Today’s students deserve a system of higher education that delivers high-quality results and a guarantee of economic success and upward mobility. The key to assuring higher education quality in the U.S. is accreditation, the complex system used by the Federal government as a gate-keeping mechanism to over $130 billion annually in federal student ...

Dr. José Luis Cruz has a national reputation as a powerful voice for equity, opportunity and accountability in higher education. As an innovative administrator and advocate for low-income students, he has been at the forefront of efforts to enact effective policies that can deliver a high-quality college education for all of today’s students. Dr...

Issue Update: Accreditation Reform Armed with Better Data, Will Accreditors Finally Have to Act? In the midst of key conversations happening at last week’s NACIQI meeting, Policy & Advocacy Director Emily Bouck co-authored a blog post with Michael Itzkowitz from Third Way and Clare McCann from New America, discussing the new comprehensive com...

Accrediting agencies are responsible for doling out the “stamp of approval” that institutions of higher education need to be eligible to accept federal student aid. Though the federal government invests over $130 billion annually in federal financial aid for today’s students, federal policy does not have a clear focus on ensuring that student...

Twice a year, a body of accreditation experts known as NACIQI–the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity–gathers in a windowless conference space to debate the finer points of accreditation. And for the last two years, NACIQI members have come prepared with data on student outcomes to ask accreditors why some...

Barbara Damron was not only the first in her family to go to college, she was the first to go to high school. Driven by a passion for public policy-making and a calling for helping others, Secretary Damron’s health care career spanned more than 25 years, including work as an advanced practice nurse, educator, scientist,…

Policy matters, and it played an important role in Michele Siqueiros’ life. Effective college affordability policies provided her with an opportunity to go to college and ultimately get her master’s degree. This kickstarted a series of life-altering experiences that led her down a career dedicated toward improving policy and social mobility thr...

A college degree or certificate is ever more necessary in today’s economy; an estimated 65 percent of available jobs by 2020 will require some education or training beyond high school. The promise to students is that postsecondary education will set them up to obtain a job within their field and embark on a successful career…

Like many of “today’s students” who are working adults and come from diverse backgrounds, Mike Krause had to fight for a degree. An eighth generation Tennessean, Mike joined the U.S. Army at age 18 after spending six months attending a local community college. He served a total of eight years in the U.S. Army and…

Julie Peller, executive director of Higher Learning Advocates, a nonprofit organization working to on federal policy that impacts higher education,  sees “an opportunity” for conversations about what states need from the federal government as opposed to what the federal government wants states to do regarding issues of affordability. “Comple...

Accreditation is the linchpin of the federal role in higher education as the gate-keeping system for $120 billion annual investment in higher education . Looking to understand the complex and esoteric process that determines which colleges and universities get a “stamp of approval” to receive federal student aid? Our new accreditation ...

Today, everyone from higher education leaders and practitioners, to employers, and, most importantly, students themselves is asking a critical question: How can higher education be more directly related to jobs students want? An answer in Washington, D.C. is to broaden our thinking of “higher education” to include shorter-term and more work-c...