In professional and educational contexts, accreditation is a process by which an institution or program is evaluated to determine that it meets established standards of quality. In this article, we will explore what is blanket accreditation, when an institution is accredited for all of its programs rather than just individual programs, and why this practice is important to maintaining high quality across all offerings.
Definition of Blanket Accreditation
What is Blanket Accreditation?
Blanket accreditation is a form of accreditation that relates to an institution or other organization, as opposed to specific courses, programs, or departments. Unlike regular accreditation, in which every program or course is evaluated and accredited separately, blanket accreditation applies to the institution as a whole. This means that blanket accreditation of an institutional entity automatically extends to all its programs, courses, and services.
Blanket accreditation is essential for institutions that offer many programs and services. Only one full and detailed review of the institution is required, with an evaluation that is based on one set of criteria and standards that apply generically to all parts of the institution. This guarantees the same high standards throughout the institution.
How Blanket Accreditation Differs from Program-Specific Accreditation
Whereas blanket accreditation looks at an institution in its entirety, program-specific accreditation examines each course or program individually. This means that each program or course must be approved before it can be offered. Each such approval is time-consuming and expensive, especially for institutions offering hundreds of such programs.
Rather than evaluating every single program at an institution, blanket accreditation evaluates the institution as a whole. The accrediting body reviews the institution’s governance, infrastructure, faculty qualifications, and overall educational philosophy without dwelling on the specifics of any individual program. With blanket accreditation, an institution is certified as a whole, indicating that all of its offerings are in line with the accrediting body’s standards.
Programmatic accreditation, which concentrates on individual programs, is useful when institutions have highly specialized programs that require specialized accreditation (for example, law and medical programs), but blanket accreditation is generally the preferred route for institutions that want streamlined accreditation covering every aspect of their operations.
Who Typically Seeks Blanket Accreditation?
Those institutions that would benefit most from blanket accreditation are typically universities, colleges, vocational schools, and large training organizations that offer multiple programs against multiple standards throughout a range of disciplines. These organizations benefit most from blanket accreditation because it gives an endorsement of quality for their entire organization, which can help to override a high-profile but otherwise irrelevant shortfall in a specific department or program.
For example, large corporate training organizations may seek blanket accreditation to ensure that all of their training modules meet industry standards, which would be especially important given that they would be competing directly against one another. There would also be a growing number of government agencies and nonprofit organizations that provide educational services that seek blanket accreditation to demonstrate that they are maintaining high standards across their entire portfolio of services.
How Blanket Accreditation Works
The Process of Obtaining Blanket Accreditation
The requirements for blanket accreditation are more rigorous and all-encompassing than those for accreditation of individual programs. To grant blanket accreditation to an institution, an accrediting body must evaluate the functioning, policies, and quality of the entire institution—not just individual courses or programs, as with programmatic accreditation.
This starts with an institution’s self-assessment, which evaluates the institution’s practices, governance, faculty credentials, facilities, and educational outcomes, identifying areas of strength and areas that might need to be improved. This process helps an institution be ready for the site visit.
Based on this self-assessment, the institution applies to the accrediting body, along with documentation that details its educational philosophy and how it operates, including the findings of its self-assessment. This documentation is essential, as it provides the accrediting body with the necessary information to assess how the institution functions as a whole.
Then, a peer-review on-site visit or a series of virtual evaluations is conducted, in which the accrediting body examines the site and its infrastructure, its governance, its qualifications of faculty, its learning outcomes, and so forth. The visit seeks to confirm that the institution’s practices conform to the accreditation body’s standards. The visit may include interviews with faculty and staff, observations of classes, and reviews of learning outcomes.
Then, the accreditor reports back and decides whether to accredit the institution or not. Suppose it finds that the institution meets the standards. In that case, it grants blanket accreditation, which typically lasts for several years before it has to go through the process again.
Criteria Used to Assess Institutions for Blanket Accreditation
In order to assess the quality and effectiveness of an institution for blanket accreditation, accrediting bodies follow a set of criteria, which are widely ranging and include items such as:
Governance and Leadership: The accrediting body will evaluate the institution’s structure of governance, including the roles and responsibilities of its leadership team, to ensure it is well-managed and that leadership is committed to quality.
