a Better Model for College Accreditation

Higher education accreditation is in crisis. Accreditation was once an important signal, giving parents and students useful information about the value of a college degree. Now it has been reduced to a political weapon wielded against those who deviate from progressive orthodoxy.

This year, six public university flagships—Texas A&M and the Universities of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee—joined forces to create the Commission for Public Higher Education. CPHE focuses on a different model of accreditation. By focusing on real student achievement, job readiness, and research productivity, these universities aim to make accreditation a tool for competitive enhancement, not a bureaucratic straitjacket.

For much of American history, accreditation was a cooperative process. College presidents and senior faculty formed voluntary associations to review one another’s standards and provide suggestions. Accreditors were partners in educational quality, not petty enforcers of byzantine rules.

Today’s system, by contrast, is dominated by a handful of national and regional bureaucracies. These agencies represent sprawling and intrusive compliance regimes that force universities to spend millions of dollars with little resultant effect on teaching. Over time, accreditors’ standards have grown more subjective and less tied to measurable learning outcomes or an institution’s mission.

The consequences for public colleges and universities are profound and damaging. Every year, compliance costs imposed by accreditors become part of the tuition bill families pay. In 2025, tuition at public four-year colleges rose to an average of $11,610 for in-state students. For students, the cost of accreditation means fewer resources devoted to teaching and support.

The CPHE recalls the original, now-eroded vision of American university oversight. Instead of hiring outside auditors or distant review teams, CPHE accreditation decisions are made by panels formed from the leadership and expert faculty of member universities—people with direct experience in the mission, constraints, and opportunities of public institutions. This approach is designed to resist both bureaucratic inertia and outside political manipulation.

The CPHE’s criteria are also significant. Rather than measuring an institution’s compliance with procedural minutiae, the commission asks a few pointed questions: Are students actually learning? Are they graduating? Are they getting jobs? Are universities serving their stated public missions and improving themselves?

These outcome-driven benchmarks replace checklists and box-ticking with direct evidence of educational value. Where other accreditors change focus at the whim of political fashion, CPHE anchors its oversight in data, public mission, and institutional integrity.

Crucially, CPHE review is not a decennial, high-stakes ordeal but a process of continuous betterment. Member institutions commit to regular data-sharing, open review of best practices, and ongoing conversation about what excellence should mean. This collaborative model does not let anyone off the hook; rather, it sets the expectation that improvement is permanent and public.

One persistent concern in the debate over new accreditors is whether such models can remain insulated from political interference. Higher education leaders understand that past reform efforts have sometimes failed because they lacked clear lines of accountability or because partisan actors found ways to insert themselves into review processes. To address this issue, CPHE member institutions remain directly accountable to their home states through existing state governance and law—state boards and legislatures set and monitor performance metrics, require regular reporting, control budgeting and leadership appointments, and can mandate accreditation policies that tie institutional standing to meeting state-defined outcomes. This approach guards against national political fads and ideological crusades. By keeping decisions close to those responsible for outcomes, CPHE hopes to build a firewall against the politicization that has plagued other accrediting bodies.

Accreditation should not be a millstone or an ideological gauntlet. At its best, it is an engine for challenge, innovation, and public trust. By empowering the people closest to the mission, insisting on outcomes rather than rituals, and driving continuous improvement, CPHE points the way forward for the credibility of American higher education.

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