Executive Order Seeks to Reform Accreditation in Higher Education

At a Glance

• On April 23, 2025, President Trump issued seven executive orders (EOs) relating to broad aspects of the U.S. education sector, including one directed at accrediting agencies.
• The EO, called “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education,” directs the secretary of education to take various actions to hold accrediting agencies accountable for violations of law, namely unlawful discrimination “under the guise” of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) standards.
• The EO also instructs the secretary of education to: ensure that accreditors require institutions to prioritize “intellectual diversity” amongst faculty; require accredited institutions to use program-level student data without reference to race, ethnicity or sex; advance credential and degree completion; discourage credential inflation; resume recognition of new accreditors; “streamline” the process through which institutions may change their accreditor(s); improve the efficiency of accreditor recognition review; and establish an experimental site that can develop new “flexible and streamlined quality-assurance pathways” for postsecondary institutions.

On April 23, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order called “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education” along with a fact sheet about the EO and six other EOs relating to education.

Asserting that accreditors have heretofore “remained improperly focused on compelling adoption of discriminatory ideology, rather than on student outcomes,” the EO alleges that accreditors have condoned or promoted impermissible discrimination in postsecondary programs and instructs the secretary of education to enhance accountability for accreditors. Specifically, the EO directs the secretary of education to hold accreditors accountable — including through denial, monitoring, suspension or termination of recognition — if they fail to meet accreditation criteria or otherwise violate federal law, including requiring institutions to engage in “unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ initiatives.” 

The EO also directs the attorney general and secretary of education to investigate and take action to cease unlawful discrimination by American law schools, medical schools and graduate medical education entities that is “advanced” by these agencies’ DEI standards. 

In addition, the EO instructs the secretary of education, “consistent with applicable law,” to take appropriate steps to realign accreditation with what it terms “student-oriented” principles by:

• Requiring accreditors to ensure institutions provide high-quality, high-value academic programs free from unlawful discrimination or other federal law violations
• Ensuring that accreditors require institutions to support and prioritize intellectual diversity among faculty
• Providing accreditors with noncompliance findings about Title VI and Title IX findings made against their accredited institutions
• Mandating that accreditors require institutions to use program-level student data to improve outcomes, without reference to race, ethnicity or sex
• Ensuring accreditors are not using their role to encourage or force institutions to violate state law
• Reducing barriers that limit institutions from adopting practices that advance degree completion and spur new education models 
• Prohibiting accreditors from engaging in practices that result in credential inflation
• Resuming recognition of new accrediting agencies to increase competition, and streamlining the process for recognition and for institutions to switch accreditors 
• Launching an experimental site to test quality-assurance pathways.

In her written statement on the EO, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon stated that the EO would “bring long-overdue change by accelerating the recognition of new accreditors and refocusing existing accreditors on helping member institutions improve the student outcomes families care most about…” and that the Department of Education would “create a competitive marketplace of higher education accreditors.” 

Analysis

We believe that the directives in the EO will need to be implemented in some manner by the secretary of education before becoming effective, perhaps through an upcoming rulemaking or other guidance. Institutions and accrediting agencies should continue to closely monitor this matter for ongoing developments.