Dive Summary:
- A doctoral dissertation by Paul Woolston Jr., director of admissions at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, looked at accreditation costs at four-year colleges and found that they spent $414,586 on accreditation-related expenses during 7-to-10-year cycles.
- Some employees who responded were critical of the amount of dollars spent on accommodating accreditors during evaluation visits.
- Only 44% of survey respondents indicated that they believed their costs associated with accreditation were justified.
From the article:
Debate over the cost and value of accreditation has been studded with stark anecdotes of million-dollar price tags for the process, which is required for colleges to receive federal student aid. But a new study concludes that the dollar cost is less than half that amount, on average, and varies widely for different kinds of institutions. ...