6 Southern public university systems form new accreditation body

Public universities in Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee are eschewing long-standing accrediting bodies like the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to create their own certification panel, officials announced Thursday.

The formation of the new Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE) follows Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s battle with SACSCOC over its standards as he pushed his state’s colleges to adopt more conservative approaches to education.

“[The new body] will upend the monopoly of the woke accreditation cartels, and it will provide institutions with an alternative that focuses on student achievement, rather than the ideological fads that have so permeated those accrediting bodies over the years,” DeSantis said at an event at Florida Atlantic University on Thursday. “We care about student achievement; we care about measurable outcomes; we care about efficiency; we care about pursuing truth; we care about preparing our students to be citizens of our republic.”

“All those things have played second fiddle if they were even given any credence at all under these more prevailing accreditation models,” he added.

DeSantis said leaders of the new body have been working with the Department of Education under the Trump administration to receive expedited federal approval for the new accreditation model to undergo a “trial run” that will entice more states to join.

“We need these things approved and implemented during President Trump’s term of office, because the reality is, if it doesn’t get approved and stick during that time, you can have a president come in next and potentially revoke it, and they could probably do that very quickly,” he said.

“Obviously, we didn’t really have the prospects of launching anything like this successfully during the Biden years, but it’s a new day and I think this is going to make a big, big difference,” DeSantis continued.

The Education Department didn’t respond to The Hill’s request for comment on the new body.

Colleges that have already signed on to CPHE accreditation include ones in the Texas A&M University System, State University System of Florida, University System of Georgia, University of North Carolina System, University of South Carolina and University of Tennessee System.

Florida system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, a former Florida state lawmaker who was hired for the higher education role in 2023 by a DeSantis-appointed board, said that the aim is to lift education outcomes.

“The Commission for Public Higher Education will offer an accreditation model that prioritizes academic excellence and student success while removing ideological bias and unnecessary financial burdens,” he said. “With our current accreditor, SACS, there are nearly 50 four-year, nonprofit colleges and universities that have a four-year graduation rate of 20 percent or less and yet they’re still accredited.”

SACSCOC President Belle Wheelan’s office didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.

DeSantis predicted other states, particularly conservative states in the South, will also sign on to gain accreditation from the new body.

“SACS has been such a problem and people want to get away from it,” he said. “They’ll see this accreditation consortium is really offering the type of vision that the leadership in those states believe in.”