Category: Accreditation

  • Breaking Away from Rankings – Edu Alliance Journal

    Breaking Away from Rankings – Edu Alliance Journal

    The Growing Movement to Reform Research Assessment and Rankings

    By Dean Hoke, September 22, 2025: For the past fifteen years, I have been closely observing what can only be described as a worldwide fascination—if not obsession—with university rankings, whether produced by Times Higher Education, QS, or U.S. News & World Report. In countless conversations with university officials, a recurring theme emerges: while most acknowledge that rankings are often overused by students, parents, and even funders when making critical decisions, few deny their influence. Nearly everyone agrees that rankings are a “necessary evil”—flawed, yet unavoidable—and many institutions still direct significant marketing resources toward leveraging rankings as part of their recruitment strategies.

    It is against this backdrop of reliance and ambivalence that recent developments, such as Sorbonne University’s decision to withdraw from THE rankings, deserve closer attention

    In a move that signals a potential paradigm shift in how universities position themselves globally, Sorbonne University recently announced it will withdraw from the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings starting in 2026. This decision isn’t an isolated act of defiance—Utrecht University had already left THE in 2023, and the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), founded in 2022, has grown to 767 members by September 2025. Together, these milestones reflect a growing international movement that questions the very foundations of how we evaluate academic excellence.

    The Sorbonne Statement: Quality Over Competition

    Sorbonne’s withdrawal from THE rankings isn’t merely about rejecting a single ranking system. It appears to be a philosophical statement about what universities should stand for in the 21st century. The institution has made it clear that it refuses to be defined by its position in what it sees as commercial ranking matrices that reduce complex academic institutions to simple numerical scores.

    Understanding CoARA: The Quiet Revolution

    The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment represents one of the most significant challenges to traditional academic evaluation methods in decades. Established in 2022, CoARA has grown rapidly to include 767 member organizations as of September 2025. This isn’t just a European phenomenon—though European institutions have been early and enthusiastic adopters. The geographic distribution of CoARA members tells a compelling story about where resistance to traditional ranking systems is concentrated. As the chart shows, European countries dominate participation, led by Spain and Italy, with strong engagement also from Poland, France, and several Nordic countries. This European dominance isn’t accidental—the region’s research ecosystem has long been concerned about the Anglo-American dominance of global university rankings and the way these systems can distort institutional priorities.

    The Four Pillars of Reform

    CoARA’s approach centers on four key commitments that directly challenge the status quo:

    1. Abandoning Inappropriate Metrics The agreement explicitly calls for abandoning “inappropriate uses of journal- and publication-based metrics, in particular inappropriate uses of Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and h-index.” This represents a direct assault on the quantitative measures that have dominated academic assessment for decades.

    2. Avoiding Institutional Rankings Perhaps most relevant to the Sorbonne’s decision, CoARA commits signatories to “avoid the use of rankings of research organisations in research assessment.” This doesn’t explicitly require withdrawal from ranking systems, but it does commit institutions to not using these rankings in their own evaluation processes.

    3. Emphasizing Qualitative Assessment The coalition promotes qualitative assessment methods, including peer review and expert judgment, over purely quantitative metrics. This represents a return to more traditional forms of academic evaluation, albeit updated for modern needs.

    4. Responsible Use of Indicators Rather than eliminating all quantitative measures, CoARA advocates for the responsible use of indicators that truly reflect research quality and impact, rather than simply output volume or citation counts.

    European Leadership

    Top 10 Countries by CoARA Membership:

    The geographic distribution of CoARA members tells a compelling story about where resistance to traditional ranking systems is concentrated. As the chart shows, European countries dominate participation, led by Spain and Italy, with strong engagement also from Poland, France, and several Nordic countries. This European dominance isn’t accidental—the region’s research ecosystem has long been concerned about the Anglo-American dominance of global university rankings and the way these systems can distort institutional priorities.

    The geographic distribution of CoARA members tells a compelling story about where

    Prestigious European universities like ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich, Politecnico di Milano, and the University of Manchester are among the members, lending credibility to the movement. However, the data reveals that the majority of CoARA members (84.4%) are not ranked in major global systems like QS, which adds weight to critics’ arguments about institutional motivations.

    CoARA Members Ranked vs Not Ranked in QS:

    The Regional Divide: Participation Patterns Across the Globe

    What’s particularly striking about the CoARA movement is the relative absence of U.S. institutions. While European universities have flocked to join the coalition, American participation remains limited. This disparity reflects fundamental differences in how higher education systems operate across regions.

    American Participation: The clearest data we have on institutional cooperation with ranking systems comes from the United States. Despite some opposition to rankings, 78.1% of the nearly 1,500 ranked institutions returned their statistical information to U.S. News in 2024, showing that the vast majority of American institutions remain committed to these systems. However, there have been some notable American defections. Columbia University is among the latest institutions to withdraw from U.S. News & World Report college rankings, joining a small but growing list of American institutions questioning these systems. Yet these remain exceptions rather than the rule.

    European Engagement: While we don’t have equivalent participation rate statistics for European institutions, we can observe their engagement patterns differently. 688 universities appear in the QS Europe ranking for 2024, and 162 institutions from Northern Europe alone appear in the QS World University Rankings: Europe 2025. However, European institutions have simultaneously embraced the CoARA movement in large numbers, suggesting a more complex relationship with ranking systems—continued participation alongside philosophical opposition.

    Global Participation Challenges: For other regions, comprehensive participation data is harder to come by. The Arab region has 115 entries across five broad areas of study in QS rankings, but these numbers reflect institutional inclusion rather than active cooperation rates. It’s important to note that some ranking systems use publicly available data regardless of whether institutions actively participate or cooperate with the ranking organizations.

    This data limitation itself is significant—the fact that we have detailed participation statistics for American institutions but not for other regions may reflect the more formalized and transparent nature of ranking participation in the U.S. system versus other global regions.

