Time to Rethink University Accreditation. Program-value and debt-to-income data are sufficient to protect the public interest.

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | November 4, 2022 | George Leef

[karpov]

Many people believe that if a college or university is accredited, that’s the equivalent of a guarantee of quality. Just as the seal of approval from Underwriters Laboratories (UL) tells consumers that an electric appliance is going to be reliable, so too with college accreditation, which supposedly tells students that a college is of good quality. At least, that’s widely thought to be true.

Like so many other things that are widely thought to be true, the belief that accreditation is a guarantee of educational quality is mistaken. Many Americans holding degrees from accredited colleges learned little or nothing of value and now struggle to repay their loans with mundane jobs that high-school kids could do. Accreditors rarely uncover academic malpractice such as the infamous “paper courses,” for which star athletes at UNC got high grades to help them remain eligible to play.

A new study done by the Texas Public Policy Foundation should spark debate over the role of accreditation. In it, author Andrew Gillen endeavors to show which of the accrediting bodies appear to do the best job of maintaining sound educational standards and which seem to be failing in that task.

[Yo-Yo]

College accreditation covers the quality of the teaching, not the commercial viability of the teaching.

Further, most Universities also have each of their individual colleges, such as the College of Engineering, College of Business, etc. also accredited.

It's up to the student to enroll in a course of study that leads to gainful employment, not the school.

[poinq]

Accreditation is a scam already. Newsweek ranks are a scam as well. They should simply make the colleges list the course work of each major as well as the jobs and salaries of the average graduate. Colleges should also be liable for defaults on college loans.

I have sent 5 kids through college and I can tell you the million dollars I paid was not worth it. A boot-camp is just as good. The old idea that colleges teach you to think is just not true any more. They give the kids about one year of real worth while classes. They use filler for two years and then they have some sort of study abroad or internships for the last year. So you are getting maybe 2 years of useful stuff. And two years of stuff you could learn just by using Google. And of course a heavy dose of propaganda. English, History, Philosophy and religion courses are all dripping with propaganda.

[iacovatx]

Good points although the internships are critical to increasing employment stats upon graduation, it is a good question to ask whether this should be part of tuition. Also, there are general education requirements at some if not all schools that force the study of courses in departments that are not directly related to the student’s career but are required because of the long-ago model of university education as a place to round-out and produce a well-educated individual. Those requirements no longer focus on the classics, for example.

[iacovatx]

Thanks for your comments.
I note that many students choose a major such as a type of engineering that, later, they leave to enter a less difficult major. At my undergrad school, we called the engineering programs pre-business because of the high switch rate from engineering to business.
That effect benefits the less difficult majors that struggle to enroll students.
There are many problems that should be addressed.

[scrabblehack]

The only time I was aware of accreditation - representatives of the accrediting body did not visit the classroom. They did review our homework but that was it.

Maybe at some point they interviewed the professor - I’m not sure about that.

[Yo-Yo]

The only time I was aware of accreditation - representatives of the accrediting body did not visit the classroom. They did review our homework but that was it.

Maybe at some point they interviewed the professor - I’m not sure about that.

I was tangentially involved with an accreditation recertification (every 10 years) and it mainly consists of mountains of reports, statistics, and accreditation committee reviews.

[poinq]

You are very right that their are General Education requirements at almost every university. Those requirements are designed to fill classes that professors teach. If the university has a music department you will have a theater or music history requirement or at least music history will fill the arts requirement. Its just a game where they pay professors and then find something they can teach to students who don’t care about the subject. Its a waste of time. Because the subject is very much available on Youtube for free.

Internships are great. But that begs the question. Who is doing the teaching. Clearly the college has just turned itself into a career facilitator. And maybe that is all the students really need. But if that is the case, why are the tuitions so high? The colleges are performing the same task of a recruitment firm. They recruit students based on IQ and good high school work. They give them a year of obsolete training, then they match them with an intern company. And thats all. Everything else like football and dorms and school motto and fraternitys are fluff.