Margaret Spellings is promising to do for the handful of small liberal arts colleges accredited by the American Academy of Liberal Education (Note: subscription) what the U.S. Dept. of Education has already done for K-12 education: federalize ‘outcomes’ standards.
“They are typically smaller, religiously affiliated institutions such as Ave Maria College, Thomas Aquinas College, and the University of Dallas. The secretary’s decision does not immediately affect those institutions’ accreditation status,” according to the latest report from the Chronicles of Higher Educaton.
Unfortunately this is pretty much what must be expected when accreditation status is tied to eligibility for federally guaranteed student loans?the federal education authorities will call the shots. Even so, the dispute between the AALE and the feds hinges on what standards are being demanded, and whether there has been a good faith effort on both sides to 1) comply with existing accreditation standards?AALE says yes, the feds say no?and 2) whether the accreditors are being punished for new standards that have neither been clarified or formally established as policy.
Nowhere in this discussion has there been a clear indication that either the students at these institutions feel they are not being served, nor that the USDOE is accusing them of such. Colleges may eventually be forced to consider, like Grove City and a handful of others, what price they are willing to pay to maintain independence, or at least accreditation with AALE, in this federal catch-22 for higher education.
