Shortly after the election, President Trump recorded a short video where he discussed accreditation as a “secret weapon.” Then he went quiet and people stopped paying attention. They shouldn’t have. Well, about 2 weeks ago, he signed an executive order titled “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education” that shook up accreditation. Why and how anyone was taken by surprise is beyond us: there’s an entire section in Project 2025 on “accreditation reform.”
Today we’re going to try to explain accreditation and why it matters. First things first: Columbia undergoes accreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, a private non-profit organization, roughly once every ten years. It’s currently amidst an accreditation process now, where we are evaluated by an outside academic leader (in this case Johns Hopkins President Ronald Daniels), which we understand is going very smoothly thanks to the excellent work of the Provost’s office.
But beyond that, most Columbia students, alumni, even faculty members couldn’t tell you what an accreditor is or why they matter. Accreditation is an important cog in academic quality control that is rarely discussed outside of administrative circles. However, without accreditation, students would not have access to federal student loans, the university would not have access to federal grants, and your degree would (likely) be little more than a stylish piece of parchment (here’s what they looked like from King’s College days, courtesy of the University Archives, one of our favorite offices on campus.)
(For the classical nerds among us: the name “Neo-Eboracopolis” is a delightful little barbarism, a mashup of Greek and Latin, that would make a purist twitch. It throws together Neo- (Greek for “new”), Eboracum (the Roman name for York in England), and -polis (Greek for “city”) into one gloriously inconsistent label for New York. If that’s a bit much, fear not: today’s diploma opts for the more sober, fully Latin Noveboracensis in the adjectival genitive form. Less fun, but technically correct.)
The history of accreditation
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law a signature piece of the Great Society legislation—the Higher Education Act (HEA). Title IV of HEA is the section that allows students to qualify for student loans (while student loans date to 1965, the federal government required institutions seeking GI Bill funds for veterans to be accredited since 1952.) To qualify, an institution must receive accreditation from an agency approved by the Secretary of Education. Today, there are six “regional” accreditors recognized by the Department of Education—these accredit almost all of the comprehensive research institutions in the United States including the entire Ivy League. Columbia, for example, is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
Up until the early 1900s anyone could start a college, or even a medical school. The famous Flexner Report of 1910, for example, showed that medical education back then included a hodgepodge of “unconscionable quacks” without standards. (We, however, were an exception—Columbia’s medical school was described as “of modern equipment and organization, conducted by full-time instructors, amply assisted” albeit the clinical department “labor[ed] under the disadvantages common to the schools of New York.”) That led to medical schools coming together to decide on the standards for a school to be accredited, resulting in what is today known as the Liaison Committee on Medical Education overseen by the American Medical Association.
From those humble beginnings evolved a “triad” of regulation of higher education: accreditation bodies govern educational quality, state authorities prosecute consumer fraud issues, and the federal government oversees compliance with federal financial assistance.
Together, the triad has made America’s higher education institutions the best in the world. The accreditation process in particular has been the guiding light of quality assurance adopted by countries that want to improve their universities. The process has, in general, been (relatively) apolitical for almost a hundred years with a focus on quality and peer review.
How accreditation works today
Today, there are two main types of accreditation in the U.S. higher education system. Institutional accreditation evaluates the university as a whole—governance, academics, finances—while programmatic accreditation applies to specific professional schools like medicine (LCME) or law (ABA). Most federal funding, including student aid, hinges on institutional accreditation. Without it, a university can’t access federal loans or grants, and students’ degrees may hold little practical weight. That’s why diploma mills, no matter how convincing their names, don’t qualify. Fields like medicine and law impose additional requirements through their own programmatic accrediting bodies.
In theory, the accreditation process is straightforward: every 5–10 years, a team of peer reviewers (usually faculty and administrators from other institutions) visits a campus to assess whether it meets defined standards. In practice, it’s an intense, multi-stage undertaking. It often includes site visits, interviews, data analysis, and a comprehensive “self-study” report that can run hundreds of pages. As we mentioned, Columbia is currently undergoing this process, led by an external review team headed by Johns Hopkins President Ronald Daniels.
Stormy seas ahead
So how did this century-old peer-review system become the subject of an executive order and political intrigue?
Because accreditors hold the keys to federal funding, they’re overseen by the U.S. Department of Education, which in turn must “accredit the accreditors.” Since the 2008 Higher Education Act reauthorization, that approval process has been managed by a body called the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI).
Over the past decade, nearly all accreditors have incorporated some form of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) into their evaluative frameworks. For example, Middle States (Columbia’s accreditor) identifies “reflection on diversity, equity, and inclusion” as one of five core values shaping its standards.
