In 2023, then-candidate Donald Trump called accreditation his “secret weapon” for reshaping higher education. Now, in his administration’s second year, that pledge is taking shape.
Last week, the Department of Education (ED) announced it will hold a negotiated rulemaking panel this spring to rewrite existing accreditation regulations. In its announcement, the department indicated it wants to make it easier for new accreditors to enter the market, increase emphasis on student employment and earnings outcomes, eliminate DEI-related standards, and revise how accreditors are recognized and monitored.
“Accreditation functions as the central nervous system of higher education, and the system cannot be made healthy without addressing its deepest flaws,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in the announcement.
Additionally, ED is revising the Accreditation Handbook, as directed by an April 2025 executive order. ACE submitted comments on behalf of 28 other associations, urging the department to focus on student success and continuous improvement and warning against politicizing accreditation or substituting federal priorities for professional judgment.
“We are very worried about the independence of accreditation … and this administration’s efforts to bring more political and ideological influence over the accreditation process,” ACE’s Jon Fansmith said last week at the Council for Higher Education Accreditation’s (CHEA) annual conference. “We would be concerned about any administration having that authority. That’s not the purpose of accreditation. That is not why accreditation has worked so successfully over time.”
Kent, also speaking at CHEA’s conference, critiqued the state of accreditation while also encouraging stakeholders to engage in ED’s reform efforts.
“We want to work with you all to move forward, together… As someone once told me, it’s better to be at the table than on the menu,” Kent said.
These updates are the latest sign of growing federal attention on accreditation. Last month, ED awarded $14.5 million in grants tied to accreditation reform, and a recent meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity—the first since ED officials were confirmed—was unusually partisan and contentious. Accreditation is also poised to play a more central role in Congress this year.
“They’ve put a lot of pieces in place,” Fansmith said on the dotEDU podcast. “When you combine all of those pieces into one element, what is abundantly clear is they are looking for a pretty comprehensive overhaul of the accreditation process, reshaping it in a way that concerns me.”
