NWCCU Announces Split From C-RAC

A long-standing member is leaving the Council on Recognized Accrediting Commissions, a group that represents institutional accreditors. It’s the latest shift showing that accreditors are rethinking how they work with their peers and identify themselves.

The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities announced Friday it is breaking away from C-RAC. Officials said in a news release the move is intended “to focus on” NWCCU’s “national engagement where it can have the greatest impact for the institutions it serves.”

NWCCU is one of the seven institutional accreditors that comprise C-RAC’s membership. (All seven were once considered regional accreditors before the Trump administration did away with geographic boundaries in 2019.)

Commission officials cast the move as part of a broader strategic rebranding that will reflect a commitment to universities across the nation despite a historic focus on the Northwest region.

“While the commission has served colleges and universities across the Northwest and beyond for more than a century, its reach and relevance have grown well beyond any regional boundary,” officials wrote in the news release. “The new identity will honor that legacy while positioning NWCCU as the nationally relevant, relationship-centered accreditor it is today.”

NWCCU will remain a member of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

NWCCU promised more details on the rebranding “in the coming months.” If the rebranding effort means a name change, it would be the second accreditor to make such a move this year. On Thursday, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges announced it is rebranding to drop its regional distinction. Now the accreditor will be known simply as the Commission on Colleges and Universities, a change that President Stephen L. Pruitt said is intended to reflect “who we are today and where higher education is going.”

NWCCU president Selena M. Grace struck a similar tone in Friday’s announcement.

“This is a time that calls for clarity about who we are and where we’re headed,” she said in the news release. “Everything we’re announcing today, our national engagement, our partnerships, our evolving identity, reflects the same thing: an organization that is growing with higher education, as opposed to reacting to it. We simply cannot wait to lead this moment forward.”

Although the rebranded COCU and the Northwest Commission may be the first accreditors to drop their geographic monikers, C-RAC also rebranded earlier this year. More than six years after the first Trump administration nixed geographic boundaries, C-RAC changed its name in January, trading the term “regional” for “recognized.”

(C-RAC did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.)

Trump administration officials have been critical of the term “regional accreditation,” issuing a proposed interpretive rule in February to end the use of the phrase, which Education Department officials said in a news release created “artificial distinctions” and confusion. (The term appeared to confuse Education Secretary Linda McMahon last May.)

Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent has also criticized the use of the term in the past.

“Accreditors, institutions of higher education, states, and professional licensure boards continue to cling to outdated terminology that prioritizes artificially inflated prestige over real student outcomes,” he said in a February news release about the interpretive rule. “We urge those still holding on to the misleading phrase ‘regional accreditor’ to abandon it immediately.”

Name changes come at a time of potential upheaval for the accreditation system.

Last month, an advisory committee advanced the Trump administration’s proposed overhaul of accreditation that would make it easier for new accreditors to gain federal recognition and put new requirements on the agencies, among other changes. ED officials have argued that coming changes, which the department is working to finalize, will modernize a broken system they see as a barrier to innovation and a drain on institutional resources. However, critics argue that the changes will weaken accountability and enable bad actors in the sector.