Guiding Values
The Higher Learning Commission’s Criteria for Accreditation reflect a set of guiding values. HLC articulates these guiding values so as to offer a better understanding of the Criteria and the intentions that underlie them.
The responsibility for assuring the quality of an institution rests first with the institution itself. Institutional accreditation assesses the capacity of an institution to assure its own quality and expects it to produce evidence that it does so.
Many of the Criteria for Accreditation should be understood in this light. HLC expects the governing board to ensure quality through its governance structures, with appropriate degrees of involvement and delegation. HLC emphasizes planning because planning is critical to sustaining quality. Assessment of student learning and focus on persistence and completion are ways in which the institution improves and thus assures the quality of its teaching and learning.
HLC expects that institutions have the standards, the processes, and the will for quality assurance in depth and throughout its educational offerings.
1. Focus on student learning
2. Education as a public purpose
3. Education for a diverse, technological, globally connected world
4. A culture of continuous improvement
5. Evidence-based institutional learning and self-presentation
6. Integrity, transparency, and ethical behavior or practice
7. Governance for the well-being of the institution
8. Planning and management of resources to ensure institutional sustainability
9. Mission-centered evaluation
10. Accreditation through peer review
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