A New Accreditation System?

By Libby A. Nelson. In President Obama’s few sentences about higher education in the State of the Union address Tuesday night, there might have been a presidential precedent set: the first allusion to postsecondary accreditation in the landmark annual address to Congress.
In a domestic policy blueprint that accompanied the speech, Obama called for major changes to the nation’s system of accreditation -- changes that could upend the current system and provide a pathway for federal financial aid for competency-based learning, massive open online courses and other innovations. Obama called on Congress to either require existing accreditors to take value and quality into account when giving colleges their stamp of approval, or to create a new alternative system of accreditation that would bypass the old gatekeepers.
It’s that second possibility -- a route to federal financial aid that doesn’t pass through traditional accreditors -- that many, particularly those who favor new approaches to credit, found most intriguing. (And they blogged and columned and tweeted up a storm of enthusiasm as a result.) Such a system could open federal student aid to programs that give students credit based on prior learning or exams to prove competency. Read more...