This is precisely what the Trump administration appears poised to challenge.
The recent executive order instructs the Secretary of Education to “realign accreditation with student-focused principles.” The direct ability of the executive branch to change accreditation standards is theoretically long and difficult, but this administration hasn’t let that be an obstacle. We do not know exactly what avenues the Department of Education will use to impact the accreditors, but if Florida again serves as a proxy for Republican efforts in higher education (as we predicted in November) we have a hint.
In 2022, the state passed a law requiring public colleges to switch accreditors at the end of every cycle, similar to how public companies have to rotate audit partners every few years. In 2024, Governor Ron DeSantis sued the Biden administration, arguing that he would not “bow to unaccountable accreditors who think they should run Florida’s public universities.” The larger goal appears to be neutralizing the accreditors’ “standard-setting power,” effectively forcing them to remove DEI requirements from their accreditation standards, or else risk being unable to offer accreditation anymore.
The regional accreditors have, it appears, decided to let each university follow its own conscience on these matters for now. Middle States issued a statement in response to the executive order that includes, in part, “It is… simply false that we compel institutions to adopt discriminatory ideology. Our standards are mission- and student-centered and are established or revised through an intense, participatory review process grounded in federal regulation. Numerous criteria within our standards refer to academic freedom as well as diverse backgrounds, ideas, or perspectives as a critical attribute for accredited institutions.”
Accreditation was never designed to be political. In fact, one of the things that has made accreditation so successful was how the apolitical and obscure machinery of quality control hummed in the background. For decades, provosts’ offices labored behind the scenes, compiling reports, mapping curricula, surveying students—all in service of continuous improvement.
But now, for the first time in a hundred years, that backstage machinery is being pulled into the political spotlight. Where it goes from here is uncertain. What’s clear is that accreditation is no longer something most people can afford to ignore.
On a sunnier note
We are days away from the end of the semester and the start of final exams. Despite dire predictions to the contrary and an academic year that began with the defacing of alma mater, we’ve had no riots, no encampments, no building takeovers—a stark contrast from a year ago. Campus life seems to have returned to normal. Meanwhile responsible people are now proactively looking at hard questions vs. the frozen indecision of a year ago. Keep up the good work.
News Roundup
– May 3, 2025. The NYT published an article today explaining the tension Alan Garber, Harvard’s president has faced. The headline itself is fascinating: “Harvard’s President Is Fighting Trump. He Also Agrees With Him.” This week, Dr. Garber admitted that Harvard’s culture is an issue that “needs urgent fixing” in that many voices have been shut down that don’t fit the agreed-upon “progressive narrative.” He also believes antisemitism is an issue. However, he explained, “The issue for me was not principally whether we had problems that we needed to address” but more of a principled stance. Recently, he has stripped back rules regarding diversity on campus, like curtailing Harvard’s funding of specialty graduation ceremonies for different student interest groups. His long-term goal is to “to ensure that universities in the U.S. can contribute to the nation in the ways we’ve always intended to.”
– May 3, 2025. In an essay in The Atlantic, President Emeritus Lee Bollinger Lee C. Bollinger argues that American universities are vital to democracy and deserve special First Amendment protections, much like the press. In response to the Trump administration pressure on institutions like Harvard, Bollinger warns that such tactics mirror authoritarian regimes that target universities and the free press to suppress dissent. He traces the deep constitutional and cultural roots of academic freedom, grounded in Enlightenment values and free speech jurisprudence, especially Justice Holmes’s vision of a “marketplace of ideas.” Universities, he contends, are society’s organized pursuit of truth, requiring intellectual independence and protection from political interference. This is yet another public intervention.
– May 3, 2025. The Intercept reports that NYU School of Law barred 31 students from campus after their participation in sit-ins protesting the university’s response to the Gaza conflict. The students, designated “personae non grata,” must sign a “Use of Space Agreement” renouncing disruptive protest to regain access and take final exams. Cited violations include failure to comply with safety directives and disruptive conduct. Students reported restricted access to services like health and religious centers. The university retained law firm Latham & Watkins to assist in a preliminary investigation. Critics, including faculty, say the process lacks due process and deviates from NYU’s disciplinary norms.
– May 2, 2025. The National Science Foundation announced that effective Monday, May 5, 2025, it will implement a standardized 15% cap on indirect cost rates for all new grants and cooperative agreements awarded to institutions of higher education. The new policy is designed to reduce administrative overhead, streamline funding processes, and channel more resources into direct research activities. Institutions may choose a rate up to—but not exceeding—15% of modified total direct costs. The change does not apply retroactively and excludes existing awards and supplements issued prior to the effective date.
