The Crisis in College Accreditation and Why It Matters

Should politicians control the curricula taught in college classrooms? In the United States, the answer has always been no. Our higher education is dedicated to exploring ideas, not censoring them to match the beliefs of partisan people in statehouses or federal offices, say NEA Higher Ed members.  

Imagine an elected politician who says climate change is fake. Does that mean a coastal university should stop researching flood-resistant design and construction? How about a politician who says diversity programs are immoral: Does that mean universities should end their attempts to solve the disproportionate death rate among new Black mothers?  

For generations, U.S. faculty and students have freely discussed and researched current issues, free from political interference. As a result, our colleges and universities are among the best in the world.  

Today, this academic freedom—and the excellence that goes with it—is in extreme danger, say NEA members and policy experts. After failed attempts to extort compliance from universities, the Trump administration has discovered a new weapon to force faculty to teach only what they allow, says NEA attorney Stacy Hickox.

It’s called accreditation, and the Trump administration’s proposed changes to it would have huge impact on the quality and accessibility of higher education in the U.S. “Accreditation is technical and arcane, but also very powerful,” says NEA senior policy specialist Samuel Dunietz.  

And right now, educators have a very small window to stop it. 

What is Accreditation?

Dunietz’s favorite way to explain accreditation is to compare the process to a home inspection. Most homeowners are familiar with the way this works: You want to buy a new home, but you also want to know if maybe it has termites or foundational issues. In other words, is it structurally sound and worth the money that you’re about to invest in it? To get the answer, you hire an independent home inspector to evaluate the property and give you an honest, unbiased opinion of its worth.

Independent accrediting agencies work similarly by diving into a program or institution’s finances, judging whether they’re at risk of suddenly closing and leaving students high and dry. To gauge academic standards, accreditors check on graduation and student loan default rates, faculty’s qualifications, and campus policies, including shared governance and academic freedom. 

“It’s not a perfect system,” but it does a good job of ensuring institutions are delivering the education they promise, says Alec Thomson, a Michigan political science professor and president of NEA’s National Council for Higher Education.  

The key to that good job? The vital independence of accreditors. “Just like a home inspector, accreditors are independent, not beholden to institutions or to the government,” says Dunietz. 

And that’s exactly what the Trump administration aims to change.

“[The administration’s proposed rules would be] an unprecedented federal intrusion into the role of the accreditors and a way to set a level of federal control that nobody wants to see,” Jon Fansmith, of the American Council on Education, told the Chronicle of Higher Education this month. 

The fact is, whatever the Trump administration tells accreditors to require of U.S. colleges and universities, even if it censors what U.S. history is taught in classrooms or drags colleges back to the days when only the wealthiest could afford degrees, institutions will have no choice but to comply. Without accreditors’ official seal of approval, colleges can’t access state or federal funds, including federal financial aid and student loans. There are probably not even five colleges or universities in the U.S. that could survive without that money, says Dunietz.  

What’s On the Table? 

Earlier this month, a committee hand-picked by the Trump administration met to rewrite the rules on accreditation. Their draft regulations surpass 150 pages and include significant changes, such as:

• Requiring accreditors to ensure “intellectual diversity.” The effect of this would be to control faculty teaching the subject matter in which they’re experts, and instead require that they provide the government’s viewpoints. For example, in Florida, the state recently cut more than 400 pages out of the open-source textbook used in universities’ sociology courses, eliminating chapters on race and ethnicity, gender, sex and sexuality, and economic inequalities. While the original uses the word “racism” 115 times, Inside Higher Ed notes that the censored version uses it six times.
•  Admitting new, fly-by-night accreditors. Last year, at a press conference where he spoke at length about “woke ideology,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he and other Southern governors are creating their own new, accrediting agency.  “When we’ve said, [no diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives] the accreditor was telling our universities, ‘Oh, no. You’re not going to get accredited unless you do DEI.’ Who the heck are they to say what our universities have to do?” DeSantis said. 
• Preventing accreditors from using criteria related to the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Trump administration has failed in other ways to do this, Hickox notes. Notably, the administration issued a “Dear Colleague” letter in February 2025 which said that colleges with those programs would lose federal funding. Earlier this year, following a NEA lawsuit, a judge ruled the administration’s directive violated the First Amendment. 
• Directing accreditors to ensure colleges accept all transfer credits, regardless of where they were earned. 
• Directing accreditors to expand religious exemptions. “Say a university wants to prevent LGBTQ students from accessing services,” says Hickox. “They could do that if it’s related to their religious mission.”

What’s Next?

The problem isn’t just that the rules for accreditors might change—although that is a huge problem—it’s that accrediting agencies are already complying with that they perceive the Trump administration wants. 

On May 15, the American Bar Association council that oversees law school accreditation voted to eliminate a rule that requires law schools to show their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Last month, an accrediting agency for dozens of medical schools did the same. 

“Academic has typically guarded its independence ferociously,” noted the New York Times, last month. “But the decision by the accrediting agency…shows how the Trump administration is shaping academic life across the country.”

Traditional accreditors are already bending, notes Thomson. They will be broken entirely by the proposed changes, he adds. 

Since taking office, the Trump administration has attempted, in numerous ways, to reshape higher education. Their attempts have been largely rejected by federal courts, including the “Dear Colleague” letter about diversity programs and last year’s capricious cuts to federal research grants. 

The proposed changes to accreditation are the administration’s latest weapon—and possibly the most dangerous yet, says Hickox. 

If it succeeds, U.S. higher education will be radically changed, and “students will end up with a much narrower experience,” predicts Thomson. Not only will what’s taught be censored to match the personal beliefs of politicians, like in Florida’s sociology classrooms, but students’ options around entire fields of study and future careers will be limited, he foresees. 

“If you want to pursue a career that the government wants you to pursue, it’ll be available,” he says. ‘If you’re interested or curious about something that isn’t a priority for the government, it won’t.” Costs will go up, he predicts. Admissions will be limited. A rich college experience will be available to the wealthiest only. 

Getting people to care about “accreditation” is tough, Thomson acknowledges. If you’re not faculty or college administration, or even if you are, it’s not very likely to catch your interest or attention. “It’s like, accreditation? Who cares about that?”  says Thomson. “But it is really, really important,” he promises.