Council for Higher Education Accreditation
Encyclopedia
The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) is a United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 organization of degree
Academic degree
An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...

-granting colleges and universities. It identifies its purpose as providing national advocacy for self-regulation of academic quality through accreditation
Educational accreditation
Educational accreditation is a type of quality assurance process under which services and operations of educational institutions or programs are evaluated by an external body to determine if applicable standards are met...

 in order to certify the quality of higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...

 accrediting organizations, including regional
Regional accreditation
Regional accreditation is a term used in the United States to refer to educational accreditation conducted by any of several accreditation bodies established to serve six defined geographic areas of the country for accreditation of schools, colleges, and universities...

, faith-based, private career, and programmatic accrediting organizations.

The organization has approximately 3,000 academic institutions as members, and currently recognizes approximately 60 accrediting organizations. It maintains an International Directory which "contains contact information about 467 quality assurance bodies, accreditation bodies and Ministries of Education in 175 countries. The quality assurance and accreditation bodies have been authorized to operate by their respective governments either as agencies of the government or as private (nongovernmental) organizations. "

History

Established in 1996, it is the successor to several earlier national nongovernmental associations formed to coordinate the U.S. accreditation process. In 1974, the Federation of Regional Accrediting Commissions of Higher Education (FRACHE; an association of regional accreditor
Regional accreditation
Regional accreditation is a term used in the United States to refer to educational accreditation conducted by any of several accreditation bodies established to serve six defined geographic areas of the country for accreditation of schools, colleges, and universities...

s) and the National Commission on Accrediting (an association of specialized and national accreditation agencies) had merged to form the Council on Postsecondary Accreditation (COPA), which had the purpose of ensuring the quality of accreditation.

In 1993, it was dissolved because of tensions among the different types of accreditation agencies that formed its membership--ultimately the result of the increasing problems for higher education in the 1980s and 1990s. Problems with tuition increases, scandals, and doubts about the value of postsecondary higher education plagued all parts of the higher education sector.

In particular, Congressional investigations of soaring student loan defaults and student aid abuses were highly critical of the laxity of accreditation and accreditation processes.

Consequently, the 1992 amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965
Higher Education Act of 1965
The Higher Education Act of 1965 was legislation signed into United States law on November 8, 1965, as part of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society domestic agenda. Johnson chose Texas State University–San Marcos as the signing site...

 included Program Integrity provisions designed to strengthen the gatekeeping triad for student loan guarantees and financial aid (i.e., state licensing bodies, accreditation associations, and Federal government). The higher education community viewed with alarm the establishment of SPREs (State Postsecondary Review Entities), which were given accrediting powers under special conditions. "When campus lobbyists heard about the legislation and realized that non-governmental accreditation was being replaced by a federal-state agency evaluation of institutions, including assessments of academic quality never before carried out by government, they 'went apoplectic', as one observer put it."

Early in 1993, the regional accreditor
Regional accreditation
Regional accreditation is a term used in the United States to refer to educational accreditation conducted by any of several accreditation bodies established to serve six defined geographic areas of the country for accreditation of schools, colleges, and universities...

s (which in the United States are the ones accrediting the higher levels of traditional educational institutions) voted to leave COPA, indicating their dissatisfaction with COPA's political representation on Capitol Hill, which was widely viewed as ineffective at the time, particularly in regard to the new HEA legislation establishing the SPREs. In April 1993, COPA voted to disband itself by the end of the year.

Work by the National Policy Board on Higher Education Institutional Accreditation (NPB), and other groups laid the ground-work for a national successor to COPA. Among their concerns were establishing a more grassroots membership, billing and fees, and advisory role of the accrediting associations, and improving the public image of accrediting and improving the ability to lobby the Federal government.

CHEA's immediate predecessor was the Council for Recognition of Postsecondary Accreditation (CORPA), which was formed following the dissolution of COPA. CHEA grandfathered in those accrediting associations recognized by COPA, provided that more than half the institutions that they accredited granted degrees.

Most recently, CHEA is known for its strong public opposition to various accreditation reform efforts by the U.S. Department of Education , and in particular, the negative reaction of Judith S. Eaton, CHEA's president, to recommendations by Secretary Margaret Spellings
Margaret Spellings
Margaret Spellings was the Secretary of Education from 2005-2009 under the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush and previously served as White House Domestic Policy Adviser to President George W. Bush....

' Commission on the Future of Higher Education
Commission on the Future of Higher Education
The formation of a Commission on the Future of Higher Education, also known as the Spellings Commission, was announced on September 19, 2005 by U.S. Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings...

.
The organization faces substantial challenges, including helping the public to better understand accreditation in U.S., and to distinguish between the recognition of accrediting agencies conducted by the U.S. Secretary of Education, and those recognized by private nongovernmental associations, such as CHEA.

Its recognition of accreditors differs from the recognition by the U.S. Secretary of Education, required for Title IV (HEA) student financial aid eligibility and loan guarantees.

The organization wishes to prevent European-style ministry-based administration of higher education accreditation in the U.S. The association is based in Washington, DC.

Information resources

Each accreditor recognized by CHEA is independent, which means that accreditation requirements vary from group to group. CHEA maintains a website that contains a searchable database to check accreditation status of recognized accreditation agencies, accredited schools, or schools currently in the process of getting accreditation (i.e., "candidates" for accreditation). CHEA's "user agreement for publications of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation" states that it does not guarantee that all accredited schools are listed in the database.

Board of directors

David G. Carter, former Chancellor of the Connecticut State University System, is the Chair of the CHEA Board of Directors.

See also


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK