/>iOn April 23, 2025, the Administration issued an Executive Order entitled “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education” along with an accompanying fact sheet. A institution of higher education’s accreditation is a prerequisite for participation in the U.S. Department of Education’s federal student financial aid program under Title IV. The Executive Order asserts routine approval of “low-quality” institutions of higher education by accreditors; financial burdens imposed on students due to programs with poor returns on investment; and accreditors’ focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion require the Secretary of Education to implement new student-focused principles of accreditation and hold accreditors accountable for failing to establish criteria based on these principles.
The principles that the Administration sets forth for accreditors to follow include a renewed emphasis on high-quality academic programs free from unlawful discrimination, the reduction of barriers that limit institutions of higher education from creating new models of education, the prioritization of “intellectual diversity” amongst faculty, the prevention of credit inflation, the resumption of recognition of new accreditors to increase competition and accountability, and allowing institutions of higher education to more easily switch accreditors so as to align with their institutional values and mission. Additionally, under the Executive Order, the Secretary of Education is instructed to ensure adherence to Federal, state, and local law by denying, monitoring, suspending, or terminating accreditors’ accreditation recognition.
The Executive Order references three accreditors by name—the American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education—and instructs the Secretary of Education and the Attorney General to investigate and take steps to terminate discrimination by American law schools, medical schools, and graduate medical education entities, including by potentially suspending or terminating the three above-referenced accreditors’ status as accrediting agencies under Federal law. According to the Executive Order, the three accreditors’ emphasis on diversity, inclusion, and representation runs afoul of the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 600 U.S. 181 (2023) (“SFFA”).
The Executive Order also set a goal to streamline the process by which Institutions change accreditors and provides that an institution should be permitted to change accreditors without interruption to Title IV funding so long as the institution’s accreditation has not lapsed. The ability to change accreditors may allow institutions to do so when they perceive their accreditor to be “at risk” for enforcement action.
In this way, the Executive Order is consistent with prior communications by the Department of Education, such as an April 3, 2025, letter to the Executive Directors of Nationally Recognized Accrediting Agencies indicating that petitions for recognition for accrediting agencies will be subject, beginning in summer 2027, to a “focused review” under which accreditors will be required to respond to 38 specific sections of the Secretary’s Criteria for Recognition, including fiscal responsibility, accreditation and preaccreditation standards, enforcement of standards, and operating procedures. On April 4, 2025, the Department published a notice seeking public comment on the petitions for renewals of recognition filed by 11 accrediting agencies.
Institutions of higher education should closely follow the Department of Education’s approach with respect to the three accreditors identified in the Executive Order, in addition to higher education accreditors more generally.
