Accreditation, Accountability, and Control

Many of us were surprised last month when the U.S. House Committee stripped language from its version of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act that would have given final authority for institutional student outcomes to the institutions. What some of us suspected seems to be confirmed in this Chronicle of Higher Education's story. The language in the House version would have given final and full authority for establishing student learning outcomes to the institution. The accrediting agencies, and in particular the program accreditors, wanted some say in student learning outcomes. Stripping the language gives time to the accrediting agencies and the institutions to work out a compromise so that the language in the law does not become too restrictive to either side.