This Committee is Obscure and Overlooked. It's Also Important.

The National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) is a little-known but critically important committee for higher education accreditation in the U.S. NACIQI’s role is to advise the U.S. Secretary of Education on matters related to higher education accrediting agencies. Though not part of its mission, NACIQI has become an important barrier against an aggressive Democratic administration that has shown itself capable of utilizing executive power to enact costly and unpopular policies such as the cancellation of student loan debt.

NACIQI is integral to America’s higher education model because accrediting agencies, which recognize colleges and universities, are the gatekeepers to billions of dollars in taxpayer funds in the form of the Federal Student Aid program. NACIQI is part of the higher education triad, which consists of the federal government responsible for ensuring institutional compliance with federal student aid laws, the states which are responsible for consumer protections and licensure of institutions, and the accreditors that enforce institutional and academic quality standards. NACIQI’s role is to ensure accreditors are meeting their quality control standards, not to regulate them, and ultimately make recommendations to the Secretary if an accreditor should continue recognizing colleges and universities.