Leveraging Accreditation to Drive Innovation

HEADLINES

Leveraging Accreditation to Drive Innovation, Equity (Community College Daily, April 9, 2024) Accreditation holds significant weight in higher education. It validates institutional quality, impels continuous improvement, and serves as a gatekeeper for financial aid and credit transfer. However, colleges may approach the reaffirmation of their accreditation with a mindset fixated solely on meeting requirements rather than leveraging the process as a catalyst for innovation and equity. Institutions and their leadership should embrace accreditation as an opportunity for effectiveness, improvement, and transformation. 

President Biden Signs FY 24 Budget for Education Department, Other Agencies (Higher Ed Dive, March 25, 2024) The bipartisan agreement maintains the maximum Pell Grant award at $7,395 for the 2024-25 school year under a $79.1 billion bicameral budget signed by President Biden. According to a Senate summary of the funding bill, accredited institutions will see that this budget maintains the $900 increase of the last two fiscal years.

Illinois College Would Accept Transfer Credits from More Accredited Institutions Under Proposed Initiative (The Columbia Chronicle, March 22, 2024) Students at the Chicago-based College would have more options to transfer coursework from other accredited institutions. The college currently only accepts transfer credit from other regionally accredited colleges and universities. Although it considers transfer credit from select institutions with discipline-specific accreditation, it does not allow coursework from a nationally accredited institution that does not hold a programmatic accreditation.

Race to the Finish: The Rise of Faster Bachelor’s Degrees Raises the Question: What is College For? (Chronicle of Higher Education, March 21, 2024) The new three-year degrees, which will be offered by Brigham Young University-Idaho and Ensign College starting next month, are among the first in a pilot program involving more than a dozen colleges nationwide. Whether this convergence of the sectors represents progress or an existential threat to higher education depends on who you ask. Initially, accreditors were wary of this effort, but accreditors have recently warmed to the idea, seeing three-year degrees as a way to shrink spiraling student debt burdens and reduce stubbornly high dropout rates.