Who Confers Accreditation?

Accreditation historically has been the way for students to determine whether the institution they attend maintains certain quality standards. In most countries, the central government accredits higher education institutions. In France, for example, the national government is the accrediting agency. In the United Kingdom, the national government essentially supervises accreditation. In Canada, the provinces are responsible.

In the United States, the accreditation system works differently. Its different structure may make it a potential vehicle for certifying quality in electronically delivered international distance education.

A look at the history of U.S. higher education accreditation provides some evidence for this notion. While education in the United States has never been the responsibility of the federal government, in recent years, there are increasing resources from the federal government for elementary, secondary and higher education.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (also known as “the stimulus”) provided more than $100 billion in education funding and college grants and tuition tax credits, as well as billions more for school modernization. As Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, “the primary goal of the stimulus is to save jobs—but the larger goal is to drive a set of reforms that we believe will transform public education in America. The four issues are: higher standards, data systems, turning around underperforming schools, and teacher quality.”

University accreditation in the U.S. has interesting roots. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the states did almost nothing about educating their populations. Even though the first public school in the North American British colonies was created by local edict in Massachusetts in 1639, education primarily was the province of private institutions. It was delivered through an intricate web of private schools that prepared students for private universities. Because of its exclusive nature, education was reserved for the upper classes.

The situation changed as the country expanded to the West and its citizens became more mobile. At the end of the 18th century, in the Northwest Ordinance passed by Congress in 1787, the federal government encouraged the founding of universities on its frontier, in wild and untamed places like Michigan. And in the first half of the 19th century, public primary- and secondary-level schools proliferated as a result of decisions by states to fund them through state taxes.

Because the frontier universities had no private preparatory school system from which to garner students, they were faced with what can only be described as a recruiting problem. The dilemma was this: How could they convince students to continue their education at a university? The solution was not long in coming from the University of Michigan through a program called the high school visitor plan. University faculty would visit public high schools in their state and examine both students and faculty to determine whether the school’s students were “university material.”

The Michigan Plan caught on, and soon, university faculties throughout the Midwest were visiting high schools. The practice became so prevalent that by the early 1900s, high schools were complaining they were being overrun by state university faculty. The high schools suggested the process be turned around and that colleges and universities be the institutions examined. In fact, that’s what happened.

Find out more about accreditation on the U.S. Department of Education site.