– May 2, 2025. The NYT published a piece written by a Harvard computer science professor Boaz Barak who happens to be on the Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias, and a vocal supporter of related issues. The opinion piece argues, however, that these issues have no place in the classroom. The professor has received requests from students for leniency regarding assignments in order to participate in campus activism on behalf of a Jewish organization and on behalf of a Muslim organization; both were denied. His argument is that professionalism must reign in the classroom, or else we lose out both politically and academically. He writes, “We should not normalize bringing one’s ideology to the classroom.”
– May 2, 2025. The Spectator reports that Barnard President Laura Rosenbury announced that student conduct meetings related to the February 26 Milbank Hall sit-in and the March 5 Milstein Center sit-in will proceed, ending a prior pause communicated to faculty in March. The decision comes amid ongoing efforts to revise Barnard’s Code of Conduct and establish a new conduct board. Until those changes are finalized, the college will continue using its existing disciplinary procedures. Priority will be given to resolving cases involving seniors before commencement on May 20. Rosenbury emphasized that the process remains educational, not punitive, and urged students to participate fully and reflectively.
– May 1, 2025. The NYT reported a top political appointee in the Justice Department, Emil Bove III, ordered an aggressive investigation into Columbia University student protesters, prompting alarm among career civil rights prosecutors, FBI agents, and a federal judge. The probe, targeting the group Columbia University Apartheid Divest, included demands for membership lists and a search warrant for its Instagram account. Internal resistance mounted as prosecutors believed the inquiry was a prelude for intimidation and deportation. A magistrate judge twice rejected the warrant, calling the request unjustified. The investigation appears to have stalled for now.
– April 30, 2025. The Washington Post reported that a federal judge has ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student and U.S. permanent resident, who was detained during his citizenship interview. The government sought his deportation under a rarely used foreign policy provision, despite no criminal charges. Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford found credible evidence that Mahdawi’s arrest was politically motivated retaliation for protected speech, drawing comparisons to McCarthy-era repression.
– April 30, 2025. The Atlantic published an article comparing what’s currently going on in higher education to the Dark Ages of history, calling on everyone to stop the descent by championing academic freedom. Alan Lightman, the author, is a professor at MIT, and remarks how at least nine community members there have had visas “unexpectedly revoked.” Crucially, he reminds his audience of the many groundbreaking inventions and ideas that have stemmed from research happening at American universities over the decades; the internet, Google, neural networks, natural-language processing, MRI, and GPS technology, are all examples he cites. He concludes his piece by writing, “Academic freedom is the oxygen and the light of higher education. Growing things need both.”
– April 30, 2025. Bloomberg reports that Yale is thinking about selling $850 million of its bonds in May, part of a larger trend of universities that are turning to the capital markets to get cash as Trump threatens to freeze or terminate federal funding. The sale would include two series, a $500 million portion of tax-exempt bonds and a $350 million portion of taxable ones, with both series expected to price the week of May 5. This is in-line with our observation that even asset-rich universities can be cash flow-fragile.
– April 30, 2025. Duke Today reports that in response to declining federal funding, Duke University is implementing a university-wide strategic realignment and cost reduction program aimed at preserving its core missions in research, clinical care, and teaching. Leaders outlined key steps during an April webinar, including a hiring freeze, elimination of vacant roles, and a voluntary separation program. Capital projects have been paused unless fully funded or essential, and university-wide administrative operations are under review. While staff reductions are anticipated, leadership emphasized a values-driven approach, maintaining salary merit increases and preserving key benefits like tuition grants.
– April 30, 2025. Harvard alumni group 1636 Forum (similar to the Stand Columbia Society) published its recaps and takeaways from Harvard’s Antisemitism and Islamophobia Task Force reports, released Tuesday. Former Columbia Law School dean and Columbia Antisemitism Task Force co-chair David Schizer discussed the Antisemitism Report during a panel hosted by Harvard Hillel and 1636 Forum. Other panelists included Rabbi David Wolpe of Temple Sinai, Harvard Law Professor and University Antisemitism Task Force co-chair Jared Ellias, 1636 Forum co-founder Allison Wu, and Harvard Hillel executive director Rabbi Jason Rubenstein. You can watch the recording here.
– April 28, 2025. The Financial Times published a letter from several Columbia alumni expressing concern over how the notion of “antisemitism” is being harnessed and used for political purposes, much like “communism” was used in the 1960s. They decry that antisemitism is being used to justify “draconian federal punishment” of schools (Harvard and Columbia) that “play a leading role in lifting barriers to Jews in this country.”