On July 11, the Florida Board of Governors, led by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), took a major step in reforming higher education across the Southeast by unanimously approving the new Committee of Public Higher Education. This decision follows a series of state laws, including post-tenure review and a mandate to rotate accreditors every five years, all aimed at more broadly holding institutions accountable for their decisions in recent years.
Florida leads regional leaders in seeking an accreditation alternative to the existing Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee all immediately welcomed the proposal with open arms and pledged monetary and administrative support late last month.
Hopefully, other regions will soon follow.
In leading such an effort, DeSantis hopes to “ensure the Free State of Florida leads the way in higher education for decades to come.” This is a long-overdue challenge to a bloated system, but whether it is real reform or a rival bureaucracy remains to be seen.
Reformers to the system are up against what amounts to an accreditation cartel, where a handful of gatekeeping administrators dictate access to federal funds and legitimacy. The SACSCOG, responsible for the duties now, is one of the few organizations that have deterred state leadership from taking back command of their flagship universities.
There is much at stake. After all, if there is no accreditation, then there are no Pell Grants. No Pell Grants, no students. No students, no university. Such is the bind that schools face, largely perpetuated by complacent advisory boards.
Florida has led the country in educational innovation up and down the ladder, whether by incentivizing in-state college attendance via Bright Futures or embracing school choice in K-12. Taking such a decisive step is a great move by a region of the country that has historically been ridiculed for its lack of educational vision.
If there’s an educational renaissance on the horizon, then Florida is staking its claim to be the capital. CPHE just might be a cornerstone for the plan to wash the “woke” away.
As the Trump administration’s crusade against the educational establishment continues, there is potential for some collateral damage. The hope is that such efforts will not merely result in an alternative bureaucracy (or a rival cartel, in this case) but a reinvigorated system dedicated to forming an education ecosystem infused with American excellence.
DESANTIS REVEALS ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSITY ACCREDITATION APPARATUS
This also means scaffolding the criteria and staff of such a board to be broadly appealing and meritocratic, not infused with loyalist cronyism. After all, the CPHE will have to coexist with the existing board for a few years, and it stands to reason that doing things better than its counterpart can only help its case.
If Florida gets it right, it could set a model for the rest of the country: an accreditation system that rewards merit, not shallow conformity. If it stumbles, it risks replicating the very system it was built to replace. For the sake of Florida’s best and brightest, we should hope for the former.