The accreditation process for two-year schools

Colleges in the United States have a fair amount of independence and autonomy. A state’s control over higher education institutions can vary. Without the centralized authority of a federal government agency to oversee them, educational programs can vary considerably in quality.

Still, students and parents want to ensure that an institution’s education is solid. Many schools seek out accreditation to maintain enrollment numbers. This process can vary in length and complexity based on the accrediting association and the institution it’s assessing.

What is two-year college accreditation?

Accreditation is a quality review process that higher education institutions use to verify their quality and detect improvement areas. With the Higher Education Act, as amended, Congress gave accrediting agencies more power to ensure the academic quality of higher education institutions.

While these associations use their standards to measure quality, their power is advisory rather than legal. In other words, the educational programs or institutions they evaluate can continue to operate regardless of the agencies’ decisions.

Accreditation is an ongoing process. Accrediting agencies periodically review institutions to confirm that their quality remains high. Under the U.S. Department of Education, accredited schools must receive a review every five years. While the Council for Higher Education Accreditation allows for a 10-year recognition period, it requires an interim report after five years.

What are the types of accrediting organizations?

Institutions can earn accreditation from one of the two agency classifications below.

1. Institutional

Institutional accreditation extends to an entire institution. It indicates that each of an institution’s parts contributes to the achievement of its objectives. An institutional accreditation agency closely examines each component, including program design, finances, student support services, and learning outcomes.

Here are some examples of institutional accreditors:

Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE)
Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC)
New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE)
Council on Occupational Education (COE)
Higher Learning Commission (HLC)
Northwest Commission on College and Universities (NWCCU)
Southern Association of College and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC)

2. Specialized or programmatic

Specialized or programmatic accreditation usually extends to departments or programs within an institution. The unit can be as small as a curriculum or as large as a school within an institution. Some specialized accreditation agencies can also accredit vocational or technical institutions.

Private or nongovernmental agencies proficient in a specific field of study perform specialized reviews to determine if an institution qualifies for programmatic accreditation. For instance, a nursing department may apply for a specialized accreditation that reviews its medical curriculums.

Here are some recognized programmatic accreditation agencies:

Accreditation Commission for Audiology Education (ACAE)
Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN)
Accreditation Commission for Programs in Hospitality Administration (ACPHA)
Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP)
Accreditation Council on Optometric Education (ACOE)

What are the benefits of accreditation?

Pursuing and maintaining accreditation makes a higher education institution more appealing by:

Ensuring the quality of education: Accrediting agencies develop standards to measure what they consider the qualities of a solid educational program. Their procedures determine if an educational program operates at a basic quality level.
Standardizing education: Standardized courses and requirements ensure students that their education will give them the knowledge they’ll need in their chosen careers. Standardization also ensures employers that a candidate has received an adequate education.
Streamlining transfers: Students can more easily transfer course credits to a new institution with standardized courses. Students moving to four-year institutions can trust their credits will apply correctly.

What are the dangers of losing accreditation?

When a higher education institution is put on accreditation probation, it risks losing its eligibility to distribute federal financial funding. An organization may be placed on accreditation probation for reasons such as:

Low licensure exam pass rates
Low graduation rates
Low post-graduation employment rates

During probation, the accrediting agency closely monitors the institution to determine if it is addressing these issues. If the institution continues to fall short of quality standards, it will lose its accreditation.

A loss of accreditation poses risks to both institutions and their enrolled students. Without the ability to disperse Title IV funds, an institution could face a tarnished reputation, drops in enrollment rates, and a permanent shutdown.

What does this mean for students? If a student has already graduated from a higher education institution, their degree should retain its validity, even if the institution loses its accreditation down the road. However, if an educational establishment loses its accreditation during a student’s enrollment, that student could encounter challenges, such as:

No longer qualifying for federal financial aid
Being unlikely to receive any tuition reimbursement
Having a degree that is not considered valid for graduate studies
Earning credits that are not transferrable to another institution
Holding a degree with little value to employers
Having to retake courses to graduate

When a higher education institution or program loses its accreditation, the most viable solution for a student is to transfer to a different accredited organization.

What Are the Dangers of Losing Accreditation?

What are community college accreditation requirements?

