Accreditation

The College Quality Fight

Lindsey Luebchow — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Colleges have won their battle with the Bush administration over accreditation reform. After two years of being chastised and pressured to better report on student learning, and then being threatened with new federal accreditation regulations, colleges turned to their longtime allies in Congress and found support. The Higher Education Act reauthorization bills, as passed by the Senate and the House, would prevent the Department of Education from issuing regulations on the accreditation process.

[slideshow] But while this is a victory for colleges, they would be wrong to think that the college quality issue has been put to rest. The heart of the matter—meaningful accountability for higher education institutions who receive billions of dollars in federal money—still has yet to be addressed. While the Bush administration failed to pursue a politically viable process for reform, the need for stronger accountability still remains highly visible to many members of Congress, and likely future members of the next Department of Education.

Where Spellings and Bush Went Wrong

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings began federal-level discussions on college quality through the work of her Commission on the Future of Higher Education in 2006. One of the Commission’s goals was to determine how to increase transparency in higher education and give students and families more information about college in general. Spellings wanted to make higher education more "consumer-friendly" and force colleges to prove to potential students that their schools are worth the investment.

These are all noble goals, and ones around which the Department of Education possibly could have developed a bipartisan consensus. As college tuition skyrockets, members of Congress are becoming more and more concerned about how the federal government can ensure that its investment in higher education isn’t being wasted. And addressing college quality is an appealing course of action, because (a) accountability and fiscal responsibility are easy concepts to sell; (b) constituents would love more and better information on colleges; and (c) improving higher education results can be linked to a slew of other issues: international competitiveness, loss of jobs in a declining economy, etc, etc.

But the Bush administration attempted to force accreditors to take student outcomes into account when making accreditation decisions. Specifically, Secretary Spellings tried to do so through the federal regulatory process, and thus, without the input of Congress. That proved to be a political error, allowing those opposed to accreditation reform to argue process over substance and giving cover to those substantively uneasy with the entire idea.

In terms of substance, Republicans have always struggled with the tension between government accountability and intervention. If the federal government is going to make large investment in something, then it should be able to monitor the results of this investment. But monitoring results tends to require federal intrusion into the localized management of education—the enemy of free-market, small-government Republicans.

So many Republicans in Congress were not thrilled with administration’s attempts to press accountability on higher education (and were likely a little wary after being reprimanded by their constituents for No Child Left Behind’s federal involvement). In response, the Bush administration toned down its rhetoric on accreditation over time (Spellings told the federal accreditation advisory panel in December: "Let me repeat: No one-size-fits-all measures, no standardized tests.") But it was still left fighting that battle by itself, and it lost. Too little compromise and too late.

War Should be a Last Resort

The college quality issue, however, has not died (as much as many colleges may want to see it move out of the spotlight), and it will not die. Substantively, key members of Congress and likely Republican or Democratic political staffers in the next administration's Department of Education will still want to push colleges to find and utilize better measurements of quality. Increasingly, they will be encouraged by business and the media, just as they were on elementary and secondary education reform.

We are encouraged that some colleges and higher education associations have begun voluntarily to address the need to measure student outcomes, which puts them in a better position to constructively engage and negotiate with the government. Colleges should be prepared to deal with how, not if, Congress and a new Department of Education proceed on the college quality issue. And be it through accreditation or another process, federal policymakers should be prepared to work with as opposed to against the higher education community to further the goal of heightened college quality.

Maybe the two groups can't agree on a policy to improve college quality, and a political war will be necessary. But if nothing else, this administration should have learned long ago, going to war should be a last resort and one engaged with well-armed troops.

A Wobbly Stool: Turning Student Loan Default Rates into a Better Quality Measure

Ben Miller — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

The House version of legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act contains language that proposes to change how student loan defaults are calculated, a move that could have serious implications for schools and students’ access to federal student aid. This is a welcome change to the current shaky three-part system of accountability that fails to provide good information about the absolute and relative quality of a school’s education.

The Current System

The absence of national examinations leaves only three things with enough teeth to effectively judge colleges that are not meeting desired standards for higher education: (1) accreditation, (2) licensure, and (3) loan defaults. Failure to meet these requirements can cause the school to lose the ability to receive federal funds — meaning all its students will be denied Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, and other forms of aid. Unfortunately, these measures do little more than guard against diploma mills or fake schools, indicating nothing about the quality of an individual institution.

Accreditation appears to be the strongest of the three legs of this accountability stool, but in practice it is little more than a rubber stamp. To be accredited, an accreditation agency, which is typically one of six regional groups, looks at a school’s resources and goals. Yet, as a July 2007 report by the American Council of Trustees & Alumni points out, these visits generally consist of little more than seeing if a school is meeting certain inputs, such as enough highly-qualified faculty. Accreditation agencies pay little to no attention to the outcome-oriented measures.

State licensure operates in a similar manner to these regional accreditation bodies with universities required to meet certain benchmarks set by their state. In many respects, state licensure is even easier to meet than accreditation standards, as the requirements are only on the local level.

