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Accreditation sanctions and community college enrollment
Author(s) -
Burnett Christopher A.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
new directions for community colleges
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1536-0733
pISSN - 0194-3081
DOI - 10.1002/cc.20480
Subject(s) - accreditation , sanctions , graduation (instrument) , accountability , government (linguistics) , higher education , quality (philosophy) , public administration , community college , political science , state (computer science) , public relations , business , medical education , medicine , law , linguistics , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , epistemology , algorithm , computer science
Higher education in the United States is regulated by a triad of the federal government, state governments, and private accreditors. Rather than relying on bureaucrats to ensure quality, federal policy defers such assurance to accrediting agencies. This empowers accreditors to determine which colleges can access financial aid and establishes their accountability role as quality signal. This article examines the relationship between accreditation sanctions and community college enrollment. Results show enrollment declines the year after a sanction and demonstrate a relationship between enrollment and graduation, retention, and transfer rates as well as published tuition and fees. Administrators at community colleges, especially those concerned with enrollment, may benefit by ensuring appropriate resources are devoted to accreditation efforts. Building an understanding of accreditation within their communities may also help colleges maintain enrollment. Sanctioned institutions may benefit from proactively engaging with their community and students about the sanction and how it will be remedied.