IPEDS and Accreditation

The IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) surveys will no longer be collecting information regarding individual institutions' accreditation status, beginning in the current, 2005-06, academic year. Instead, they will provide a link to the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary Education page entitled "Postsecondary Educational Institutions and Programs Accredited by Accrediting Agencies..." (http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/), which has a link to a searchable database where one can determine accreditation status for an institution.

A memo regarding upcoming changes to the IPEDS can be found at http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/web2000/changes0506.asp. The information above was the only part of this document that related to accreditation.

This is an interesting development, because it seems that if they do not store accreditation information within the IPEDS system, it will not be possible to perform comparison searches across institutions and include accreditation as a variable. On the other hand, the database offered by the Office of Postsecondary Education is indeed a fine and reliable tool, so the information is still available, but not aggregated into one spot for ease of comparison.