[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 106 (Thursday, July 9, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4947-S4948]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ACCREDITATION
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed
in the Record a copy of my remarks at the Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions hearing on ``Reauthorizing the Higher
Education Act: Evaluating Accreditation's Role in Ensuring Quality.''
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
ACCREDITATION
We're here today to discuss our system for ensuring that
colleges are giving students a good education. That's called
accreditation.
Accreditation is a self-governing process that was created
by colleges in the 1800s. The organizations they created were
intended to help colleges distinguish themselves from high
schools and later, to accredit one another.
At this time there was no federal involvement in higher
education or accreditation, and right around the end of World
War II, about 5% of the population had earned a college
degree.
Accreditation however took on a new role in the 1950's.
After the Korean War, Congress went looking for a way to
ensure that the money spent for the GI Bill to help veterans
go to college was being used at legitimate, quality
institutions.
Congress had enough sense to know they couldn't do the job
of evaluating the diversity of our colleges and universities
themselves so they outsourced the task to accreditation.
Accreditors became, as many like to say, ``gatekeepers'' to
federal funds.
[[Page S4948]]
The Korean War G.I. Bill of 1952 first established this new
responsibility--it said that veterans could only use their
benefits at colleges that were accredited by an agency
recognized by what was called the Commissioner of Education,
and then after the Department of Education was created in
1979, the Secretary of Education.
The Higher Education Act of 1965 used this same idea when
it created federal financial aid for non-veteran college
students. Around this time, about 10% of the population had
received a college degree.
However, the 1992 Higher Education Act Amendments were the
first time the law said much about what standards accreditors
needed to use when assessing quality at institutions of
higher education.
Today, current law outlines 10 broad standards that
federally recognized accreditors must have when reviewing
colleges: student achievement; curriculum; faculty;
facilities; fiscal and administrative capacity; student
support services; recruiting and admissions practices;
measure of program length; student complaints; and compliance
with Title IV program responsibility.
The law tells accreditors that they must measure student
achievement, but it doesn't tell them how to do it.
Colleges and accreditors determine the specifics of the
standards--not the Department of Education.
For the student achievement standard, colleges and
universities define how they meet that standard based on
their mission--the law specifically doesn't let the
Department of Education regulate or define student
achievement.
And in fact, in 2007, when the Department of Education
tried to do that, Congress stopped it.
Still, Congress spends approximately $33 billion for Pell
grants each year, and taxpayers will lend over $100 billion
in loans this year that students have to pay back.
So we have a duty to make certain that students are
spending that money at quality colleges and universities.
I believe there are two main concerns about accreditation:
First, is it ensuring quality?
And second, is the federal government guilty of getting in
the way of accreditors doing their job?
The Task Force on Government Regulation of Higher
Education, which was commissioned by a bipartisan group of
senators on this committee, told us in a detailed report that
federal rules and regulations on accreditors have turned the
process into federal ``micro-management.''
In addressing these two concerns, I think we should look at
five areas:
First, are accreditors doing enough to ensure that students
are learning and receiving a quality education?
A recent survey commissioned by Inside Higher Ed found that
97% of chief academic officers at public colleges and
universities believe their institution is ``very or somewhat
effective at preparing students for the workforce.''
But a Gallup survey shows that business leaders aren't so
sure--only one-third of American business leaders say that
colleges and universities are graduating students with the
skills and competencies their businesses need. Nearly a third
of business leaders disagree, with 17% going as far as to say
that they strongly disagree.
Second, would more competition and choice among accreditors
be one way to improve quality?
Accreditation is one of the few areas in higher education
without choice and competition. Today colleges and
universities cannot choose which regional accrediting agency
they'd like to use. If they could, would that drive quality?
Third, do federal rules and regulations force accreditors
to spend too much time on issues other than quality?
Accreditation may now be ``cops on the beat'' for
Department of Education rules and regulations unrelated to
academic quality. Accreditors review fire codes,
institutional finances (something the Department of Education
already looks at) and whether a school is in compliance with
Department rules for Title IV. To me, these don't seem to be
an accreditor's job.
Fourth, do accreditors have the right tools and flexibility
to deal with the many different institutions with many
different needs and circumstances?
Some well-established institutions may not need to go
through the same process as everyone else, allowing
accreditors to focus on those institutions that need the most
help.
Finally, could the public benefit from more information
about accreditation?
All the public learns from the accreditation process is
whether a school is accredited or unaccredited. Even at
comparable colleges, quality may vary dramatically, yet all
institutions receive the same, blanket ``accredited'' stamp
of approval. Seems to me that there could be more information
provided to students, families or policymakers.
We'd better find a way to make accreditation work better.
There's really not another way to do this--to monitor
quality. Because if accreditation doesn't do it, I can assure
you that Congress can't. And the Department of Education
certainly doesn't have the capacity or know-how.
They could hire a thousand bureaucrats to run around the
country reviewing 6,000 colleges, but you can imagine what
that would be like.
They're already trying to rate colleges, and no one is
optimistic about their efforts--I think they'll collapse of
their own weight.
So it's crucial that accrediting of our colleges improve.
Our witnesses have a variety of viewpoints on accreditation
and I look forward to the discussion.
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