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Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire [00:00:04]:
Welcome to another edition of Career Education Report. I'm Jason Altmire. We're going to talk about accreditation today, which is a topic we get a lot of requests to talk more about the accrediting process and accreditors in general. And I think this discussion will be very interesting because we're going to talk with somebody, Dr. Christopher Bjornstad, and he has extensive experience leadership in management relating to state authorization, accreditation, strategic planning, institutional effectiveness all across higher education. And he sees some gaps in the current accreditation process and views that as an opportunity to establish a new accreditor in, in higher education. And we're going to talk about all of that. So Dr.
Jason Altmire [00:00:57]:
Bjornstad, thank you for being with us.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:00:59]:
Jason, thank you for having me here today to talk about this project. I really appreciate it. Short background on myself. I'm a psychologist by trade. I have a PhD in psychology with an emphasis in organizational effectiveness. Long time ago in graduate school, I completed my master's in counseling psychology. I was on track to get a licensure and become a mental health counselor. Interesting enough though, as I started getting involved in the system and healthcare reimbursement, I quickly grew frustrated with the bureaucracy of the whole thing.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:01:30]:
And I realized that I'm a person that thrives on results, clear processes and measurable outcomes. And it just didn't align with counseling at the time. So I did an about face and I ended up relocating at the time to Las Vegas, Nevada. I was going to graduate school at Boston and there I enrolled in a PhD program in psychology. It was also in Las Vegas where I was first introduced into the field of higher education. I took on a role as an associate dean of academics at night at a small design school. And I remember when I first started working there with the faculty and the students at night, it was like, you know, a 2:00 to 10:00 kind of shift. I remember just working with everybody and feeling how invigorating it was to be part of that process.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:02:18]:
And Emilio, with, with, with all those individuals and just trying to help the faculty and students be successful. It was really the first time I, I felt a true calling of kind of what I wanted to do. Not long after I took that role, I accepted administrative position as a director of compliance with the same college it was with their parent company. This role, I quickly realized too that it matched my passion for simplicity, efficiency and clear systems. It was my first introduction to the world of accreditation and regulatory affairs and I was hooked from the start. Since then, over the years, I've taken on Additional leadership roles in regulatory affairs, institutional effectiveness assessment across a wide variety of educational organizations. Along the way, I've also had the privilege of serving on several nonprofit boards and where I gained some insight into governance, strategic planning, and community impact. Each of these experiences reinforce my passion for creating systems that don't just meet the standards, but actively support meaningful outcomes for students and institutions alike.
Jason Altmire [00:03:27]:
I think it's really interesting that with that background that you, you are interested in focusing upon the accreditation process, maybe give a little bit of an overview on how you view the accreditation process, how it works and what's not working. And in particular, I think in general, audiences understand the accreditation, the need for accreditation, maybe not the process of how it happens, but the fact that in traditional higher education, accreditors play a role. But I think there may be less of an understanding in a general audience of the role that accreditors play for career education. Sometimes national creditors, sometimes regional creditors. So maybe talk about how you view that world and your experience and where you see as an opportunity to get better.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:04:21]:
Yeah. The idea for me to start a new crediting agency organization really started from my commitment to focusing on student learning outcomes and then this idea of institutional autonomy and really focusing on accessibility. Over the years when I've been in all my work with the institutions, I've come to realize that the emphasis has shifted away from focusing on student learning outcomes. What's become of it, I feel like in some situations is this idea of checking off regulatory boxes. And then there's, I think there's an over emphasis on tracking retention, graduation rates, metrics like that, that I truly feel they're not really helpful for institutions, especially for profit institutions, to truly really try to help them develop and maintain quality programs. So for me, that started this idea about a new agency and then I also over the years have experienced this focus on accreditors. Some of them have a tendency to emphasize institutional governance and get involved in the institutional governance aspect of higher ed institutions. And oftentimes I feel like that's not really an appropriate place for them to going into considering it's not a requirement by the Department of Ed in some situations.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:05:41]:
And so I've worked with some institutions where they've been asked to be basically, you know, hire a new board member or hire a new president. So again, for me, I feel like that they're just shifting away from the true nature of what it is to be to be accredited, which is really focusing on the student experience, learning outcomes and making sure that the institutions are offering quality programs for these Students, if.
