Four years ago, I began work as President of the New England Commission of Higher Education, or NECHE as we are more commonly called. NECHE is the oldest accrediting agency for institutions of higher education in the world, with roots dating back to 1885. We are one of seven regional agencies, all federally recognized; our historic geographic boundaries are the six New England states, but as of 2020, with a change in federal regulations, those regions were dissolved and many of us have become national accreditors or in the language of the Department of Education, "institutional accreditors." Each region is now able to accredit colleges and universities across the country and, for the last 25 years, we have also accredited colleges and universities outside the United States. Currently, NECHE has 12 international institutions as full members, with another 15 on the path to becoming members.
So let’s begin with answering the question: What exactly is an accrediting agency and what does it do? Simply said, we are non-profit, non-governmental organizations established to ensure that higher education institutions deliver a high quality, equitable, and relevant education to prepare students for successful careers and citizenship. Through our work, we hold institutions accountable with rigorous standards, data-driven assessment, and continuous improvement designed to protect students.
Well, that wasn't exactly simple-- and one of the things I have tried to do since I arrived at NECHE (in the middle of the pandemic) has been to translate those words into stories that are more personal and more understandable. One of my methods was to hit the road and visit the schools we accredit, to meet the men and women who lead them and the students who attend them. My goal was to visit at least one institution a month and after 51 months, I've managed to get to almost 70. NECHE accredits about 225 schools, so clearly I have a ways to go, but I've enjoyed every single visit and collected my stories in a blog at https://necheontheroad.com.
On the Road: Personal Encounters with NECHE-Accredited Institutions
Allow me to share a few highlights. Early in my adventure, I travelled to White Mountains Community College in very rural and economically-challenged northern New Hampshire, about sixty miles from the Canadian border. There I met a set of twins, 19 years old and about 4'11" tall, who were enrolled in WMCC’s nine-month welding program. Their extremely enthusiastic professor raved about their expertise and waxed eloquent about their future, since every graduate of the WMCC program is almost guaranteed a job upon graduation (companies come directly to the college to recruit). With overtime, graduates can make over $60,000/year straight out of college, which in that economy is literally a life-changing opportunity.
A year later, I travelled south to the state of Rhode Island to visit one of our newest schools, College Unbound, that has designed its curriculum and classes to meet the needs of working adults and unconventional students. Talk about life-changing! One student Leanne has been a teacher’s assistant for years, but her lack of degree prevented her from being promoted to a full teacher, with a commensurate salary. Although she’d returned to college several times and accumulated 74 credits, she was never able to make it to graduation until College Unbound. Another, Liz dropped out of high school in tenth grade, became a mom at 15, and when her second child was just one year old, she discovered he had severe lead poisoning. Liz worked for 25 years at a non-profit that addresses the issue of children and lead poisoning, but her career was limited without a degree. 29 years passed when she finally enrolled at CU. Now a proud alum, she’s just three classes short of her master’s degree from a nearby college. And along the way, she and her husband raised and adopted 19 children. What a role model!
Here’s another amazing institution-- this one from far away, on the island of Malta in the middle of the Mediterranean. The College of Remote and Offshore Medicine is the first institution in the world to offer baccalaureate, masters, and doctoral degrees in Emergency Medicine. The founder of the college is Irish-American Aebric O’Kelly, a Green Beret and Special Forces Medic, who is seeking NECHE accreditation so he can offer former military personnel a degree and a rewarding career path after serving. CoROM is a not-for-profit college currently accredited by the Malta Higher Education Department that focuses on the practice of healthcare in remote, austere, and resource-poor environments, providing membership, academic training, and professional registration to train medical professionals to work in difficult environments. During my visit I spent time with medics who shared gruesome stories of their service on the battlefront in Ukraine, professionals working on the dangerous oil fields of Saudi Arabia, and nurses stationed in Antarctica. I could go on and on (and I do in my blog). Suffice it to say that higher education is not some abstract concept that should be part of American culture wars (as a certain Yale-educated politician recently titled his talk, "Universities Are The Enemy"). Higher education has always been and continues to be the best way for one to achieve the American dream.