    American universities, particularly those in the top tiers, have largely benefited from existing ranking systems. The global prestige and financial advantages that come with high rankings create powerful incentives to maintain the status quo. For many American institutions, rankings aren’t just about prestige—they’re about attracting international students, faculty, and research partnerships that are crucial to their business models.

    Beyond Sorbonne: Other Institutional Departures

    Sorbonne isn’t alone in taking action. Utrecht University withdrew from THE rankings earlier, citing concerns about the emphasis on scoring and competition. These moves suggest that some institutions are willing to sacrifice prestige benefits to align with their values. Interestingly, the Sorbonne has embraced alternative ranking systems such as the Leiden Open Rankings, which highlight its impact.

    The Skeptics’ View: Sour Grapes or Principled Stand?

    Not everyone sees moves like Sorbonne’s withdrawal as a noble principle. Critics argue that institutions often raise philosophical objections only after slipping in the rankings. As one university administrator put it: “If the Sorbonne were doing well in the rankings, they wouldn’t want to leave. We all know why self-assessment is preferred. ‘Stop the world, we want to get off’ is petulance, not policy.”

    This critique resonates because many CoARA members are not major players in global rankings, which fuels suspicion that reform may be as much about strategic positioning as about values. For skeptics, the call for qualitative peer review and expert judgment risks becoming little more than institutions grading themselves or turning to sympathetic peers.

    The Stakes: Prestige vs. Principle

    At the heart of this debate is a fundamental tension: Should universities prioritize visibility and prestige in global markets, or focus on measures of excellence that reflect their mission and impact? For institutions like the Sorbonne, stepping away from THE rankings is a bet that long-term reputation will rest more on substance than on league table positions. But in a globalized higher education market, the risk is real—rankings remain influential signals to students, faculty, and research partners.
    Rankings also exert practical influence in ways that reformers cannot ignore. Governments frequently use global league tables as benchmarks for research funding allocations or as part of national excellence initiatives. International students, particularly those traveling across continents, often rely on rankings to identify credible destinations, and faculty recruitment decisions are shaped by institutional prestige. In short, rankings remain a form of currency in the global higher education market.

    This is why the decision to step away from them carries risk. Institutions like the Sorbonne and Utrecht may gain credibility among reform-minded peers, but they could also face disadvantages in attracting international talent or demonstrating competitiveness to funders. Whether the gamble pays off will depend on whether alternative measures like CoARA or ROI rankings achieve sufficient recognition to guide these critical decisions.

    The Future of Academic Assessment

    The CoARA movement and actions like Sorbonne’s withdrawal represent more than dissatisfaction with current ranking systems—they highlight deeper questions about what higher education values in the 21st century. If the movement gains further momentum, it could push institutions and regulators to diversify evaluation methods, emphasize collaboration over competition, and give greater weight to societal impact.

    Yet rankings are unlikely to disappear. For students, employers, and funders, they remain a convenient—if imperfect—way to compare institutions across borders. The practical reality is that rankings will continue to coexist with newer approaches, even as reform efforts reshape how universities evaluate themselves internally.

    Alternative Rankings: The Rise of Outcome-Based Assessment

    While CoARA challenges traditional rankings, a parallel trend focuses on outcome-based measures such as return on investment (ROI) and career impact. Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, for example, ranks more than 4,000 colleges on the long-term earnings of their graduates. Its findings tell a very different story than research-heavy rankings—Harvey Mudd College, which rarely appears at the top of global research lists, leads ROI tables with graduates projected to earn $4.5 million over 40 years.

    Other outcome-oriented systems, such as The Princeton Review’s “Best Value” rankings, emphasize affordability, employment, and post-graduation success. These approaches highlight institutions that may be overlooked by global research rankings but deliver strong results for students. Together, they represent a pragmatic counterbalance to CoARA’s reform agenda, showing that students and employers increasingly want measures of institutional value beyond research metrics alone.

    These alternative models can be seen most vividly in rankings that emphasize affordability and career outcomes. *The Princeton Review’s* “Best Value” rankings, for example, combine measures of financial aid, academic rigor, and post-graduation outcomes to highlight institutions that deliver strong returns for students relative to their costs. Public universities often rise in these rankings, as do specialized colleges that may not feature prominently in global research tables.

    Institutions like the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences illustrate this point. Although virtually invisible in global rankings, Albany graduates report median salaries of $124,700 just ten years after graduation, placing the college among the best in the nation on ROI measures. For students and families making education decisions, data like this often carries more weight than a university’s position in QS or THE.

    Together with Georgetown’s ROI rankings and the example of Harvey Mudd College, these cases suggest that outcome-based rankings are not marginal alternatives—they are becoming essential tools for understanding institutional value in ways that matter directly to students and employers.

    Rankings as Necessary Evil: The Practical Reality

    The CoARA movement and actions like Sorbonne’s withdrawal represent more than just dissatisfaction with current ranking systems. They reflect deeper questions about the values and purposes of higher education in the 21st century.

    If the movement gains momentum, we could see:

    Diversification of evaluation methods, with different regions and institution types developing assessment approaches that align with their specific values and goals

    Reduced emphasis on competition between institutions in favor of collaboration and shared improvement

    Greater focus on societal impact rather than purely academic metrics

    More transparent and open assessment processes that allow for a better understanding of institutional strengths and contributions

    Conclusion: Evolution, Not Revolution

    The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment and decisions like Sorbonne’s withdrawal from THE rankings represent important challenges to how we evaluate universities, but they signal evolution rather than revolution. Instead of the end of rankings, we are witnessing their diversification. ROI-based rankings, outcome-focused measures, and reform initiatives like CoARA now coexist alongside traditional global league tables, each serving different audiences.