Jason Altmire [00:06:09]:
You are a potential student, a parent, or even just an observer who's interested in whether or not it's a quality institution. Most people would view accreditation as a good housekeeping seal of approval that if you're accredited, you're a quality institution. As you point out, accreditation generally looks at inputs at things that that college is doing related to faculty staffing ratios and financial measures and things like that. Rarely do accreditors factor in or consider it the outcomes, which is the student success, postgraduate success, the student experience. And I think you talked about that a little bit. What do you think can be done to improve upon that and provide a more valuable measure to people who want to use accreditation as a yardstick as to whether an institution is of high quality?
Christopher Bjornstad [00:07:09]:
And it's interesting because I feel like some of the smaller creditors really do focus on those outcomes. They require specific retention rates, placement rates for certain programs. So I think they do a good job with that. It's the larger creditors, more traditional ones, they talk about outcomes and they do focus on them during the evaluation process. But at the end of the day, I just feel like they're looking at way too many things during this process. And what they could be doing is simplifying the number of standards they have. And if they're serious about outcomes, okay, then maybe you hold them more accountable to some of those outcomes like retention or graduation rates or placement rates. Rather than just requiring them to fill out the annual report to report those numbers, there should be a follow up with them like, okay, now what are you going to do? And again, some of the board, smaller accreditors, they do require annual reports and retention plans.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:08:06]:
So my opinion, I think some of the more traditional larger accreditors should follow that same path, requiring some sort of improvement plan from these institutions that are not demonstrating good outcomes or showing that their programs are leading to good outcomes for their students. So that'd be one of the areas that I would look into or focus on.
Jason Altmire [00:08:27]:
What is the model for the various accreditors for their staffing? I assume there's an executive director, there's staff below them. How does that process work? Who are the experts that are staffing every day thinking about what's going on at the accreditation process?
Christopher Bjornstad [00:08:45]:
Yeah, that's a great question. So typically there's an executive director for accreditation agencies and they'll have, sometimes they'll have vice president of sorts, and then they'll have a handful of administrative staff who are processing all the documents that are coming in from the institutions, whether it be an application to seek candidacy for accreditation or renewal of accreditation. So you have administrative staff that do that and then you'll have staff members that organize the, what they call the review visits to go out to the institutions and meet with the staff, the faculty and the students. And then in some accreditors, they have what they call the professional peer reviewers. They're the ones that are focusing on their program specific type of standards. Good examples abhest they have for all the programs that institution offers. When an abhest does a visit, they'll send out a nurse, they look at the nursing program, they'll send out a massage therapist if the institution offers a massage therapy program. So they'll have large teams that will go to these campuses to do the review, which is really, I think helpful for the institutions because there will be, there'll be a lot of those types of program specific or industry specific types of standards and questions that they'll be held to that your typical administrative staffers and just may not be able to address.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:10:06]:
But it's the professionals who are working in the fields, they're the ones that are going to be most likely to address those standards and help the institution address them or you know, best practices.
Jason Altmire [00:10:17]:
Well, that's a really important point. Anyone who's been involved in higher education and certainly who's worked at a college or university knows that when that accreditation visit is planned and certainly when the group is on campus walking around, there is nothing more important because that's all about the future of your institution. Who are the people that join those visits? Who are the people that actually see firsthand what an institution is doing and then make the determination on behalf of the accreditor how successful that visit has been.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:10:52]:
So those are typically people who work at other institutions and who have experience or some sort of work related experience in those programs. And they're the ones that are trained to review the standards, know what the standards are about, and then they'll go to the schools to work with their peers at the institutions to ensure that they're meeting the standards and demonstrating compliance with the standards.
Jason Altmire [00:11:17]:
Now the critics of for profit schools will say that that is a problem because it's people who work at for profit institutions evaluating the success in the program integrity at other for profit schools. How do you respond to that criticism?
Christopher Bjornstad [00:11:35]:
I understand from one aspect why it might be some conflict there of interest to some extent. But I think there's nobody better to review and evaluate these institutions than the folks that work in the fields and those specific trade in those like A nursing program. You want to have somebody who's a nurse come to your school and evaluate your program. You wouldn't want somebody in another sector or field to evaluate your program. And it is not easy to get these individuals to come to these schools. So I think it is a good thing that we have these peers within the industries evaluate each other. And I don't see a big problem with that.
