ABSTRACT
Compared with many government, philanthropic, and educational organizations, higher education accreditation offers a model of efficiency and cost effectiveness. Operating typically out of modest facilities with a small staff, accrediting organizations manage a complex and sometimes contentious process by relying on well-trained volunteers as reviewers, consultants, and board members. The most prominent twenty-first-century recommendations for change in higher education accreditation charge that procedures and protocols developed in the early decades of the twentieth century have not kept pace with dramatic changes in the environment in the twenty first. Institutional accreditation could have limited itself to the small enclave from which it originated and remain a means by which its charter members might sequester themselves within the broader higher education universe. At the federal level, accountability takes many forms. Most obvious is the requirement that institutions be accredited by an organization recognized by the USDE to qualify for student aid, research funding, and other forms of support.
