Berkeley, CA USA – April 17, 2025: Students, professors and staff protest the dictates of President Trump on the university or face the loss of federal monies for their resistance. (Photo credit: Phil Pasquini / Shutterstock)
A college accreditation overhaul that Donald Trump once called his “secret weapon” against higher education is on track to take effect next summer, and even some conservatives are uneasy about part of it, NPR reported Thursday.
“Our secret weapon will be the college accreditation system,” Trump said in a 2023 campaign video, pledging to reclaim universities from what he called the radical left.
Accreditors are independent nonprofits that review colleges, and their approval determines which schools can tap billions in federal student loans and grants. The Education Department finalized new rules for them last month, and the changes take effect July 1, 2027.
The biggest change requires accreditors to weigh whether colleges have policies that promote intellectual diversity and expose students to a range of viewpoints. Bob Shireman, a former Obama Education Department official now at the progressive Century Foundation, told NPR the rule would give Washington unprecedented leverage to pressure campuses over the mix of perspectives they offer.
Beth Akers, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, supports much of the overhaul but objected to that provision.
“[It] does put the administration sort of in a seat of judgment over the institutions, over the accreditors, about whether or not they are appropriately teaching ideology. And that is something I’m uncomfortable with,” Akers said.
The department disputes those concerns. A spokesperson told NPR the rules don’t mandate any specific policies or give the department power to police speech. Under the final rule, an accreditor that doesn’t adopt a formal policy on intellectual diversity won’t be found out of compliance for that reason alone, Higher Ed Dive reported.
The overhaul also makes it easier to create new accreditors and for schools to switch between them. Public university systems in six states, including Florida and Texas, have joined a new accreditor championed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Shireman warned that letting schools jump ship could weaken oversight.
One piece draws some bipartisan support: a push for accreditors to weigh outcomes such as graduation rates and earnings. The administration is already pressing on that front with a separate rule that ties federal loan eligibility to graduates’ earnings.
Because the accreditation changes went through formal rulemaking, they will be difficult for Democrats to undo, NPR reported.