US Dept. of Ed - Differences Between Regional and National Accreditation are Unfounded - Same Stds

I am not sure if this has been posted or not. It is from the Southern Association web site and is a letter dated Feb 2020 from the US Department of Education. It says in part that differences between National and Regional Accreditation are unfounded and all are held to the same standards. They are doing away with the distinctions (Regional and National).

http://sacscoc.org/app/uploads/2020/03/State-Authorization-Letter-w-Diane-Signature-2.26.19.pdf

 

Can't recall if it was discussed here, but it's been widely ridiculed elsewhere. Betsy want's to have accreditation agencies "compete" against each other.

 

They already are to a certain extent. I believe they have been crossing geographic lines and the issue of distance learning makes some of it obsolete. The US DoE is perhaps simply recognizing reality and moving into the 21st Century.

 

Considering the public statements that were made by DeVos, I am personally more inclined to believe that they were just fishing for justification. To a great extent, the major institutions have been using and respecting the traditional geographic domains of the regional accreditors. The only ones that I'm aware of who were "shopping" for accreditors... well...

 

I wonder if the military will allow graduates with formerly “NA accredited” degrees to become commissioned officers?

 

It's also clear from the letter that states retain the right to make a distinction between RA and NA regarding licensure, etc. States might decide to adjust to this new standard or they might not. Also, regarding the acceptance of NA credits or degrees by RA universities, individual universities set their own standards as to what is acceptable and what is not and are not bound by any shift in attitude by the DoE. If you put it all together, it's not clear that this DoE shift will make any practical difference. It might give students a firmer appeal stance re acceptance of credits/degrees. I'm guessing that this is just another smallish step forward for the NA schools.

 

The Army doesn’t require your degree to be NA or RA for OCS. Check out the goarmy website.

 

There are a fair number of chaplains with NA degrees.

 

In the end, what holds back NA schools is not a lack of standards. It's the fact that national accreditors have a smaller pool of schools. The vast majority of four year institutions are RA. So RA can circle the wagons and keep out anyone else. If I form the Neuhaus Alliance of HR Professionals I could be every bit as legitimate as SHRM. However, SHRM has a much broader membership. If they shut me out then the best I can hope for is whatever scraps they leave behind. Schools, regardless of their accreditation, can just not be generous with accepting credits from other schools using, it seems, any criteria they wish. Though many schools hide behind supposed rules that they are prohibited from accepting NA credits or NA degrees as admission requirements for graduate study. Then we turn around and see the schools that not only accept NA credits and degrees but others that have accepted unaccredited degrees as well.

I maintain that if the Ivies turned around and dropped their accreditors tomorrow and formed a private association with no USDOE recognition, it wouldn't really matter for them. Their reputations are strong enough and their alumni are influential enough that they would likely be able to overcome any challenges from being formally unaccredited. Meanwhile, UPhoenix could pick up AACSB tomorrow and still be ridiculed by a good many hiring managers.

That said, I've stated before that we don't have a tiered system in the U.S. NA to RA isn't like going from enlisted to a commission. There isn't a formal ranking system. The ranking system exists outside of the scope of DOE recognition. As with the example above, some of it even extends beyond the accreditors themselves.

I, personally, would not cry if we burned the whole thing down and came up with something less complex and confusing to the average student.

 

They have done so for many years, IIRC.

 

The main issue is the acceptability of credits and degrees from nationally accredited schools by employers and by regionally accredited schools. There has always been a gap--prima facie evidence of the inferiority of national accreditation. The arguments around this subject relate to (a) whether there is a real gap between the quality of accreditation processes--are NA schools inferior to RA schools?--and (b) the extent of the acceptability gap and whether that matters to an individual's situation. The research in this area is thin, but the anecdotes all point in one direction.

My take: I share John Bear's advice that one should be very careful to consider one's current and future needs when selecting a school. This generally means earning a degree with as much utility as possible. But to continue with my opinion (not attributing anything else to John or anyone else), I think national accreditation is legitimate, and degrees earned from NA schools are properly earned credentials. My cautions have always been about their utility. But I certainly have no trouble with them.

My other main criticism is the firewall between NA and RA, that for a long time no NA school went on to RA and, when they did, it begged the questions "why?" and "why don't others?" Those questions still apply, but the wall is crumbling.

What I really have no use for are blanket statements either way about a subject with so much nuance and so many individual circumstances. "RA or the highway" is just dumb. There are many splendid schools that are nationally accredited and many, many people who use degrees from NA schools successfully in their careers. But I also reject the claims that RA and NA are equal. That is demonstrably false. Better to note how the gap between them is closing, as well as the anecdotal evidence of individual success stories.

