News from the Council for Higher Education Accreditation – Summer 2025

CHEA President Bids Farewell  

Cynthia Jackson Hammond, Ed.D.
President
Council for Higher Education Accreditation  

Higher education is an institutional value that provides consistency and hope for upward mobility for students and their families. It is through the pathways of learning that people grow, change, and create spaces of new expectations. The “future” becomes a reality that signals that life will be good and worthwhile, and expectations are possible. That picture is a heavy lift, and higher education has owned that responsibility for centuries. 

Embedded in that ownership is the foundational principle of quality assurance. Institutions worldwide strive to be better in their promises and to hold quality assurance as the end goal for student success. The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) has been a part of that promise for more than 30 years, advocating for the continuous improvement of institutions, academic programs, and peer review. It is CHEA’s fundamental belief that higher education must grow and innovate to meet the needs of this dynamic and prepare students to meet challenges and opportunities. 

Since 2021, I have had the great honor of serving as CHEA’s president. The experience of engaging with institutions of all types and accrediting organizations has been an explosion of “newness”! Although my tenure as a college president was immensely joyful and complex, I gained a newfound appreciation for colleges that experienced mergers, closures, political interference, declining enrollments, pandemic surges, dismantling of values that support all students, federal and state polices that disrupt without legitimacy, and having to maintain stability when often the floors of justice have been tilted against higher education. 

Despite these “disruptors,” the one thing that remains constant is that institutions and CHEA accreditation organizations are committed to student success, and that the demonstration of standards of quality assurance MATTERS! CHEA has and will continue to be an advocate for institutional values of academic excellence, institutional autonomy, transparency, and accountability. Recognized accrediting organizations share those values and are required to show evidence that their mission is aligned with quality academic assurance. CHEA-recognized accrediting organizations are part of the continuous improvement model – the same model that is extended to the institutions they review. 

As the American public navigates the ever-changing and often nebulous societal terrain of uncertainties, we can be assured that the Council for Higher Education Accreditation is vigilant in its historic and current charge to embrace innovation and engage globally with institutions and organizations that also share a commitment to academic quality and student success. 

CHEA is unwavering in its belief that diversity of experiences, fairness, and inclusion are part of the tapestry of American society. Higher education is a welcoming space, and every student, faculty, and staff member should experience “belonging” in the academy. Academic quality and “belonging” are integrally interwoven. 
 
Recently, CHEA recognized its first international quality assurance organization, EdNET, of the Kyrgyz Republic. Their recognition supports the growing interest that many international agencies are seeking cross-border collaborations and distinctions. In the coming months, other international agencies will make announcements seeking CHEA Recognition. These quality assurance agencies are joining the cohort of more than sixty-five other CHEA-recognized national agencies. We celebrate these organizations and their stalwart efforts and values.  

On August 1, CHEA will receive new presidential leadership. Dr. Nasser Paydar, Ph.D., is an exceptional statesperson, academician, advocate, and friend to higher education and accreditation. His credentials are too extensive to express here, but I can assure you that he is acutely aware of this new era of fluctuation in accreditation and will bring acumen complemented by integrity and a voice of stability.  

As my departure is soon drawing near, I must share my appreciation for a phenomenally responsive and knowledgeable CHEA staff. From my first day as president, the CHEA staff has devotedly worked with me and for our member institutions. They will provide the same work ethic and devotion to Dr. Paydar.  

Any accomplishments attained by CHEA during my administration were lifted by the CHEA Board of Directors. The Directors are visionaries and represent various institutions and organizations. They are solid, principled, and committed to the CHEA mission and serve as the protectors of CHEA’s values. Complementing support for CHEA is the CHEA International Quality Group (CIQG). The CIQG membership represents a group of scholarly experts in the field of quality assurance. They hail from various parts of the world and provide context and perspectives from a global perspective. The CIQG Advisory contributes abundantly to CHEA’s understanding of global collaborations and is invaluable to our mission. 

Additional appreciation is given to the members of the Committee on Recognition. These volunteers are experts in their respective fields and are passionate about ensuring that accreditation agencies seeking CHEA recognition meet every standard of accountability. They are institutional peers and exhibit great diligence in the review process.  
Dr. Nasser Paydar is inheriting the “best of the best.”  The transition will be seamless! 

Thank you, friends, member institutions, and accreditation warriors. The journey has been my honor!

Federal Government Relations Update

Jan Friis
Senior Vice President for Government Affairs
Council for Higher Education Accreditation

Several items have arisen in the past three months that are important for you to be aware of.

U.S. Department of Education Complaint to Accreditors

The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) referral to itself as a credit agency of Columbia University and Harvard University, alleging that these two institutions do not meet Title VI standards. This approach provides the USDE with two bites at the apple to impact both Columbia and Harvard; one because the USDE is complaining to their accreditors that each can infer that Columbia and Harvard meet the requirements of the program participation agreement, or the department would have used that as a method to limit the acceptance of federal student aid. If the accreditor fails to provide the response USDE is seeking, then when Columbia or Harvard accreditors appear before the USDE for recognition, USDE can act at that point. This is highly unusual.

Proposed Legislation

The House of Representatives marked up two bills, which is to say that they reviewed two bills focused on Higher Education Accreditation.

HR 2516, which prohibits accreditors from requiring compliance with social justice issues specifically around DEI. The bill passed in the committee on a party-line vote.

HR 4054, Accreditation Choice and Innovation Act, would allow states to become accreditors. It would prohibit any employee of, or person connected to, an institution accredited by the accrediting organization from being part of the accrediting commission by which the institution is accredited. It would measure student success on a financial model (income vs cost of the program). It requires common terminology among accreditors, which has been attempted in the past, and the bill would provide a religious provision that is heavily weighted against the accreditor and the USDE. The accreditor would have the burden to prove that they did not remove accreditation because of the institution’s religious mission, and the USDE is required to assume that the institution is correct in its statement that accreditation was removed because of the religious mission. These are among the reasons not to support this bill.

• CHEA supports several provisions in the bill. CHEA has suggested:
• Public disclosure of the reasons for accreditation decisions.
• That no permission is required from the Secretary of Education for an institution to
  change accreditors, provided the institution is not currently under sanction.
• That dual accreditation be permitted.
• That the Transfer of Credit cannot be denied solely based on the accreditation of the sending institution.

These are provisions that CHEA will continue to support, even though CHEA cannot support the bill in its current form.

New Accreditor

Six states — Florida, Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia — have announced plans to create an accreditor for their public institutions called the Commission for Public Higher Education. Typically, it takes several years for an accreditor to be recognized by the USDE. The Trump Executive Order concerning accreditation is asking the USDE to develop an accelerated approval process for new accreditors. It is currently unknown how the USDE will implement the executive order and the timeline it will take for these six states to develop the accreditor, hire staff, set their standards, and then complete the review process for several institutions. All of which must be done before the new accreditor can apply for recognition. This is why CHEA recognition is very important. It ensures that accreditors review institutions for their academic and student learning outcomes.

National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity

The summer National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) meeting has been rescheduled from July to October 2025. This will allow the USDE to appoint new members to the committee as the current USDE members’ terms will have expired. This will change the ideological balance on NACIQI. The public could see some differences in how the NACIQI reviews accrediting organizations for recognition in the future.

Empowering Excellence Resource

CHEA's Empowering Excellence Resource provides resources, suggestions, and opportunities for institutions to promote excellence by cultivating a culture of quality through accreditation. CHEA encourages institutions to utilize these resources to inform administrators, faculty, and staff about the accreditation process, standards, and the benefits of a culture of quality within your institution. Click here to learn more and experience this valuable resource.