America’s educational accrediting organizations purport to ensure quality in college and university degree programs, but that’s laughable — many programs remain accredited who graduate students who have learned little or nothing. Now that there is a burgeoning market for “microcredentials,” people are asking if the accreditors should oversee them.
In today’s Martin Center article, Madison Marino Doan looks at that question.
She writes:
Evidence from the traditional accreditation space raises red flags.Given the limited number of credentials that provide a good return on investment, it is reasonable to question whether accreditors, whose track record of evaluating higher-education institutions is weak, are genuinely prepared to judge microcredential providers. Evidence from the traditional accreditation space raises red flags. A 2022 report found that fewer than three percent of accreditor decisions actually punished a college for bad results or weak academic programs.
Students who want educational programs that will pay off for them should look elsewhere than accreditor reports for the evidence they need.