Mexican universities and accreditation

On the main continent of North America, the United States has been the only country to have a regional accreditation system for post-secondary educational institutions. While institutions are not required to be regionally accredited, most want (and need) to be, in order to offer federal student aid, as well as have the status of a recognized institution. Specialized accreditors, such as NCATE, certainly can and do accredit without thought to country borders, but neither Canada nor Mexico have had regional accreditation systems in place for institutions across the board.

It is interesting to consider how much influence lawmakers have over accreditation requirements though. In Mexico, the Mexican Senate has recently passed a law that would require post-secondary educational institutions to seek "external evaluation," to cut down on the number of diploma mills and increase the quality of and confidence in the Mexican educational system. "External evaluation" certainly describes what we know as regional accreditation in the United States. Higher education is exploding in Mexico, with increasing demand being met by an increasing number of new institutions. There are currently more than 2,000 universities in Mexico, and over 1,800 of these are private institutions. Only 82 of the more than 2,000 universities have any form of accreditation at present.

More information can be found in the following article (requires a subscription to access online content):

Lloyd, M. (2006, January 4). Mexican lawmakers take steps to require
     accreditation in bid to root out "junk universities". Chronical of Higher
     Education, today's news. Retrieved January 4, 2006, from
     http://www.chronicle.com