    Skeptics may dismiss reform as “sour grapes,” yet the concerns CoARA raises about distorted incentives and narrow metrics are legitimate. At the same time, American resistance reflects both philosophical differences and the pragmatic advantages U.S. institutions enjoy under current systems.

    The most likely future is a pluralistic landscape: research universities adopting CoARA principles internally while maintaining a presence in global rankings for visibility; career-focused institutions highlighting ROI and student outcomes; and students, faculty, and employers learning to navigate multiple sources of information rather than relying on a single hierarchy.

    In an era when universities must demonstrate their value to society, conversations about how we measure excellence are timely and necessary. Whether change comes gradually or accelerates, the one-size-fits-all approach is fading. A more complex mix of measures is emerging—and that may ultimately serve students, institutions, and society better than the systems we are leaving behind. In the end, what many once described to me as a “necessary evil” may persist—but in a more balanced landscape where rankings are just one measure among many, rather than the single obsession that has dominated higher education for so long.

    Dean Hoke is Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group, a higher education consultancy. He formerly served as President/CEO of the American Association of University Administrators (AAUA). Dean has worked with higher education institutions worldwide. With decades of experience in higher education leadership, consulting, and institutional strategy, he brings a wealth of knowledge on colleges’ challenges and opportunities. Dean is the Executive Producer and co-host for the podcast series Small College America.

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  • Engaging policy review to smooth lumpy futures into transformative higher education

    Engaging policy review to smooth lumpy futures into transformative higher education

    Hamish Coates, Ellen Hazelkorn, Hans de Wit, Tessa Delaquil, and Angel Calderon

    Hans de Wit, Ellen Hazelkorn and Hamish Coates are editors and Tessa DeLaquil is associate editor of Policy Reviews in Higher Education. Angel Calderon is a member of the PRiHE Editorial Board. This blog is based on their editorial for issue 2, 2025.

    It often feels like there is lots more ranting and moaning than imagining and evidencing around higher education these days. With excellent policy research, it does not have to be this way.

    The immediate post-millennium era was arguably a golden age for universities, with huge interest in massification, investment, especially in research, and institutional autonomy. But the global financial crisis followed a decade later by global pandemic shocked higher education into different worlds. Most countries still promulgate objectives for a sustainable and cost-efficient, equitable and accessible, high quality education system as the basis for growth. In OECD countries, however, assumptions that massification would on its own provide opportunities for everyone with mechanisms for social inclusion and social mobility are being heavily questioned. In developing and emerging economies, the challenge is meeting demand and being able to absorb graduates. Yet, too many countries and research-focused universities keep chasing ‘quick prestige’, leaving others to put up with disproportionately lower funding, as well as poorer facilities, resources and opportunities.

    Wealth and opportunity inequalities are increasingly greater within rather than between countries. At the same time, questions about educational outcomes such as employability, skills gaps and skills mismatches and over-qualification which have been long ignored by academic communities as irrelevant, are gaining public and policy traction. Governments and industries document the shift away from credentials towards greater focus on competencies – what people can do with what they know – and alternative accreditation processes.

    A few large countries are in the foothills of a demographic cliff, while others are (currently) privileged by demand. Traditional public systems in many countries face an identity crisis and appear too sluggish to grasp new opportunities. Parts of the private subsector are progressively active and more responsive to the needs of diverse and older learners and to competency-based learning, micro-credentials and other forms of just-in-time learning. Accordingly, the private sector is the fastest growing segment of postsecondary education worldwide.

    Countries vary considerably in their ability to cover costs associated with policy objectives due to revenue challenges and competitive demands elsewhere within society and the economy, alongside student and public unease about cost. Certain systems promote a laissez-faire or marketised approach whereby individual colleges and institutions (public and private) pursue their own agendas, while others grasp at opportunities for a more strategic state-led approach. Countries are beginning to examine the opportunities of a more joined-up post-secondary tertiary system (Hazelkorn, 2025). As Piketty has written, “it is access to skills and diffusion of knowledge that allow inequality to be reduced both within countries and at the international level” (2020: 534). But funding a mass system is very different from one catering to a small minority especially at a time when geopolitical/geoeconomic power shifts reshape the global landscape.

    Deglobalisation and populist nationalism are shaking these issues out differently around the world. In many countries, these tensions are contributing to a growing sense of people and communities being left behind, and to social unrest. The dominance of information technology over universities, challenging the value of graduates for entry-level work and of faculty, will spur heightened questioning of the value of higher education (Coates, 2017; The Guardian, 2025; Roose, 2025). While others look on in disbelief, there is a sense that this may not be a problem for higher education today, though it is likely to be so one day.

    It is too easy to blame governments and other external stakeholders. What role has higher education played itself, and what role can it play into the future? Is the sector, especially the public side, sufficiently strategic, forward-looking and adaptable? What are the implications for the governance of the system and of its many institutions? Or is it wandering unchained in the global wilds? Universities praise themselves as being one of the world’s oldest and most enduring institution, but as Darwin said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

    Once, such questions may have been ludicrous to provoke at the outset of a Policy Reviews in Higher Education (PRIHE) editorial. Not anymore. Accordingly, in the balance of this editorial we sketch frontier topics which higher education can embrace to drive positive reform, then current journal contributions (Figure 1). We conclude with a call to engage and transform.

    Figure 1: Current and frontier contributions

    Any higher education policy zealot who has read Arnold Lobel’s brilliant treatise on Owl’s strange bumps in the bed (in which the Owl is afraid to go to sleep because of two strange bumps at the bottom of his bed, which are, in fact, his feet) (Lobel, 1982) understands that fear is created by running scared and can be tackled by uncovering and addressing matters in ways that unlock innovation and progress.

