6 state university systems form first-of-its-kind accreditation agency to counter 'woke' 'monopoly'

The piece of this story that's most alarming to me, as someone who periodically needs to do accreditation paperwork, is the whole business of switching to a new accrediting body. Evidently, "In 2023, the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation prohibiting UNC constituent institutions and North Carolina community colleges from receiving accreditation by an accrediting agency for consecutive accreditation cycles." (Accreditation – UNC System) So North Carolina is making its universities switch accrediting bodies every time they go for re-accreditation.

My experience with accreditation is that, ideally, you establish a pattern where you know which forms have to be filled out in which way, so you do what you did last time but with updated numbers. You want to get it all over with as quickly as possible so you can get back to your job of teaching and advising students. The NC law sounds like tons of extra work for everyone.

I wasn't able to find out what the Commission for Public Higher Education will be requiring of universities. If it's simpler paperwork, without losing quality of education, that could be a plus.

PloverWing said:

The piece of this story that's most alarming to me, as someone who periodically needs to do accreditation paperwork, is the whole business of switching to a new accrediting body

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I think I would not like that. My organization was dually accredited by recognized national accrediting bodies (health care). The two accrediting bodies were similar overall, yet with quite different standards. From a compliance perspective, our strategy was always to meet the more conservative of their respective standards, in hopes that we would satisfy both by doing what was expected for one and more than expected for the other. From a compliance perspective, I don't see how it is effective or good practice to shift the goal posts every accreditation cycle.