The agency awarding accreditation determines the requirements for a community college or other two-year institution. Below are some examples of two-year school accreditation processes by different agencies.

1. MSCHE

MSCHE evaluates accreditation eligibility by seven standards categories:

Mission and Goals
Ethics and Integrity
Student Learning Experience Design and Delivery
Student Experience Support
Educational Effectiveness
Resources, Planning, and Institutional Improvement
Governance, Leadership, and Administration

You can read more about MSCHE standards for accreditation and what each category entails on the organization’s website.

2. ACCJC

ACCJC examines the following areas when accrediting community and junior colleges:

Authority
Operational Status
Degrees
Chief Executive Officer
Financial Accountability
Mission
Governing Board
Administrative Capacity
Educational Programs
Academic Credit
Student Learning and Student Achievement
General Education
Academic Freedom
Faculty
Student Support Services
Admissions
Information and Learning Support Services
Financial Resources
Institutional Planning and Evaluation
Integrity in Communication with the Public
Integrity in Relations with the Accrediting Commission

You can view these policies in full on the ACCJC’s website.

3. NECHE

NECHE uses these standards when evaluating an institution’s accreditation eligibility:

Mission and Purposes
Planning and Evaluation
Organization and Governance
The Academic Program
Students
Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship
Institutional Resources
Effectiveness of Educational Programs
Integrity, Transparency, and Public Disclosure

You can visit NECHE’s website for more information about its accreditation requirements.

What is the accreditation process for two-year colleges?

The accreditation process for two-year colleges consists of five parts:

Self-study or evaluation: During this phase, a two-year school reviews and compares itself to the agency’s accreditation standards. The school should write a self-evaluation, which it can use to determine where it needs to improve. It should also send the evaluation to the accrediting association for review.
Peer review: After a school completes the self-evaluation, an external evaluation begins. The external evaluators are volunteer faculty and administrators from other institutions. There are usually eight to 12 members on an evaluation team.
Site visit: The external evaluators visit the school to assess its programs’ quality and determine if it meets the agency’s standards.
Decision: The evaluation team makes a decision about the school, deciding whether or not it merits accreditation. The evaluators may make specific recommendations if there are areas where the school needs to improve.
Monitoring and continued improvement: After receiving accreditation, the school should work to continuously improve and maintain its standards. Implementing the evaluators’ recommendations is a good first step to improvement. After several years, the accrediting agency will reassess the school to ensure it’s maintaining the accreditation standards.

How can you streamline the accreditation process?

Accreditation is a complex, multi-year process for two-year schools. It’s also ongoing, meaning that even once a school earns accreditation, it must still face periodic reevaluation. Fortunately, there are several things your institution can do to simplify the accreditation process:

Centralize documents: The accreditation process can be paperwork-heavy. From self-evaluations to agency reviews, you’ll have a lot to keep track of. Having a centralized location for all the documents associated with accreditation ensures that nothing gets lost in the shuffle. It also makes it easier for your team to access the paperwork they need when they need it.
Communicate clearly: Communication is critical during the accreditation process, whether you’re going through an initial accreditation or a review. Make sure everyone involved in the process has a clear idea of what’s happening and when, as well as what’s expected of them. Your team should know where the documents are stored and how to use any software program associated with accreditation.
Use software: Software can simplify many things, including accreditation. A streamlined system helps you gather, reflect and act on assessment data.
Keep information up-to-date: Since accreditation is ongoing, your school should do what it can to keep its information updated. Updating your data and performing regular self-evaluations will also help you detect any issues before the next accreditation review comes around.

Explore our accreditation resources and request a demo

Watermark offers a centralized approach to the accreditation process. We designed our Planning & Self-Study software specifically for higher-education institutions, including two-year schools. This intuitive software system integrates with the technology your school already uses and works well with other Watermark solutions.

Request a demo today to learn more about how our Planning & Self-Study system can help your school achieve and maintain accreditation.

©️2024 Watermark Insights, LLC or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Other trademarks, including Accreditation trademarks, may be trademarks of their respective owners. This article is for information purposes only. Watermark believes the information in this article is accurate as of its publication date, and the information contained herein is subject to change without notice. Watermark is not affiliated with the Accreditor and the Accreditor did not participate in the creation of this report. Watermark makes no warranties, express or implied, in this report.