    Policy Reviews in Higher Education plays this important role, though to date with fewer endearing drawings. Springing from inspiring intellectual dialogue with a member of the PRIHE Editorial Board and consequently guest author, Angel Calderon, we mark out a handful of narratives to carry forward policy research over the coming decades:

    • Moving beyond academic comfort communities
    • Handling looming demographic shifts and diversity
    • Addressing concerns about academic value
    • Creatively unpacking university clusterings and characteristics
    • Leaders who lead in smart ways.

    Higher education researchers must explore how universities and the academics who comprise them can move beyond comfort communities. This means finding ways to move beyond conservative research literatures and straightjacketing bibliometrics, beyond discipline and collegial communities, beyond the academic treadmill, beyond the subsector itself, and beyond naval-gazing research. A doctorate followed by decades toiling in the same institution is no prudent recipe for forging broader cognitive or tangible engagement with enterprise and industry (public and private) and the broader world. How can career trajectories be redefined to evoke and even provoke experimentation, fertilisation, and broader contribution?

    Policy researchers must find productive ways for helping universities handle looming demographic shifts. The Asian investment in higher education which has fuelled the last thirty years will plateau and in major instances decline. Smart countries and universities are already looking beyond increasingly risky ‘foreign and school-leaver markets’ at reconfigured alignments with career-inspiring work and adult life. As yet, however, few if any countries have policy and associated regulation or funding to spur new ventures and directions. Beyond the sensible need for regional or perhaps global ‘harmonisation’, what is the scope for more imaginative forward-thinking about the sort of institutional reconfigurations needed to deliver for societies in 2050? Also, universities continue to see international students as an alternative for demographic declines as well as for income generation, adopting imperialist approaches to new markets rather than anticipating global and local shifts. Internationalisation is still seen as an income source based on mobility flows, instead of as a possible change agent for innovation in education, research and service to society.

    Genuine political concerns about academic quality and value are unlikely to be assuaged by fluffing up the fame of elite researchers who typically have little to do with students or voting communities. Graduate outcomes and relevance are some of the most pressing challenges for all governments pushing people to question the value of higher education and ensure it translates into good jobs. Broadening rankings to include topics like sustainability, while useful, misses the more substantial need to focus on local engagement rather than global striving. It is folly to think that all the ~88,000 higher education institutions (UNESCO, 2022: 12) should aspire to look the same. Pursuit of ‘world-class’ sameness is no substitute for critical research and delivery of more robust and compelling public information on value, quality of educational delivery and outcomes, and at the same time nuanced differentiation of the difference each and every institution can make. And arguably rankings bear increasing responsibility for distorting funding allocations and institutional/government priorities across many post-secondary systems.

    Higher education sector growth in recent decades has spawned exciting, misunderstood and very important institutional and national configurations. There is an urgent need to creatively unpack university clusterings. Far too much time and money has been invested in studying groups characterised by bibliometric performance. More interestingly, there are university-defined groups, ranging from ‘presidents’ dinner clubs’ to disciplinary groups of nationally aligned associations. There are broader political, cultural and religious associations. There are groups connected through graduate or professional diasporas, or research connections. There is an emergent clustering of associations shaped by geopolitical/geoeconomic and national security imperatives. Ownership and tax-status has long been a means of shuffling universities into groups. What novel patterns and projections can be revealed?

    Leading universities and the sector in smart ways will be imperative to ensuring the sector’s promise does not demise. Finding effective leaders is an obvious necessary step, which surprisingly little research has clarified. Cultivating and developing leaders is an obvious next step, though it is tackled in so many perplexing ways. Diversity is important, of course, including in intellectual as well as manifest characteristics. Assuring value and delivery is paramount, with increasing suspicions but to date far too little warrant is given to importing governance techniques from other sectors. Strengthening institutional governance and management is required to ensure that the right leaders are appointed and that they have the capacity and capability to deal with more frequent and overlapping crises and conflicting externalities in uncertain circumstances. There should be willingness to find new ways to govern tertiary education sectors more robustly considering turbulence and increased uncertainty and the level of emergent discord between the public and universities. No doubt policy governance can be tricky, but it needs to be more strategic and forward thinking, willing to take innovative steps to ensure the education system meets the needs of all learners and society. Governance systems were designed based on periods of relative stability and the occasional minor disturbance. What can be done, for instance, to build more resilient leadership for public and private vocational and higher education, encouraging active engagement with each other and their communities beyond the campus? Is there renewed scope to refresh ‘old public management’?

    With the intent of curating even more purposeful contributions, PRIHErecently launched a call for experts around the world to curate cognate collections on a high-impact policy contributions. These contributions which relate to hot topics in higher education policy seek to engage a group of scholars around important themes, and work with the journal and related networks to convene hybrid global seminars and deliver substantial insights on consequential frontier issues. PRIHE’s Editorial Board and Editors have spotlighted six shaping themes which raise questions, insights and issues to be addressed by policy, drawing on experiences from around the world. These include:

    • Proving contributions: Restoring public trust in higher education and universities
    • Emerging formations: Transnational, online and private higher education, regulation, ethics
    • Geopolitical upheavals: Collaboration, sovereignty, nationalism, deregulation
    • Global challenges: Sustaining autonomy, academic freedom, purposeful research, independence
    • Lifelong learning: Valuing higher learning and skills across the lifespan, and
    • Valuing education: Raising the profile of large-scale teaching and learning.

    Higher education in many if not most countries is confronting strong headwinds and needs strident thinking and reform rather than rent-seeking complacency. Carving out intellectual architectures to stimulate dialogue from disorder creates tailwinds for the tough work then required to create and promulgate the evidence which may sway policy and reform practice. In this editorial we have advanced a handful of non-ignorable developments as a guide for authorship, deliberation, and reforming practice.

    Reference: Hazelkorn, E (2025) ‘Building a Unified Tertiary Education System. Trends and Propositions to Provoke Discussion, Trending Topics’ New Directions for Community Colleges  Forthcoming.

    Professor Ellen Hazelkorn is Joint Managing Partner, BH Associates. She is Professor Emeritus, Technological University Dublin.

