In San Francisco, the Fates of a College and Its Accreditor Are on the Line

October is a crucial month in the drawn-out battle involving the City College of San Francisco and its regional accreditor, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges.

The college nearly lost its accreditation in 2014. Next month a team from the commission will visit, and in January it will make a recommendation about whether the college should retain its status.

Meanwhile, the accreditor will be working to shore up its own standing. The commission must finalize a report to the U.S. Department of Education explaining how it has corrected deficiencies in order to continue as a gatekeeper of federal financial aid. Department staff members will recommend to a federal advisory panel in December whether the accreditor should keep its recognition.

Although the processes are entirely separate, the fates of the community college and the accreditor have become politically linked. The failure of one would have deep consequences for the other, and across higher education in the region.

If the accreditor loses its federal recognition, all of its 132 members, including City College, would have to find a new accreditor within 18 months.

If the college does not retain its accreditation, there will most certainly be a widespread political backlash against the commission, which is still fighting a lawsuit over its 2013 decision to remove the college’s accreditation. Three members of California’s congressional delegation recently sent a letter asking the U.S. secretary of education, John B. King Jr., to take action against the commission.

Many people have reason to fear either outcome. The leaders of California’s community colleges have set up two working groups to try to improve their institutions’ relationships with the accreditor and move beyond the controversy.

“The crisis in San Francisco is important, but it’s also a distraction,” said Brian King, chancellor of the Los Rios Community College District and president of the Chief Executive Officers of the California Community Colleges. Instead, higher-education leaders are focused on a model of accreditation that is in the best interest of the students, he said.

A Changing College

The story of City College’s accreditation woes has dragged on since July 2012, when the accrediting commission required the college to “show cause” as to why it shouldn’t lose accreditation. A year later, the group voted to strip the institution of its accreditation in 2014, largely due to the college’s deep financial troubles.

A state judge put that decision on hold while a lawsuit against the accreditor played out (more about that below). Facing a political backlash over its actions, the commission created a loophole for the college — known as “restoration” status — giving it two more years to meet the accreditor’s standards.

That period is coming to an end, and the college must meet all of the accreditation benchmarks — there is no option for an intermediate sanction such as “warning” or “probation.”

City College’s main campus sits on a big hill next to the Balboa Park neighborhood here, about six miles south of City Hall. The college’s interim chancellor, Susan Lamb, said in a recent interview in her office that the institution is on track to meet the standards and is in far better financial shape than it was two years ago.

To begin with, the city and the state have provided some extra money to help weather the accreditation crisis, and the college has carefully built up its reserves and lowered some administrative costs.

The college has also become more efficient, using technology to help manage many of its administrative processes, Ms. Lamb said. In 2013, for instance, much of the work of academic affairs was still being done with “pen and paper,” she said.

The college is exploring a public-private partnership to develop the site of some current administrative offices — a deal that could earn hundreds of millions of dollars for the college, Ms. Lamb said. In addition, the city’s voters could approve a 25-percent increase in the parcel tax on homeowners that is already dedicated to the college’s coffers.

Other improvements include strengthening student services at all of the college’s branch campuses in the city.

But the threat of losing accreditation has taken its toll. Full-time-equivalent enrollment has dropped nearly a third, a loss of more than 10,000 students, since the 2013 academic year, compared with much smaller declines in most of the nearby community-college districts, according to figures from the community-college system.

Ms. Lamb and others believe the declines were mostly due to student concerns that the college would close. Other factors included an improving economy and new state rules limiting the number of times students could re-enroll in a noncredit or recreational course such as ballroom dancing.

Edward N. Eschbach, president of the nonprofit foundation that supports the college, said that although the college had been through a rocky period, its troubles had awoken the city to its importance.

“One silver lining to this challenge is that a lot of people in the community weren’t paying much attention to the role of the college,” he said.

