Six Republican-Led University Systems Form Accreditation Consortium

The Texas A&M University System is partnering with university systems from five other Republican-led states—Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina—to form a new accrediting agency called the Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE). This new agency aims to provide an alternative to traditional accreditors, particularly the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), which these states' leaders criticize for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and perceived liberal biases. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other officials emphasize that the CPHE will focus on student achievement, quality, and outcomes rather than ideological considerations. The CPHE must still go through the federal and state approval process to become a recognized accrediting body, which involves evaluations by the U.S. Department of Education and related advisory committees. Texas A&M’s new chancellor, Glenn Hegar, and other university leaders highlight this development as a move toward more transparent and less cumbersome accreditation standards aimed at benefiting students and institutions. If approved, the CPHE would oversee accreditation for 68 universities and more than 1.2 million students across the six states.