    Hamish Coates is professor of public policy, director of the Higher Education Futures Lab, and global tertiary education expert.

    Hans de Wit is Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Fellow of the Boston College Center for International Higher Education, Senior Fellow of the international Association of Universities.

    Tessa DeLaquil is postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Education at University College Dublin.

    Angel Calderon is Director of Strategic Insights at RMIT University and expert on global tertiary education.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • Ideology, Outcomes, and a Shift in Higher Ed Oversight

    Ideology, Outcomes, and a Shift in Higher Ed Oversight

    In a bold move that could upend the structure of higher education oversight in the United States, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced the creation of the Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE)—a multi-state effort to challenge what he and his allies call the “activist-controlled accreditation monopoly.” The CPHE includes six Republican-led states: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

    Positioned as a new accrediting entity with a focus on “student outcomes, transparency, and ideological independence,” the CPHE represents a growing backlash against traditional regional accreditors like the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). According to DeSantis and CPHE proponents, these longstanding organizations have prioritized diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and other perceived progressive mandates over academic quality, workforce readiness, and measurable outcomes.

    The Political Context

    Governor DeSantis has made higher education a central battleground in his broader cultural agenda, particularly since his administration launched efforts to eliminate DEI offices, weaken tenure protections, and reshape public university boards. The CPHE fits neatly into that larger campaign—what DeSantis calls “reclaiming higher education.”

    “We’re breaking the stranglehold of the accreditation cartel,” DeSantis said in Boca Raton. “Florida is leading the way in building an education system based on results, not ideology.”

    The effort is being coordinated with support from public university systems across the South, including the University of South Carolina and the University Systems of Georgia and Texas. University of South Carolina Board Chair Thad Westbrook praised the new accreditor’s “outcomes-based” framework, stating it will “benefit students while making accreditation more efficient.”

    A Threat to the Federal Gatekeeping System?

    Accreditation in the U.S. plays a crucial gatekeeping role: it determines whether institutions are eligible to receive federal student aid, including Pell Grants and federally backed student loans. For CPHE to have any real impact, it must eventually be recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

    That recognition is far from guaranteed. The process requires years of documentation, reviews, and approvals—and federal education officials may view CPHE’s openly political roots as problematic. Critics argue the consortium is more about ideological conformity than educational quality.

    Risks and Ramifications

    While the CPHE claims to offer a “rigorous” and “transparent” alternative to traditional accreditation, skeptics—including some education policy analysts and faculty advocates—warn that the real motive is political control over higher education institutions. By tying accreditation to a specific ideological framework, opponents fear that academic freedom, faculty governance, and research independence could be undermined.

    There are also practical concerns. Should CPHE institutions lose recognition by federal agencies or face lawsuits over inconsistent standards, students could suffer the consequences—especially those relying on financial aid or seeking degrees with recognized accreditation.

    Moreover, CPHE’s narrow focus on “student outcomes” often means post-graduate earnings or job placement, metrics that oversimplify complex educational goals and ignore broader social and civic benefits of higher education.

    A Test of Federalism in Higher Ed

    This development marks an escalation in the state-federal tug-of-war over higher education. With the U.S. Supreme Court increasingly supportive of state autonomy, and with Congress gridlocked, states like Florida are testing how far they can go in reshaping public education under a conservative vision.

    The CPHE may become a flashpoint in the national debate over what public universities are for—and who gets to decide. Whether this initiative results in meaningful improvement or becomes another chapter in the politicization of higher education remains to be seen.

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  • The Harvard experience: could it happen here?

    The Harvard experience: could it happen here?

    by GR Evans

    On 1 May 2025 The Guardian headline read: ‘Trump administration exploits landmark civil rights act to fight universities’ diversity initiatives‘. What prevents a British King or Prime Minister from attempting to impose sanctions on universities?

    US higher education is exposed both to presidential and to state interference. Government powers to intervene in US HE reside in presidential control of federal funding, which may come with conditions. Trump cannot simply shut down the Department of Education by executive order but it seems he can direct that the Department’s grant- and loan-giving functions are taken on by another government department.

    As early as 2023 Donald Trump had said ‘We are going to choke off the money to schools that aid the Marxist assault on our American heritage and on Western civilization itself’. In response to campus protest he removed $400m of Columbia’s federal funding in March 2025 on the grounds that the University had failed to address the alleged ‘persistent harassment of Jewish students’. In April 2025 he gave orders to Ivy League universities, threatening withdrawal of funding if their teaching and research did not comply with Government policy as the President defined it and that their appointments should have regard to those expectations.

    On 8 April the Washington Examiner reported a planned attempt to counter such action by legislation, that is to prevent Trump’s directives taking effect by amending the Higher Education Act of 1965 ‘to prohibit political litmus tests in accreditation of institutions of higher education and for other purposes.  On 10 April the Chronicle of Higher Education foresaw an Executive Order.

    A letter to Harvard dated 11 April signed on behalf of the Department of Education and other federal agencies asserted that the United States had ‘invested in Harvard University’s operations’ because of ‘the value to the country’ of its work, but warned that ‘an investment is not an entitlement.’ This letter, if accepted, was to constitute ‘an agreement in principle’. Governance was to be ‘exclusively’ in the hands of those ‘tenured professors’ and ‘senior leadership’ who were ‘committed to the ‘changes indicated in this letter’. Its ‘hiring and related data’ and its student ‘admissions data’ were to be ‘shared with the federal Government’. International students ‘hostile to American values’ were not to be admitted and those already admitted  were to be reported to federal authorities. Policies on diversity, equity and inclusion were to end and student protest restricted.

