Last week, the Department of Education held the first meetings in the process of retooling its accreditation standards. It’s expected to hold another set of meetings in about a month, which are likely to be the last before it votes on recommendations, said William Hubbard, a Marine Corps veteran and vice president for Veterans & Military Policy at the nonprofit advocacy group Veterans Education Success.
That group brought Lawrence to Washington last week, along with an Army veteran with a similar story. Hubbard said the visits were especially important because the committee working on the rules had decided to deviate from normal procedure and not allow the public to speak at the end of meetings.
“It’s often helpful to hear directly from constituents and people who’ve been personally affected by these issues, and so they came from Texas and North Carolina to D.C. to share their stories and highlight some of the gaps in the system as it stands,” he said.
While accreditation rules don’t directly affect GI Bill benefits, they offer crucial gatekeeping standards to keep subpar programs out of the system.
“Unfortunately, the system as it stands is really not working well, and that’s part of what they’re looking at at the Department of Education,” he said.
The committee does include a representative from a veterans group, but Hubbard said the process has been mainly focused on culture war issues.
“Accreditation, in theory, is supposed to determine the quality of an institution, and frankly, I’m not sure diversity issues are the make-or-break factor on that front,” he said. “We’d really like to see them focus more on academic instruction and, ultimately, the outcomes of higher education — which are to get a career, get a good-paying job, and have strong workforce impact. That really hasn’t been the majority of the discussion and I think that’s a missed opportunity.”
Read the full article at Public Radio Eastern North Carolina here.