This should surprise no one but it certainly should be alarming. According to Bill Armstrong, President of Colorado Christian University, the U.S. Department of Education is proposing to “turn both private and public schools into “authorized” institutions.”
This doesn’t appear to be about insuring the quality of education but rather an attempt to control it. Armstrong writes:
“…the state will be required to set standards, establish guidelines, and enact rules and regulations by which each college and university will be judged.
This assault on academic freedom and institutional autonomy is a slap in the face to regional accreditation agencies whose peer reviews have been bulwarks of integrity and academic quality for decades. Loss of accreditation is literally a death sentence.
The department’s new regulatory scheme doesn’t do away with regional accreditation; it adds another approval layer, state “authorization.” Some states will undoubtedly exercise this power with restraint, at least at the outset. But who can doubt that various interest groups will soon begin to clamor for ideas to be mandated by law as requirements for college classrooms?”
This author doesn’t doubt that for a moment.
Stop Plan To Put Colleges Under Political Supervision