Congresswoman Frederica S. Wilson’s newly introduced Quality Higher Education Act (H.R. 4579) will change the accreditation system in order to help graduating college students earn degrees to help better prepare them for the workforce.
Frederica S. WilsonThe act will establish performance benchmarks and will require more transparency among accreditor’s evaluations of schools.
About 13 million students receive roughly $130 billion in federal aid to help cover the cost of their education. However, only 58 percent of those students end up graduating within six years. Students who do not finish their degrees are more likely to take out loans.
“When students make tough decisions about what college to attend, they trust that if a school is accredited, it will be able to provide them with the skills and knowledge needed for their chosen career path,” said Wilson. “It’s crucial that all schools meet the same high-quality standards to retain accreditation, and that if they’re not adequality serving all student populations, it’s clear to them and prospective students what they must do to improve. Given the skyrocketing cost of higher education and unprecedented levels of student debt, the stakes have never been higher.”
