Rewriting the Rules of Accreditation

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | July 15, 2026 | Samuel Negus

[karpov]

Shortly before Donald Trump’s second inauguration, I summarized for the Martin Center the possible reforms to collegiate accreditation his administration might adopt. I divided these conservative reforms into three broad groups: anti-DEI measures, outcomes-based reforms, and elimination of accreditors’ role as “gatekeepers” of Title IV tuition aid.

The U.S. Department of Education recently concluded its “Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization (AIM) negotiated rulemaking” process. The results are predictably less sweeping than Trump’s campaign rhetoric promised, but largely follow the lines he drew then and in his subsequent executive order. I will briefly summarize the newly approved rule changes under those same three headings.

As I wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the recent executive order, Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s “Dear Colleague” letter, and the SFFA ruling itself, all reflect the same constitutional principles. Together, they embody “the conservative movement’s enduring consensus that America’s constitutional order is and ought to be colorblind.”

I also warned in my Martin Center piece that however impeccable their legal merits, such reforms “risk setting dangerous precedents” if future Democratic administrations respond in kind on the basis of the Left’s faulty race-conscious jurisprudence.

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TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: college

[Dr. Franklin]

The whole business of the feds handing out loans but relying on others for accreditation isn’t quite rational. It’s another reason to shut down the U.S. Dept. of Ed.