With generous support from the Pew Charitable Trusts, NCA’s Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) has developed the structure for an alternative model of accreditation to guide and support institutions as they focus their own efforts on systematic quality improvement. The components of this new accreditation model — the Quality Criteria, the processes, and the AQIP services that support the model — differ significantly from NCA’s traditional approach to accreditation. AQIP expects this new alternative to help an institution achieve its own purposes more effectively, quickly, and efficiently, and to do so while preserving its autonomy and distinctiveness in what has become a highly competitive and rapidly changing higher education environment.

View the North Central Association Powerpoint presentation regarding AQIP.