College accreditation developed in the late 19th century as a voluntary means for institutions that offered a true college experience to differentiate themselves from schools calling themselves “colleges” but mostly operating via correspondence. For schools to become members of an accreditation association, they had to have the right kinds of inputs, such as a respectable library and faculty who had some claim to expertise. The accreditors didn’t try to measure student outcomes because it was assumed that the people in charge would look after academic standards.
No one foresaw the damage that would later be done when federal student aid turned college into something for everyone. Standards plunged, the curriculum eroded, and it became easy for students to graduate without having learned anything of use. Accredited schools never lost that status just because they enrolled lots of disengaged students and helped them get through to graduation with grade inflation and lots of weak courses.
Accreditation, in short, was much ado about nothing. But perhaps that is going to change.
In today’s Martin Center article, Samuel Negus of Hillsdale College writes about a new accreditor, Postsecondary Commission (PSC). What sets it apart is that it will focus on outcomes, especially how well or poorly graduates fare once they have left school.
He writes:
The unique centerpiece of PSC’s accreditation standards are its two evaluative rules for economic value. Firstly, PSC’s ‘value-added earnings’ standard requires institutions to produce wage gains for entering students (including by program and demographic group) that exceed their cost of attendance. PSC tracks and sums these wage gains over evaluation periods ranging from five to 15 years (depending on program length). Secondly, the ‘absolute earnings’ standard requires graduating cohorts from each program to earn, on average, at least 150 percent of the federal poverty rate.
I like the concept. For too long, the higher-education establishment has been able to lure in clueless kids with the notion that just graduating will ensure them a huge earnings boost. PSC might drive the final nail into the coffin of that nonsense.
Read the whole thing.