    Harvard and other Ivy League Universities were indignant. Harvard in particular rode the headlines for some days, objecting to the Government demand that it immediately agree:

    to implement the Trump administration’s demands to overhaul the University’s governance and leadership, academic programs, admissions system, hiring process, and discipline system—with the promise of more demands to come

    and thus ‘overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration and commit the University to punishing disfavored speech’. There were reports that US academics were seeking to escape to employment in Canada,  the UK or Europe.

    The American Association of Colleges and Universities(AACU), founded in 1915 as the Association of American Colleges, now has a wide-ranging  and international membership. It is a loose counterpart to the British Universities UK which also has a membership including an extensive range of higher education providers. The AACU issued a Call for Constructive Engagement on 22 April, 2025, but litigation was already in hand, with the President and Fellows of Harvard seeking declaratory and injunctive relief on 21 April. Harvard is listed as the plaintiff with a considerable list of defendants identified (paras 15-30). In its submission Harvard argued that:

    American institutions of higher learning have in common the essential freedom to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit and what is taught, how, and by whom

    and that such ‘American institutions of higher learning’ were ‘essential to American prosperity’.

    It stressed a ‘longstanding collaboration between universities such as Harvard and the federal government dating back to the Second World War’. It pointed to Harvard’s success in using federal funding to achieving significant research outcomes. The recent ‘broad attack of Government’ on ‘universities across America’, not only on Harvard and the other Ivy League Universities listed, had affected the ‘critical funding partnerships’ that made this invaluable research possible.

    This case was being brought because, it was argued, the Government had been using ‘the withholding of federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decision making at Harvard’. Harvard cited the Government’s letter of 11 April as demanding governance reform and a ‘third-party’ audit ‘of the viewpoints of Harvard’s student body, faculty, and staff’, followed by the hiring of new Faculty and admission of students whose views were satisfactory to the Government. It had asserted that teaching should be ‘to the Government’s satisfaction as determined in the Government’s sole discretion’ and to that end Harvard  should ‘terminate or reform its academic “programs” to the Government’s liking’. The Government had since ‘launched multiple investigations and other actions against Harvard’.  

    The Government had ‘within hours of the Freeze Order ‘ended ‘$2.2 billion in multiyear grants and $60M in multiyear contract value to Harvard University’ and Harvard began receiving ‘stop work orders’. In order to bring a case against the Government it was essential for Harvard to establish that the Government’s action constituted a breach of public law. To that end it stated that the ‘Court has jurisdiction over Harvard’s claims’ because the University did not ‘seek money damages or an order mandating specific performance of any contract’, but:

    an order declaring unlawful and setting aside sweeping agency action taken in violation of Harvard’s constitutional rights under the First Amendment and its rights guaranteed by statute and regulation.

    Harvard stressed that even though it is a private university its research is federally funded ‘through a grant process administered by federal agencies’. It cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which requires ‘a detailed and mandatory statutory framework’ of procedures to be followed. Harvard had its own procedures, added to or created in August, September and November 2024. Specifically in March 2025, Harvard released updated “Frequently Asked Questions” clarifying that both Jewish and Israeli identities are covered by the University’s Non-Discrimination Policy.

    Harvard explained that it had attempted ‘collaboration’ in the weeks following the government letter and the Federal Task Force’s press release announcing campus visits. It had sought to arrange a meeting on the campus and that was scheduled for late April 2025, yet on April 20 it was reported that the ‘Trump administration has grown so furious with Harvard University’ that ‘it is planning to pull an additional $1 billion of the school’s funding for health research.’

    Trump’s threatened sanctions concerned the future of Harvard’s funding. Harvard has endowments  of c$53 billion so any threat from Trump to reduce federal funding posed a limited risk to its future. However he made a further proposal on 18 April to remove Harvard’s exemption from Government tax on its income, which could have hit its normal operation harder.

    The US counterpart to HMRC is its Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS may grant tax-exempt status to a charitable, religious, scientific or literary organization, on condition that it refrains from campaigning or seeking to modify legislation. However, the President is not permitted to direct the IRS to conduct an investigation or audit. To that extent the counterbalancing of executive, legislative and judicial powers in the US seems to be holding.

    Harvard was making its challenge at a time when the balance between the executive and the judiciary in the US had come into question in a number of cases where Trump’s executive orders sought to override the courts. It claimed that ‘the Freeze Order is part of a broader effort by the Government to punish Harvard for protecting its constitutional rights. … multiple news outlets have reported that the Internal Revenue Service is considering revoking its recognition of Harvard’s tax exempt status’. Representing 86 universities, the Presidents’ Alliance has filed an Amicus brief supporting the litigation.

    Harvard sought in its litigation to have the Freeze Order declared unconstitutional and also the ‘unconstitutional conditions’ sought to be imposed  in the April 3 and April 11 and any action taken under it so far, also banning any future orders in the same vein. It pleaded six Counts, first a violation of the First Amendment in that the letters had targeted the ‘academic content that Harvard professors “teach students”’. Count 2 was that ‘even if the prerequisites of review under the Administrative Procedure Act were not satisfied, federal courts have the “equitable power” to “enjoin unconstitutional actions by state and federal officers.”’ Count 3 was that Title VI does not permit wholesale freezing of a recipient’s federal financial assistance. Instead, it requires that a “refusal to grant or to continue assistance” be “limited in its effect to the particular program, or part thereof, in which . . . noncompliance has been so found.” Count 4 was the Government’s failure to ‘comply with their own regulations before freezing Harvard’s federal financial assistance’. Count 5 alleged that the action had been arbitrary and capricious and Count 6 that it had been ultra vires.

    At Indiana University a professor of Germanic studies was recently investigated under a state law after a student accused him of speech in support of Palestine.

    Could this happen in the UK?

    English higher education providers have their autonomy protected by the Higher Education and Research Act (2017)s.2 [HERA]. This legislation created the Office for Students, a non-departmental public body, whose nearest US counterpart is the Higher Learning Commission, an independent agency founded in 1895 which accredits higher education institutions. The University of Michigan, for example seeks, renewal of its accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission every ten years.