Educational Philosophy and Mission: The institution’s educational philosophy and mission are reviewed to ensure that they are consistent with the standards of the accrediting body and with the educational programs offered. Among the issues addressed is whether the institution demonstrates a commitment to the learning of students and professionals, as well as to institutional improvement.
Faculty Qualifications and Professional Development: The qualifications of the faculty of the institution are examined to ensure that they possess the certifications. The educational background, work experience, and publications of the faculty members are carefully reviewed. The institution’s policies and procedures for the professional development of the faculty are also examined.
Curriculum and Educational Outcomes: The accrediting body reviews the curriculum of the institution to ensure it is rigorous, up-to-date, and meets the standards of the relevant profession. They also gather data on student outcomes like graduation rates, job placement rates, and student satisfaction to measure whether the education provided creates job-ready graduates.
Infrastructure and Resources: The physical and technological infrastructure of the institution is assessed to determine whether it supports its mission of providing high-quality education. This includes assessing classrooms, laboratories, libraries, and online platforms to ensure that their physical and technological resources are adequate and well-maintained.
Support services: The institution’s support services for students—including academic advising, career counseling, and mental health services—are evaluated to determine whether they contribute to student success and wellness.
Processes for Continuous Improvement: Accrediting bodies search for evidence that the institution has processes for continuous improvement, such as regular reviews of curriculum, faculty performance, and student outcomes, and mechanisms to implement changes resulting from such reviews.
By assessing these and other factors, such organizations can determine if the institution is equipped to reliably deliver quality education for all of its programs. If it is, the institution receives blanket accreditation, indicating that the entity has achieved a threshold of excellence that applies to all that it offers.
Benefits of Blanket Accreditation
Advantages for Institutions
There are several important benefits for institutions if accreditation is granted on a blanket basis, namely the simplification of processes and the increase in prestige. One of the most obvious benefits is the elimination of the need for accreditation in individual programs or courses. Rather than having to apply for the accreditation of each separate program or course, which would likely be time-consuming and resource-intensive, the institution can apply for a blanket accreditation that will cover all offerings. This will significantly reduce the administration required and will enable the institution to focus on general quality rather than having to deal with a complex web of different accreditations.
A second major benefit is the reputational boost that comes with blanket accreditation. When institutions are granted blanket accreditation, it sends a signal to stakeholders—students, faculty, employers, and regulators—that the entire institution meets rigorous quality standards. The broad coverage can convey an institutional reputation, attract top-tier faculty and students, and foster trust with employers and other stakeholders.
In addition, blanket accreditation can lead to more flexibility for institutions themselves. Because the accreditation applies to all programs at an institution, institutions can innovate and offer new courses without having to apply for separate accreditation for each new program. This can be particularly important in fast-changing fields where the ability to develop and offer relevant programs rapidly is crucial.
Benefits for Students and Participants
This blanket accreditation allows students and participants to assume that the quality of any program offered by an institution is upheld to the same standards. If possible, students wish to take a degree program, a certification course, or a vocational training module. In that case, they can be reasonably assured that the standard of education they receive is of the same high quality. This is of particular significance for those who are taking multiple courses or programs at the same institution, for they can be assured that across all the courses and programs, their quality of education will be uniform.
Second, blanket accreditation strengthens the portability of credits and qualifications. Suppose you’re studying at an institution that has blanket accreditation. In that case, you’re more likely to have your credits accepted by other accredited institutions (or employers) if you want to transfer to another program or move up in your career. In an increasingly globalized education and jobs market, where mobility and portability of qualifications are key, this can be an important benefit.
In general, blanket accreditation gives students access to assurance that their investment in education is secure (it will provide them entry into rigorous, respectable programs that employers and other institutions recognize as being of high quality). It gives them access to assurance that the programs are of a standard that their chosen institution can maintain.
Common Industries and Sectors Using Blanket Accreditation
Higher Education
One of the most typical examples of blanket accreditation is in higher education. Universities and colleges often seek blanket accreditation from a regional or national accrediting body to ensure that all of their programs meet certain quality standards. For example, in the United States, institutions often seek blanket accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) or the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). The quality of these institutions is assessed at the institutional level, and the accrediting body assures that all degree programs (from undergraduate to doctoral) are equally rigorous.
