Dive Brief:

• The Council for Higher Education Accreditation is exploring ways of providing a quality review process for entities that now fall outside the bounds of accreditation, such as online education companies that offer low-cost courses.
• The council is considering whether the non-college sector will expand enough to warrant an accreditor, Inside Higher Ed reports. But if the sector does take off, then the council believes it will have a responsibility to consider providing quality reviews.
• Meanwhile, a group backed by philanthropist Steven Klinsky, dubbed Modern States, is looking into creating a new accreditor for reviewing online courses instead of institutions.

Dive Insight:

Besides Klinsky, head of the $12-billion private equity firm New Mountain Capital, Modern States is headed by David Bergeron, a former U.S. Department of Education official and current vice president of postsecondary education policy at the Center for American Progress. Inside Higher Ed quotes Klinsky as saying that Modern States, a nonprofit group, will serve as a catalyst so that traditional colleges will recognize credits for courses provided by high-quality firms like Coursera. The course-based accreditor idea is not meant as an attack on existing accreditors, and would not replace them.

While Modern States would focus on reviewing individual online courses to make sure they are academically sound, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation would focus on the course providers and whether they can show evidence that students are learning.