Institutional Diversity in Higher Education
One of the most striking things illuminated by my time on the road is the incredible diversity of the schools we accredit. People tend to associate NECHE with the many internationally-renowned institutions we accredit, including four of the eight Ivies: Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth, as well as private institutions like MIT, Rockefeller University, Gilder Graduate School of the American Museum of Natural History, Sloan Kettering Memorial, Smith, Wesleyan, Amherst, Williams, Mt. Holyoke, Wellesley -- to name drop just a few. Public institutions are also part of NECHE, including the six New England flagships of University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Vermont, University of Maine, University of New Hampshire, University of Connecticut, and University of Rhode Island, plus dozens of regional four-year publics and two-year community colleges. Then, as you work your way through my article (good going!), you''ll be introduced to a host of small schools you've probably never heard of (Maine Media College, Sterling College, St. John’s Seminary, Ben Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology), plus one of the largest primarily online universities in the country (Southern New Hampshire University), plus professional schools ( New England College of Optometry, UMass Chan Medical School, New England College of Optometry), and a few you might never realized were also NECHE members (U.S. Naval War College, Mass Maritime and Maine Maritime Academies).
Challenges and Misconceptions in Higher Education
And one thing obvious in this fascinating amalgam of schools is that NECHE is very much a non-partisan accreditation system. We apply the same nine standards to liberal arts colleges, community colleges, military academies, and deeply religious institutions, including Catholic seminaries. Another very obvious thing should be that every one of the schools we accredit has a different mission and all serve vastly different populations. If I may quote from a college president in the South who presides over a deeply religious institution: US higher education is not broken. It remains the best in the world. In part, this is because we have an independent, apolitical, standards-driven accreditation process. Unlike some other nations, our definitions of educational quality are developed by learning experts outside the political sphere. In nations where higher education has become politicized, we see declining quality as well as standards that shift with the political winds. Both U.S. political parties need to understand that the U.S. accreditation system is valuable precisely because it is apolitical. This makes it possible for higher education to address all issues from all political perspectives and thus to help students learn to think independently. The political independence of the accreditation process also protects whichever party is out of power at any given time. It preserves the opportunity for students to hear not only the opinions of the political majority, but all opinions.
There’s been a lot of criticism of late that’s been directed at higher education in the United States. Certainly, some of that is warranted. On my list, I’d include the issues of access, cost, and rates of completion-- although even with those issues, it’s important to understand how different segments of the higher education market have responded to those concerns. As one example, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, tuition at community colleges (which have always been open access) are now free. Massachusetts joins over 25 states offering free tuition at their community colleges. Over the past year, it's also clear that higher education administrators and faculty have struggled to find the right balance between the right of free speech and the protection of the civil rights of students. These are serious challenges facing higher education and real progress must be made. That understood, much of the criticism of higher education is not well-founded, including the false narrative that accreditors have somehow required colleges and universities to adhere to some political agenda. I’d suggest that it’s precisely a political agenda that is pushing this false narrative. There is also a frequently-repeated assertion that attending college is not worth it anymore. That directly contradicts statistics that workers with a bachelor's degree earn 88% more than comparable high-school graduates, and the premium for graduating college grows over one’s lifetime.
Preserving and Improving the American Higher Education System
As I bring this article to an end, allow me to return to something I brought up in my explanation of who NECHE is and what it does – which is the increasing number of colleges and universities from abroad that are seeking NECHE accreditation. These are American-style institutions, with a curriculum in English and a full-range of courses in subjects like history, politics, and the arts. They flourish in such far-flung places as Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Kurdistan, Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, Morocco, Rwanda, Malta, Switzerland, Italy, and France precisely because their approach to education is modeled on the American higher education system. The United States system of higher education, with all its diversity and choice, remains the gold star in the world, serving as the foundation of democratic republics near and far. That’s something worth improving and preserving, not destroying.