Hydra Mendoza-McDonnell, education adviser to San Francisco’s mayor, Edwin M. Lee, said the college had also formed a much stronger relationship with the city government, which was involved in helping the college streamline its human-resources management and with the proposal to develop its property.

“We recognized that City College had been working in isolation for many years,” said Ms. Mendoza-McDonnell. “It’s an institution that we all relied on heavily and never realized the challenges they were up against.”

In the future, she said, the college should develop more programs that meet the city’s pressing labor needs, especially in areas such as technology and health care.

Backlash Against the Accreditor

The controversy over the college’s accreditation has taken a toll on the accrediting commission as well.

The agency has already endured a costly, though largely unsuccessful, lawsuit against its 2013 decision to withdraw the college’s accreditation. A state audit criticized the commission for the high number of sanctions it has imposed, compared with other regional accreditors. And a group formed by the former chancellor of California’s community-college system called for a new model of accreditation in the state, though it stopped short of demanding a new accrediting agency.

The backlash from the college’s faculty union and some elected officials continues. A second lawsuit, filed by the California Federation of Teachers, is still being litigated. In August the union filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, calling on federal officials to immediately remove the accreditor’s recognition.

While that outcome is unlikely, the accreditor is under scrutiny from the department for some failures in following federal guidelines. In December the federal panel that advises the education secretary on accreditation matters gave the commission just six months to fix policies regarding its approval of baccalaureate programs, as well as a handful of issues left over from a 2013 review.

Barbara Beno, the accrediting commission’s president, said that the department’s staff had been very helpful and that she feels confident that the necessary changes have been made.

Like City College, the commission is getting more support from its constituents. Among them are the leaders of the state’s community colleges, who are studying ways to improve relations with the commission. They’re also exploring whether there are other models that might work better for the region that the commission oversees, which includes California, Hawaii, and the U.S. territories in the Pacific Ocean.

“We concluded that we have not been as active as we should have been,” said Helen Benjamin, chancellor of the Contra Costa Community College District and chair of a group seeking an improved working relationship with the commission.

That group has delivered a set of recommended changes to the accreditor and met with its leaders to hear their responses, Ms. Benjamin said.

Cindy L. Miles, chair of the group exploring new accreditation models and chancellor of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, said her group is considering issues that are politically sensitive and could take not only time but also changes in federal law to enact, such as allowing a community college to choose between two accreditors. “The factors affecting all of these options are out of our control,” she said.

A ‘Paradigm Shift’

Whether the college or the accreditor can make enough changes to satisfy their reviewers and the public remains to be seen.

The faculty union remains unhappy with the accrediting commission and is calling on the federal government to make sure that the system is engaged in seeking a new accreditor, according to Fred Glass, a union spokesman. That’s one of the less-likely possibilities the college leaders are exploring.

Brian King, the Los Rios chancellor and head of the California community-college leaders’ group, said the work of repairing the relationship with the accreditor is progressing, but accepting more input from the chancellors is a “paradigm shift” for the commission.

“It’s difficult for the commission to hear some of the concerns,” he said, “but they’re making an honest effort.”

The cooperation with college leaders could also help the commission show federal regulators that it has widespread support, one of the areas where the Education Department had found the accreditor lacking.

Another factor that could change the view of the commission is the announcement that Ms. Beno plans to retire, in June 2017.

“There’s a broad understanding that Ms. Beno has become a lightning rod,” Mr. King said.

Ms. Beno, who has led the accrediting commission for about 16 years, did not respond to a request for comment on Mr. King’s statement.

But she has previously said that the politics and high-profile news coverage of the college’s situation had obscured the very hard work that many are doing to improve the institution.

The commission’s assessment will be based on the accreditation reviews, and not the potential fallout or reward for its decision, she said during a phone interview.

“We can’t bend to political pressure,” she said. “That would call into question all of the decisions the commission makes.”

Eric Kelderman writes about money and accountability in higher education, including such areas as state policy, accreditation, and legal affairs. You can find him on Twitter @etkeld, or email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com.