    The Office for Students is both regulator and funder, and distributes Government funding to higher education providers. This may take into account ‘particular policy areas and government priorities. Yet HERA outlaws any attempt by the OfS to impose the restrictions Trump sought to impose on the universities of the USA.  English higher education providers must be free:

    (i) to determine the content of particular courses and the manner in which they are taught, supervised and assessed,

    (ii) to determine the criteria for the selection, appointment and dismissal of academic staff and apply those criteria in particular cases, and

    (iii) to determine the criteria for the admission of students and apply those criteria in particular cases.

    Academic staff in England also enjoy ‘freedom within the law’:

    (i) to question and test received wisdom, and

    (ii) to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions,

    without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at the providers.

    There is some Government oversight. In protecting ‘the institutional autonomy of English higher e providers’, the Office for Students is subject to the ‘guidance’ of the Secretary of State, though Government requirements are held off by the legislative fencing.  The guidance of a higher education provider by the Office for Students:

    must not relate to—

    (a) particular parts of courses of study,

    (b) the content of such courses,

    (c) the manner in which they are taught, supervised or assessed,

    (d) the criteria for the selection, appointment or dismissal of academic staff, or how they are applied, or

    (e) the criteria for the admission of students, or how they are applied.

    The legislation adds that:

    guidance framed by reference to a particular course of study must not guide the OfS to perform a function in a way which prohibits or requires the provision of a particular course of study.

    This seems to place universities safely out of reach of the kind of restrictions Trump sought to impose on Harvard and other Ivy League Universities, but the Office for Students is potentially able not only to set its Government funding levels but also affect its students’ access to loans from the Student Loans Company. That can certainly be at risk, for example in the case of the Oxford Business College, whose funding (via franchise arrangements) was blocked in April 2025 when it was found to have abused the student loan system by admitting unqualified students. (US accreditors do hold a lot of power, because universities must be accredited by a federally recognized agency in order to access federal student aid.)

    Access to Government funding through the OfS requires listing by the Office for Students on its Register as an approved provider. The Office for Students did not impose its Conditions of Registration on pre-existing universities before including them in 2018 on its first Register under HERA. It simply treated them as proven acceptable providers of higher education. Each university duly publishes an account of its compliance (eg at Oxford) with the requirements which enable it to remain on the Office for Students Register. What might happen if they were found not to have done so? Short of removal from its Register the OfS has been known to impose fines, notably of more than £500,000 in the recent case of the University of Sussex when it was alleged to have failed to follow its own procedures designed to protect academic freedom.

    Government oversight of the work of HE providers may overlap with or sit uneasily beside forms of ‘accreditation’ and ’qualification’. The accreditation of qualifications in the UK may be the responsibility of a number of ‘agencies’ external to HE providers, some of which are bodies offering professional qualifications. For example the Solicitors Regulation Authority keeps its own register of qualified solicitors. A university degree may not constitute a ‘qualification’ without the completion of further recognised study, some of which may be provided by the university itself, for example the Postgraduate Certificate in Education.

    An area of ‘accreditation’ undergoing significant reform and expansion in the UK covers ‘skills’, including  apprenticeships. Not all universities offer their own apprenticeships, though they may recognise some of those available from other providers at Levels 4 and 5. Nevertheless ‘skills’ are potentially at risk of Government intervention. At the beginning of March 2025, the House of Lords was debating whether  ‘skills’ might benefit from the establishment of a ‘new executive agency’.

    It was recognised that there would need to be a report from the Secretary of State  ‘containing draft proposals’ for an agency, ‘to be known as “Skills England”. Ian Sollom MPobjected that that that would represent ‘a significant centralising of power in the hands of the Secretary of State, without providing proper mechanisms for parliamentary oversight or accountability.’ A ‘statutory, departmental body would have more clout’, he argued.

    An Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) already existed, but it was concerned with qualifications up to Level 5, short of degree-level 6. ‘Skills England’ was intended to begin work in April 2025. ‘When Skills England calls, will anybody answer the phone?’ asked HEPI, pointing to ‘limited autonomy, complex cross-departmental coordination, tensions between national and local priorities, and competing objectives between foundational and higher-level skills need’. Its ‘cross-departmental working’ with Government was unclear.

    It looks as though some universities, at least, are safe from any initiative to interfere from above with the right to self-government and to determine what to teach and research. Harvard records a ‘revenue base’ of $65billion, with ‘federal funding ‘ as its largest source of support for research. The research income of Oxford, for example, is £778m, with commercial research income of £148m. That cannot compare with Harvard, but at least Oxford and some others will remain free to choose how to use that income for its academic purposes.

    This is a modified version of an article first published by the Oxford Magazine No 477 in May 2025, republished with the permission of the editor and author.

    SRHE member GR Evans is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History in the University of Cambridge.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • Mind the policy gaps: regulating quality and ethics in digitalised and privatised crossborder education

    Mind the policy gaps: regulating quality and ethics in digitalised and privatised crossborder education

    by Hans de Wit, Tessa DeLaquil, Ellen Hazelkorn and Hamish Coates

    Hans de Wit, Ellen Hazelkorn and Hamish Coates are editors and Tessa DeLaquil is associate editor of Policy Reviews in Higher Education. This blog is based on their editorial for issue 1, 2025.

    Transnational education (TNE), also referred to as crossborder education, is growing and morphing in all kinds of interesting ways which, while exciting for innovators, surface important policy, regulatory, quality and ethical concerns. It is therefore vital that these developments do not slip around or through policy gaps. This is especially true for on-line TNE which is less visible than traditional campus-based higher education. Thus, it is vital that governments take the necessary actions to regulate and quality assure such education and training expansion and to inform the sector and broader public. Correspondingly, there is a pressing need for more policy research into the massive transformations shaking global higher education.