In short, I don't have some over-arching bellyache about either nationally accredited schools, nor for-profit schools. (I've taught at one start-up school that went on to NA, and one for-profit school as well.) I think degrees earned from these are legitimate. I've never attended either--all my degrees are from regionally accredited, not-for-profit schools (and one from a foreign university). But that doesn't mean I have a built-in knee-jerk reaction to these schools and their graduates. And who knows? I might attend one someday. You never know....

 

My observation that NA Accreditation such as DEAC raised their bar, as a result, a number of schools in the least 5 - 6 years were put on notice, lost accreditation and or withdrew and some went out of business. It started at DEAC with the change in management and change in name (from DETC). Yet other NA accreditor ACICS- in 2016 lost recognition and shows that there is accountability in place. DE conducts reviews of the recognized agencies.
At some pint in the Merch 2018 Department of Education temporarily reinstated its recognition of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS).
I also think that NA is legitimate, and degrees earned from NA schools are properly earned credentials.
The jury is the industry and the education providers.
For tuition assistance, NA providers are not always eligible. Another posible issues is that NA providers always or mostly for profit.
Typically, NA schools will accept credits from both regionally- and NA schools. NA credits usually are not transferable to a regionally-accredited college.

I really like the table that was posted here in the past By Dr. Rich Douglas:
I post from my memory

Academic world - more misses than hits
Military - more hits than misses
Law enforcement - more hits than misses
Teaching - more misses than hits - many school districts require an RA degree.
IT - More hits than misses
Healthcare - More misses than hits?
etc etc etc.

 

Let's not forget that ACICS was given back it's recognition (without doing anything to earn it) and that most recently it was involved in a little incident that made it look like it really doesn't exist as any sort of effective overseer. So that whole accountability thing might be a little shakier than you've suggested.

https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/acics-accredited-no-faculty-no-students.56899/#post-533451

 

The list is already reflecting only "Institutional Accreditor" and "Programmatic Accreditor." https://ope.ed.gov/dapip/#/agency-list

 

It amazes me how often I read things online like "It's regionally accredited so it's good!" or "It's nationally accredited! Stay away!". Watching people accept the verdict on the schools discussed based solely on those things is unfortunate. The binary thinking so many Americans have on this is just sad. Very few people understand that a school's quality isn't determined entirely by its accreditation or profit status.

I would like to see an end to the NA-RA system, and simply have each accredited school be judged individually on its own merits like we see in many other countries.

 

Interesting catch. Thanks for posting the link.

 

Actually, it is a REACTION to binary thinking, ignoring the nuances you imply. How many people--invariably holding such degrees--post here insisting that national accreditation is the equal of regional accreditation...when it is demonstrably not so?

But I'm with you that there are individual distinctions to be made among schools in any category. But since it's hard to know what your future needs will be, guidelines about the various forms of accreditation can be useful.

Fine, but that's what we used to have. National accrediting agencies accrediting degree-granting schools is a recent phenomenon. In 1980, for example, DEAC (then the National Home Study council) accredited just two schools offering the bachelor's and none offering graduate degrees. Accrediting degree-granting institutions was left to the regional associations and programmatic accreditors.

There is a huge difference in difficulty obtaining RA vs., say, DEAC accreditation. Right now, in California, unaccredited schools--including many who've been operating legitimately and legally for decades--are faced with either obtaining recognized accreditation or shutting down. The Western Association indicated early on its willingness to consider these schools, but that later proved to be a lie. So the schools are forced to turn to national accreditors. But that's gotten harder with the collapse of ACICS, especially schools that do not operate DL programs. (Or do, but are not designed in the cookie-cutter, course-in-a-box fashion that appeals to DEAC.) So, if your RA ignores you and you don't fit DEAC's paradigm, you suck.

 

In 2020? Not according to the US Department of Education. They meet the same standards. It may be more difficult in terms of having a Physical Plant and some of those issues but qualitatively in terms of academics not necessarily so.

We all know about utility issues but when you ask about things like qualitative issues people don't refer to metrics. They just say, well everybody knows that. I recently read an academic article by two PhDs who said something similar (such and such accreditor was sub par). It also amounted to everybody knows that with absolutely no proof (no data).

 

Accreditation is the meeting of the minimum requirements - Standard.
Even if the standards are very high schools make their own name. I didn't invent the tiered system.
So when it comes to transferring credit once school may find the other school is not on the level even if the classes are matching.
Maybe one school has a leading scientist in the field and more advanced equipment and methods then exactly the same class in another school.
Credit transfer is always up to the accepting party.