Dear Tatjana,
I wish we could talk, because I would like to hear more from you about this topic. One thing that many countries do when their accreditation system is new -- or when the country is small and everyone knows everyone else -- is to involve a few experts from other countries, on the visiting team and on the Commission. Just having an outsider in the room can be helpful, and there are times when an outsider can comfortably say something that is very difficult for someone from the country to deal with. Do you think that would help?

Barbara

Dear Irina,
The questions today are excellent!

Generally, we work with colleges and universities so that they don't ask to be accredited until they are ready. That is an imperfect process, but we like to say that it is hard to get in and hard to get out. "Getting out" means that an accredited institution can lose accreditation. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Typically, it is a private institution that does not have enough money. Perhaps they don't have enough money because they are too specialized and there are not enough students or donors. Perhaps they are just not well enough organized to manage their affairs or they waited too long to fix a problem. Generally an institution will be "on probation" before it would lose accreditation.

Barbara

Hi Sino,
The standards are set by each accrediting body. In order for students to get federal financial aid, they need to attend a university accredited by a "recognized" accreditor.. And the process of getting that recognition involves a very close look at whether the standards are generally accepted by other universities, by employers, by state government and others. So there is no concrete set of minimum standards. We have a VERY decentralized system of higher education in the U.S.

Barbara