Jason Altmire [00:12:14]:
And when you think about your thinking through putting together a new accreditor, starting from scratch to establish a new accreditor, we'll talk about the process of that because that's gotta be a monumental undertaking. But you made the decision that you're gonna focus on short term and competency based programs that are transferable to other universities. And if a student wishes to pursue further education. What made you want to focus on the short term programs related to accreditation rather than the more traditional four year programs?
Christopher Bjornstad [00:12:50]:
Well, I first started off again, I really wanted to get into this area and think about accreditation in a new way. And so I started thinking about if you do start a new accrediting agency, you've got to set yourself apart from the big six, right? Or even some of the smaller accreditors out there. You can't just say, hey, I'm going to be a new crediting agency and go out there and expect people to leave their current accreditor and go to a new one, right? That just, it wasn't going to happen. So then I started thinking more about it. Well, where, where's the niche? Where is the need? And then I started reading more about the short term education programs out there, some of these certificate diploma programs, specifically in the skilled trade sector. And that I realized there weren't a lot of those players that are in, in the accreditation system or who are accredited. So I started doing some more research and I said, hey, maybe that's the area where we, where I can look into and see if there's a need there. And sure enough, I realized there's not a lot out there and then started thinking more about the structure of Title 4 funds and how those short term education programs are right now not eligible if they're under 600 hours for the total program.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:14:01]:
But I know there's more conversations about that that are occurring and I'm hopeful that maybe with the new administration in the next few years that these short term education programs that are under 600 hours will become eligible in some way for Title 4 loans. And so again, that was another reason for me to think about, okay, this may be an opportunity For a new way of doing accreditation and getting new players involved in the process. But also I wanted to simplify the process because if you're going to invite these new players in from the skilled trade sectors, most of them aren't going to be knowledgeable about higher ed or post secondary education and what accreditation is. So it's like you find a way to simplify the process and make it valuable for folks who are thinking about expanding their footprint and maybe enrolling more students and giving these students more financial options, then that would be a win win for everybody.
Jason Altmire [00:14:59]:
You mentioned in your response there, you talked about the big six accreditors in the career sector. Who are those six accreditors? What and what do they focus on?
Christopher Bjornstad [00:15:09]:
Well, the big six I was referring to are the more traditional accreditors like hlc, Middle States Sachs, Northwest NEC and wasc. So those are the big six that I was referring.
Jason Altmire [00:15:22]:
And there are creditors then that focus more on the career sector. We've had some of them on this program. When you say that some of the skilled trades areas are not, are you saying they're not accredited now at all or that their current accreditor, for whatever reason, is not the best fit for them?
Christopher Bjornstad [00:15:42]:
Well, I think it's a little bit of both. So you do have institutions out there that have skilled trade programs. Right. That are part of their collection of programs that they're offering. And what I've noticed over the years, these smaller skilled trade programs, they're not always necessarily a good fit for these accreditors because the other programs are more traditional, like nursing, for example. Achieve nursing, your skilled trade folks may not necessarily be compatible or have anything in much common with the nursing folks. So you go to these conventions and oftentimes I feel like they're kind of left out because they, they can't relate in some ways. So that's what I was thinking about, you know, okay, maybe find a new way, a new group we could develop and they would have more in common if you focused on skilled trades and allow them an opportunity to connect with one another in a smaller group.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:16:34]:
I guess. So that's, that's what made you started thinking about it.
Jason Altmire [00:16:38]:
What is the process? So now you, as you said, you're thinking about it and we've talked before, you're doing more than thinking. You actually have a very detailed business plan on how you want to do this. But how would one initiate this undertaking? How do you move it from the idea stage of oh, I think there might be a gap in the accreditation process? I Think there might be an opportunity to create a new accreditor. It just seems like a monumental undertaking. How do you start the process and how far along are you in doing it?
