Regional Accrediting Agencies

With an invitation from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to play a bigger role in federal accreditation policy (see "Stacking the Deck"), the Education Department's National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity recommended last week that the department deny recognition to a division of one of the six regional accrediting agencies. The panel rejected a recommendation by the department’s staff to extend (for 18 months and with significant reservations) recognition of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges’s Commission on Technical and Career Institutions. Also see Inside Higher Ed, May 31, 2007