Vocational Training
Blanket accreditation is also common in the vocational training sector, encompassing a wide range of trades and skills. Vocational ‘trade schools’ and technical institutes are blanket-accredited for all courses, which may include anything from automotive mechanics to website design, audio engineering to personal training, and hairdressing to paralegal courses. In the US, blanket accreditation is offered by bodies such as the Council on Occupational Education (COE), and in the UK, it is offered by City Guilds. In both cases, accreditation is provided to the institution, which may offer a diversity of vocational programs rather than individual courses.
Corporate Training Programs
Blanket accreditation is also a common vocabulary in corporate training programs. Large corporations with formalized internal training programs often seek blanket accreditation of their training modules to ensure that all the training modules offered under their professional development program adhere to professional development standards. For example, suppose a large corporation has a dedicated training team that offers professional development across various departments and job functions. In that case, the corporation can purchase blanket accreditation from an accrediting agency such as the CPD Standards Office in the UK. This will enable the company to offer accredited professional development in the various modules that the training team offers to staff members.
Examples of Accredited Bodies Offering Blanket Accreditation
Several well-known accrediting bodies offer blanket accreditation across different sectors. For instance:
Higher Learning Commission (HLC): HLC confers blanket accreditation on all degree programs and operations at colleges and universities in the US.
Council on Occupational Education (COE): COE accredits career and technical programs in two- and four-year colleges. COE ensures that all of its accredited programs are of a standard that the industry recognizes.
The CPD Standards Office: The CPD standards office provides blanket accreditation for corporate training providers, ensuring that all modules of training are delivered to a common professional development standard.
City Guilds: A UK body that grants blanket accreditation to institutions offering vocational training, ensuring that all courses conform to industry norms.
These accrediting bodies play an important role in safeguarding the standards and reputations of educational and training institutions in all sectors.
Challenges and Considerations
Potential Challenges in Obtaining and Maintaining Blanket Accreditation
Although blanket accreditation comes with many advantages, some of the challenges of institutional accreditation can still arise when it comes to obtaining or maintaining it. One of the main hurdles institutions face in blanket accreditation is the scope of the evaluation. Since the whole institution is assessed, accrediting bodies tend to conduct a deep dive into all aspects of the institution that need to be vetted. In order to become ready for such an extensive review, many departments might have to spend a great deal of time and resources to prepare.
A further hazard is the requirement for ongoing compliance and ongoing improvement. Once blanket accreditation is awarded, institutions are usually expected to maintain the standards set by the accrediting body and are periodically reviewed. The implication is that institutions are expected to continually monitor their administrative practices, curricula, and educational outcomes to ensure that they remain in compliance with accreditation standards. If not, they risk losing their accreditation, which can have devastating consequences for an institution’s reputation and operations.
Considerations for Pursuing Blanket Accreditation
The cost and resources required to pursue blanket accreditation are another important consideration. The accreditation process itself can be costly, including application fees, the cost of a site visit, and expenses related to upgrading facilities or hiring staff to ensure that the institution meets the accreditation standards. Institutions must weigh these costs against the benefits of accreditation, such as enhanced credibility, better student outcomes, and greater programmatic flexibility.
Institutions must also consider the longer-term investment that is required to sustain blanket accreditation—including documentation, self-assessment, and ongoing engagement with the accrediting body—that may not be worthwhile for institutions, especially those with scarce resources.
Lastly, institutions should consider whether blanket accreditation is consistent with their goals. For an institution that is expanding rapidly or is trying to innovate in new areas, the flexibility of blanket accreditation could be particularly valuable. For an institution that offers only a narrow range of programs, program-specific accreditation is more appropriate.
Conclusion
Blanket accreditation can guarantee quality from one program to the next and help an institution maintain its reputation for excellence while also easing the accreditation process and giving the institution the flexibility to develop programs as it sees fit. Schools that are driven to think long-term about their goals and to strengthen their reputation should consider blanket accreditation. In the long term, blanket accreditation can lead to better student outcomes, allowing the institution to make meaningful strides in human capital development.