Christopher Bjornstad [00:17:10]:
Yes. Okay, so the process is complicated because again, it's connected with the Department of Education, the government bureaucracy in some ways. So the process really is you first establish the agency, you file articles of incorporation, then you gather a bunch of professionals that you know that can be a part of this new agency and get them on board. You become part of the board of Trustees and then file the article incorporation. And then also we need to at some point file the nonprofit documents with the irs. You got to go through this two year process with the Department of ed. Basically contracted this group called Lisiki and you work with them to go through your accreditation process. You've got to run through this with a, like a pilot program basically with some institutions that you've worked with.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:18:00]:
You take them through the accreditation process for about a two year period, you gather all your documentation, then you submit that to Naseki and then the Department of ED at some point will look at that, give you some feedback, and then ideally will grant you recognition with the Department of Education. So that's it. In kind of a short summary there. That's an ideal situation. My thought is it'll probably be more like a two to three year process, depending how things go. But that's what the manual says. I pulled up the manual. I've gone through it a few times.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:18:35]:
So two to three years is the timeline to get this thing up and running and recognized by the Department of Education.
Jason Altmire [00:18:42]:
And somewhere in there, I assume financing has to come into play. Right. Where does the money come from? Where are you getting the financing?
Christopher Bjornstad [00:18:51]:
Yeah, so initially I'm going to have to go through donations and some grants either with some individuals or foundations who might want to partner with me. Other strategic partnerships within the skilled trade industry. Maybe there'll be somebody out there who will want to participate in partner with this organization to help fund it. Once you're up and running, then accreditation fees and so on will be part of that revenue process. I'd also thought possibly about doing some consulting services in the short term to help fund some of this initial project to get it up and running. But ideally it's going to be have to be grants and some donations from some individuals or organizations out there who like this idea and who want to help to see it come to fruition.
Jason Altmire [00:19:36]:
So just to close, and we've talked about some of this, but to kind of tie A ribbon onto this whole thing. What is the elevator pitch related to how you're going to be different when you're out there seeking additional funding or talking to interested parties about your goals and what you're trying to do? What distinguishes your vision for a new accreditor versus what's already happening?
Christopher Bjornstad [00:20:00]:
Yeah, so my vision for this accredited agency, first of all, it's going to be an abbreviated accreditation process and standards. Right now there's a lot of standards and eligibility requirements that are out there for all these different accreditors and I think there's a lot of them that are not needed. There's a lot of standards they have to adhere to and in some cases you can eliminate those standards. So my goal is to simplify the number of requirements and the standards that will be needed for an institution to get accredited. Then the other thing is with the focus is going to be on reducing the burden for these organizations to get accredited. Also the administrative burden, as well as the financial cost to becoming accredited, which can be really expensive. The process will be completely virtual except where it's required by the Department of Education to go to the campus or the institution. And in those cases where there's a requirement to go to the institution, it'll be a minimal staff.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:20:57]:
Instead of these very large teams, we'll do one or two staff members and then the professional, the peer reviewers that are for each of the trades or skilled trade programs, they'll be virtual. They'll be part of the process still. But my idea is to make it a virtual process for them so they don't have to travel or take time off and work again, reducing the burden on the peer reviewers as well as the administration to have to foot the bill for this accreditation process. In the third, I think the really most interesting, fascinating piece that I'm really going to try to develop and promote is the use of generative AI tools in the review process. I had this vision where I'm going to create this tool for institutions who are trying to demonstrate compliance with the standard, let's say are going through this process that will have a website or an app where they'll be able to upload their narrative and their documents and get real time feedback on how well they're in line with the standards in comparison to other organizations. So it'll give these non traditional organizations who are not familiar with accreditation or post secondary education, it'll give them help to become accredited because the system will provide that feedback and say, hey, you need to do this, this and this. It'll be real time feedback. And then on the accrediting agency side, we'll be using generative AI tools as well to help review documents, really trying to simplify the process, shorten it, but also make it meaningful and useful for the institutions.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:22:32]:
So I'm not shortening the process to try to make it easy. I'm shortening it to make it meaningful so the focus can shift to the learning outcomes, which is where the focus should really be.
Jason Altmire [00:22:42]:
If somebody wanted to learn more about what you're doing, how would they track you down? How would they find you?
Christopher Bjornstad [00:22:49]:
So I do have a website that just got up and running last week. It's at threestepaccreditation.org or it can be reached at csbjornstadmail.com.
Jason Altmire [00:23:03]:
Our guest today has been Dr. Christopher Bjornstad. Thank you for being with us, Chris.
Christopher Bjornstad [00:23:07]:
Thank you, Jason. Take care.
Jason Altmire [00:23:16]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website at career.org and follow us on Twitter @CECUED.
Jason Altmire [00:23:33]:
That's C-E-C-U-E-D. Thank you for listening.