UFlorida investigated by SACS

[Alpha]

Academia and Politics
UF is being investigated by its accreditor. What does that mean? - The Independent Florida Alligator

[Alpha]

"significant noncompliance"
https://mycbs4.com/news/local/initial-uf...compliance

[Alpha]

This issue continues to play out and has even gotten bigger.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-po...n-process/

[ss20ts]

This issue continues to play out and has even gotten bigger.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-po...n-process/

It sounds like the politicians don't want to be held accountable so they want to somehow just keep moving their accreditation every 5 years. That's not how accreditation works. SACS is who provides accreditation for schools in the South. You can't just call up the New England accreditation agency and say hey accredit us! Doesn't work that way. Any other RA agency is going to look into why you want to be accredited outside of your zone. This is a HUGE red flag to all other accreditation boards. SACS doesn't need these schools. These schools need to maintain their RA accreditation or they will become NA at best which will cause enrollment to drop.

[Alpha]

This issue continues to play out and has even gotten bigger.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-po...n-process/

It sounds like the politicians don't want to be held accountable so they want to somehow just keep moving their accreditation every 5 years. That's not how accreditation works. SACS is who provides accreditation for schools in the South. You can't just call up the New England accreditation agency and say hey accredit us! Doesn't work that way. Any other RA agency is going to look into why you want to be accredited outside of your zone. This is a HUGE red flag to all other accreditation boards. SACS doesn't need these schools. These schools need to maintain their RA accreditation or they will become NA at best which will cause enrollment to drop.

With the advent of "Institutional Accreditation," this is no longer the case.  Schools are not restricted to their "regional accreditors" and accreditors are no longer restricted to the schools in their regions.
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/con...ccreditors

[ss20ts]

This issue continues to play out and has even gotten bigger.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-po...n-process/

It sounds like the politicians don't want to be held accountable so they want to somehow just keep moving their accreditation every 5 years. That's not how accreditation works. SACS is who provides accreditation for schools in the South. You can't just call up the New England accreditation agency and say hey accredit us! Doesn't work that way. Any other RA agency is going to look into why you want to be accredited outside of your zone. This is a HUGE red flag to all other accreditation boards. SACS doesn't need these schools. These schools need to maintain their RA accreditation or they will become NA at best which will cause enrollment to drop.

With the advent of "Institutional Accreditation," this is no longer the case.  Schools are not restricted to their "regional accreditors" and accreditors are no longer restricted to the schools in their regions.
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/con...ccreditors

That's not what I'm saying. Accreditation is a process. It's not like you fill out an application and a rubber stamp approval is done. If a college bounces around and lets their accreditation lapse elsewhere that is going to be a red flag to a new accreditation board. They all know what's happening in Florida. None of them are clueless. Why would they want this headache from Florida whining about politics when it's the politicians causing the problems?

[Alpha]

Institutional Accreditation as a replacement for Regional Accreditation is pretty much a brand new thing.  I'm not sure that anyone really knows how this will develop over the next decade.  One way of thinking about it is that higher education accreditation has become more of a competitive market.  Some other accreditor might be very happy to have a new university system in it's list of customers.  It's more money in their pockets and a chance to zing one of their competitors.  It's not like the University of Florida system is some smarmy little degree mill that is "accreditor hopping" in an attempt to appear legitimate.  I don't think they'd have any trouble in finding a new accreditor.  I'll bet that if the Florida legislature passes that bill then it will happen without any real trouble.

[sanantone]

They could cross their regions starting in 2019, so it's been almost three years. Before this, there were already schools accreditation shopping. They would simply move their headquarters to a different territory. After HLC came under government scrutiny for being the accreditor of choice for for-profit universities violating laws, they cracked down on accreditation buying and accreditation shopping.

Barbara Brittingham, former president of the New England Commission of Higher Education, said that NECHE would have likely made the same requests of those institutions.

“As an accreditor, you can’t ignore things that raise legitimate questions,” Brittingham said. “If SACS had a legitimate question, there’s a very good chance that another accreditor would have the same question.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022...ccreditors

National accreditors tend to be specialized. DEAC only accredits institutions that are primarily online, and they currently don't approve PhD programs. Well...someone on another forum made a post saying that University of Fairfax now offers a PhD, but I can't look into it because their website has a virus.

Several other national accreditors only accredit career-oriented schools, so they don't really touch the liberal arts (natural science, mathematics, social science, and humanities) or research-based graduate degrees. Then, there are the religious accreditors; they won't work for secular, public universities.

[Alpha]

Here's an update of sorts
Higher ed accrediting changes approved | WPEC (cbs12.com)

[Flelm]

For a party that's all about less government regulation, Republicans sure like to make rules about who you can do business with.