Of these three standards, loan default rates are by far the most complex, yet also possibly the best measure of quality. The Department of Education calculates the percentage of students repaying federal loans from every given graduation year, known as a cohort, that default on those loans within two years of leaving school (for example, the 2005 cohort is measured in 2006 and 2007). Defaults in the third year or later are not counted.

Schools with more than 30 individuals in a given repayment cohort are subject to sanctions if more than 10 percent of a cohort defaults. A default rate of 40 percent in a given year or 25 percent for three consecutive cohorts results in the school losing access to federal funds.

The connection between cohort default rates and quality is not as obvious as regional and state accreditation, but it plays just as important a role. Since students can defer payments due to certain forms of hardship, defaulting on a loan is a sign that a student took on too much debt or could not obtain a job that allowed him or her to meet monthly payments. A large number of students in default thus can expose a school as being overpriced, poorly preparing its students for the working world, or both.

Despite their utiltiy, default rates are also a weak accountability measure in their current form. As our colleagues at Education Sector point out, it takes some time for a loan to officially default, meaning that the two-year window really only reflects students who make no payments on their loans.

A Welcome Change

Within the House reauthorization of the Higher Education Act there is a provision that would extend the cohort default rate measurement window (page 91) by another year, meaning students that default any time in their first three years after graduation will be counted for accountability purposes.

An analysis of default rates by the Department of Education found that a longer-term snapshot could show that default rates are as much as 60 percent higher than with the two-year window. Under the proposed change, public schools would see their average default rate go from 4.7 percent to 7.2 percent, while private schools would edge up to 4.7 percent from 3.0 percent.

The biggest increase, however, would be at for-profit institutions, which would see their average default rate increase from 8.6 percent to an estimated 16.7 percent. Even more troubling, though, is the fact that were the cohort window extended to four years, for-profit colleges would have an average default rate of 23.3 percent. In other words, after four years, one out of every four for-profit students would likely have defaulted on their federal student loans.

The Career College Association, an organization of vocational private schools, is opposing the House provision (click on Background Information), claiming that defaults far into the future have "little to do with [the student’s] education and more with their personal behavior and responsibility, or the lack thereof." The group goes on to claim that socioeconomic status is the highest indicator of default and that institutions enrolling lower-income students are thus likely to have higher default rates.

Even taking this argument into account, the projected for-profit default rates are still much higher than community colleges and other public institutions that enroll a large number of low-income students. For-profit default rates with a four-year window would still be seven percentage points higher than two-to-three year public schools.

This raises some troubling questions about for-profit colleges, such as whether students may be taking on overly high levels of debt to pay for programs that carry little value in the job market. It adds credence to the assertion that for-profit schools’ unscrupulous admissions and marketing policies are having long-term detrimental effects on their students.

When nearly one-fourth of a school’s graduates default on their federal student loans, it’s not a sign of individual flaws. It’s a troublesome indicator of an institution that is failing its students. If Congress wants to actually measure the quality of an institution, it needs to adopt the three-year window and strengthen at least one part of these supposed accountability measures.

Sparring with Spellings Over Accreditation

Ed Policy — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 01:00:00 -0400

Last week, Higher Ed Watch questioned why Education Secretary Margaret Spellings had granted the accrediting arm of the American Bar Association (ABA) continued recognition as the sole Education Department-approved law school accreditor. We had hoped that she would take tougher action against an entity that has bucked compliance with federal standards for over a…

Note: This post pre-dates Higher Ed Watch's shift to a new publishing system. For the complete original post, including any comments, please click here.

ABA Off the Hook on Accreditation, Again

Ed Policy — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:00:00 -0400

After walking a tightrope for more than a decade, the only entity in the nation that accredits law schools, an arm of the American Bar Association (ABA), has avoided a fall once again-thanks in part to the fortuitous timing of an unrelated accreditation issue between Congress and the Education Department.

Note: This post pre-dates Higher Ed Watch's shift to a new publishing system. For the complete original post, including any comments, please click here.

Gaming the Law School Accreditation Process

Ed Policy — Thu, 24 May 2007 01:00:00 -0400

For the past decade, the accrediting arm of the American Bar Association (ABA) has withstood criticism that its standards are poorly monitored and unrelated to law school quality. But the ABA's endurance as the sole Education Department-approved law school accreditor, despite refusal to reform, could soon be in jeopardy. And…

Note: This post pre-dates Higher Ed Watch's shift to a new publishing system. For the complete original post, including any comments, please click here.

Roundup: News You Need to Know, Mon., Nov. 13th

Ed Policy — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Higher-Education Segregation Lawsuit in Alabama Nears Settlement

A 25-year old lawsuit against the state of Alabama involving segregation in the state's higher education system could end in a month, according to the plaintiffs' attorney. A federal judge has…

Note: This post pre-dates Higher Ed Watch's shift to a new publishing system. For the complete original post, including any comments, please click here.

News You Need to Know: Daily Roundup, Thurs., Oct. 19th

Ed Policy — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 01:00:00 -0400

Early Admissions "Loophole" for Athletes

Schools that have recently eliminated the early admissions process, such as Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Virginia, still have an early admissions "loophole" in place…

Note: This post pre-dates Higher Ed Watch's shift to a new publishing system. For the complete original post, including any comments, please click here.