Let colleges pick accreditors. (Society).

George Leef and Roxana Burris, "Can College Accreditation Live Up to its Promise?" American Council of Trustees and Alumni, October 2002 (goacta.org)

Since the federal government began playing a major role in higher education following the end of the Second World War, nearly all American colleges and universities have been subject to regular inspections by regional accrediting organizations. While the process technically remains voluntary, students at unaccredited schools can not receive federal financial aid. A new report from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) questions the value of accreditation and recommends major changes in the process. ACTA researchers George Leef and Roxana Burris complain that the existing accreditation process tends to measure input such as the number of books in an institution's library and its management practices rather than outputs such as student learning and research productivity.

Current accreditation standards, the two find, are almost entirely divorced from real educational quality and often tend to impose trendy (almost always leftist) ideas on institutions of higher education.

The two ...