    TNE and its online variants have been part of international higher education for a few decades. As Coates, Xie, and Hong (2020) foreshadowed, it has seen a rapid increase after the Covid-19 pandemic. In recent years, TNE operations have grown and diversified substantially. Wilkins and Huisman (2025) identify eleven types of TNE providers and propose the following definition to help handle this diversity: ‘Transnational education is a form of education that borrows or transfers elements of one country’s higher education, as well as that country’s culture and values, to another country.’

    International collaboration and networking have never been more important than at this time of geopolitical and geoeconomic disruption and a decline in multilateral mechanisms. But TNE’s expansion is matched by growing risks.

    International student mobility at risk

    International degree student mobility (when students pursue a bachelor, master and/or doctoral degree abroad) continues to be dominant, with over six million students studying abroad, double the number of 10 years ago. It is anticipated that this number will further increase in the coming decade to over 8 million, but its growth is decreasing, and its geographical path from the ‘global south’ to the ‘global north’ is shifting towards a more diverse direction. Geopolitical and nationalist forces as well as concerns about adequate academic services (accommodation in particular) in high-income countries in the global north are recent factors in the slowing down of the growth in student mobility to Australia, North America and Europe, the leading destinations. The increased availability and quality of higher education, primarily at the undergraduate level, in middle-income countries in Asia, Latin America and parts of the Middle East, also shape the decrease in student mobility towards the global north.

    Several ‘sending countries’, for instance, China, South Korea and Turkey, are also becoming receiving countries. Countries like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine (until the Russian invasion), Egypt and some of the Caribbean countries have also become study destinations for students from neighbouring low-income countries. These countries provide them with higher education and other forms of postsecondary education sometimes in their public sector but mostly in private institutions and by foreign providers.

    An alternative TNE model?

    Given the increased competition for international students and the resulting risks of falling numbers and related financial security for universities, TNE has emerged as an alternative source of revenue. According to Ilieva and Tsiligiris (2023), United Kingdom TNE topped more than 530,000 students in 2021. In the same year, its higher education institutions attracted approximately 680,000 international students. It is likely that TNE will surpass inward student mobility.

     As the United Kingdom case makes clear, TNE originally was primarily a ‘north-south’ phenomenon, in which universities from high-income and mostly Anglophone countries, offered degree programmes through branch campuses, franchise operations and articulation programmes. Asia was the recipient region of most TNE arrangements, followed by the Middle East. As in student mobility, TNE is more diverse globally both in provision and in reception.

    The big trend in TNE is the shift to online education with limited in-person teaching. A (2024) report of Studyportals found over 15,000 English-taught online programmes globally. And although 92 per cent of these programmes are supplied by the four big Anglophone countries – the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Australia – the number of programmes offered outside those four doubled since 2019 from 623–1212, primarily in Business and Management, Computer Sciences and IT.

    Private higher education institutions

    This global growth in online delivery of education goes hand in hand with the growth in various forms of private higher education. Over 50% of the institutions of higher education and over one-third of global enrolment are in private institutions, many of which are commercial in nature. Private higher education has become the dominant growth area in higher education, as a result of the lack of funding for public higher education as well as traditional HE’s sluggish response to diverse learner needs. Although most private higher education, in particular for-profit, is taking place in the global south, it is also present in high-income countries, and one can see a rise in private higher education recently in Western Europe, for instance, Germany and France.

    TNE is often a commercial activity. It is increasingly a way for public universities to support international and other operations as public funding wanes. Most for-profit private higher education targets particular fields and education services and tends to be more online than in person. There is an array of ownership and institutional structures, involving a range of players.

    Establishing regulations and standards

    TNE, especially online TNE, is likely to become the major form of international delivery of education for local and international students especially where growing demand cannot be met domestically. Growth is also increasingly motivated by an institution’s or country’s financial challenges or strategic priorities – situations that are likely to intensify. This shift could help overcome some of the inequities associated with mobility and address concerns associated with climate change but online TNE is significantly more difficult to regulate.

    A concerning feature of the global TNE market is how learners and countries can easily become victims. Fraud is associated with the exponential rise in the number of fake colleges and accreditors, and document falsification. This is partly due to different conceptions and regulatory approaches to accreditation/QA of TNE and the absence of trustworthy information. Indeed, the deficiency in comprehensive and accessible information is partly responsible for on-going interest in and use of global rankings as a proxy for quality.

    A need for clearer and stronger TNE and online quality assurance

    The trend in growth of private for-profit higher education, TNE and online delivery is clear and given its growing presence requires more policy attention by national, regional and global agencies. As mentioned, public universities are increasingly active in TNE and online education targeting countries and learners underserved in their home countries whilst  looking for other sources of income as a result of decreasing public support and other factors.

    The Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications makes clear the importance of ensuring there are no differences in quality or standards between learners in the home or host country regardless of whether the delivery of education programmes and learning activities is undertaken in a formal, non-formal or informal setting, in face-to-face, virtual or hybrid formats, traditional or non-traditional modes. Accordingly, there are growing concerns about insufficient regulation and the multilateral framework covering international education, and especially online TNE.

    In response, there is a need for clearer and stronger accreditation/quality assurance and standards by national regulators, regional networks and organisations such as UNESCO, INQAAHE, the International Association of Universities (IAU) with regards to public and private involvement in TNE, and online education. This is an emerging frontier for tertiary education, and much more research is required on this growing phenomenon.

    Professor Ellen Hazelkorn is Joint Managing Partner, BH Associates. She is Professor Emeritus, Technological University Dublin.

    Hamish Coates is professor of public policy, director of the Higher Education Futures Lab, and global tertiary education expert.

    Hans de Wit is Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Fellow of the Boston College Center for International Higher Education, Senior Fellow of the international Association of Universities.

    Tessa DeLaquil is postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Education at University College Dublin.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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