's a resource that appeals greatly to working adults who dip in and out of programs. But we're so fixated that there's a magic number that proves a school is "good." I feel bad for the people who legitimately benefited from schools like ITT Tech or Art Institutes and who then had their school thoroughly trashed all over the internet. Who won from that? Nobody. Not even the people who had poor outcomes. It just dragged down the good outcomes with them.

 

"Scrap the federal dollars"-yup.

 

There was a time when DETC first emerged as a serious accreditor of degree-granting DL schools. I was a huge fan because I really felt the RAs had ignored DL--discriminated against them, really. I'm kind of an underdog guy anyway, so this seemed like a great development. When DETC-accredited schools were included in the DANTES catalog, I really felt a victory was achieved.

But as time went by I soured on DETC (and, later, DEAC), feeling it was both second-tier and redundant. I felt the RAs had stepped up their games--even WASC--so what was the point? Add that to the fact that for a very long time no school that had been accredited by DETC/DEAC first had gone on to RA, and you had all the evidence you needed to call DEAC a second-rate accreditor of schools that couldn't reach RA.

While I feel those distinctions have softened a bit, they're still largely true. Why is it some schools are accreditable at DEAC but not RA? Why have schools moved from DEAC to RA, but never in the opposite direction? And to what extent does accreditation by DEAC still limit the utility of degrees issued by schools accredited by them?

In short, why do we need a DEAC? Is it because they're a pathway to accreditation for schools where RA is not an option? If so, why so? Is it that the DEAC is accrediting unworthy schools? Or is it that the RAs are still inappropriately discriminating against certain schools?

When California finally decided it didn't want to deal with unaccredited schools anymore, several DL schools inquired to WASC. At first, WASC said they were open to considering schools despite their small sizes. This turned out to be not true, and WASC cut them off. Most of the schools went out of business, and a few went to DEAC. (ACICS was blowing up at the time, so they became a non-option.) Was WASC right? Or was DEAC?

This remains a hairy mess. My inclination has been that DEAC was a second-tier operation for second-tier schools, and the research I did back in the day supported that conclusion. Since then, the RAs have loosened up, the concept of RA and NA has been blurred, and there are examples of outright discrimination by the RAs.

All my degrees are from RA schools (with one being from a UK equivalent). And I've been highly critical with over-stating the "it's all equal" argument. But do I think schools accredited by DEAC should be treated on the same level as RA? Yeah, I kinda do. In fact, in times past I've argued positively for the notion of practitioners doing a professional doctorate at a DEAC-accredited school--right here on this board. Personally, I would think no less of someone who'd done a professional doctorate from a DEAC-accredited school.

Do I think DEAC accreditation and RA are the same? No. Do I think DEAC remains redundant? Yeah, but that's not their fault. It's the accreditation system's fault. They still discriminate against innovative DL schools--something "competition" (Hi, Steve!) from DEAC helps mitigate. And that's probably still a good thing.

If I had my way, the RAs would do their jobs. Other institutional accreditors would focus on their specific niches. And DEAC would become a programmatic accreditor, focused on DL programs at otherwise-accredited schools. But I can't have my way. Still, I can have a Klondike Bar, so I will. G'nite.

 

Good post. I have both RA and DEAC/DETC degrees and I was challenged to complete all of them. If anything, the DETC/DEAC were harder and more thorough but less theoretical. Unfortunately, they are also, inevitability, "degrees with an explanation." That's not the schools' fault but there it is.

 

I think so, too. But they might not be wrong.

It would be interesting to know the percentage of schools that lose DEAC or RA accreditation due to finances.