Dive Brief:

• The Department of Education’s latest “Dear Colleague” letter asks accreditors to pay closer attention to student outcomes at the colleges they oversee in order to maintain department approval as gatekeepers to federal financial aid.
• The letter mentions graduation, retention and job placement rates, depending on the type of college in question, and lays out how the department may question accreditors about outlier institutions with particularly low student outcomes.
• The Chronicle of Higher Education reports Judith S. Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, though an advocate of accreditation reform, worries an emphasis on institutional mission, peer review and autonomy will be lost with the government’s overhaul of accreditation policy.

Dive Insight:

The Department of Education has been cracking down on accreditors for the last year, following the stunning crash of Corinthian Colleges, which went bankrupt with its accreditation intact. Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called accreditors the watchdogs that don’t bite. His comment embodies the new expectation that accreditors be tough gatekeepers for federal dollars, instead of support entities for institutional self-improvement. The Obama administration imposed new regulations on accreditors in November and the Dear Colleague letter represents a next step, but more serious change will have to wait for congressional approval and perhaps the full rewrite of the Higher Education Act.

While many have used accreditors as scapegoats for the problems in student achievement, some have defended the organizations in the face of fierce criticism.