WEEKEND READING: Looking west: learning from US approaches to regulating quality in higher education

This blog was kindly authored by Dame Nicola Dandridge, professor of practice in higher education policy, University of Bristol, and Senior Fellow at MRCBG Harvard Kennedy School, 2024-26

When considering other countries’ approaches to regulating quality in higher education, we often look to Europe and for good reason. By contrast, the United States presents itself as an unlikely comparator with its huge, diverse, and considerably more fragmented system. Yet beneath the differences lie significant similarities: both countries operate market-based systems with high tuition costs, institutional autonomy and growing political concern about value for money.

Both differences and similarities are instructive.

America’s system of quality regulation is embodied in the triad of federal government, state governments and accrediting bodies (which are the U.S. equivalent of quality assurance agencies). Federal policy places requirements on access to student financial aid, increasingly focusing on measures of student outcomes and return on investment. State licensing varies considerably between states, but generally defers detailed considerations of quality to the accreditors. Accreditors’ criteria again vary but typically encompass student learning, educational experience and graduate outcomes, with outcomes often positioned in terms of continuous improvement rather than absolute performance. Institutions generally retain considerable discretion over which recognised accreditor to select to best fit their mission. It is a complex patchwork of a regulatory model.

In many respects, England’s Regulatory Framework has significant advantages. Whatever criticisms might be levelled, it provides common expectations across institutions, with clear baseline requirements covering quality, standards and outcomes. Expectations in relation to outcomes are underpinned by common thresholds embedded within a broader conception of quality.

The absence of common national baseline standards in the U.S. permits outcomes that would be difficult to imagine being judged acceptable in England: in an interview that formed part of the research on which this article is based, the leader of an accrediting body referred to drop-out rates of 80% as being justified, providing that institutions were demonstrating continuous improvement. 

Yet the comparison also highlights areas where the U.S. model has important strengths, particularly in relation to the role of individual states and to interventions addressing graduate outcomes.

States are not passive participants in the quality triad. Many have responsibility for authorising new degree programmes according to specified criteria, allowing them to shape provision in line with regional economic priorities and workforce needs. Texas, for example, requires institutions to demonstrate labour market demand and alignment with mission before new programmes are approved. In West Virginia, programme approval forms part of a more explicit strategy for coordinating provision across the state: institutions must demonstrate a compelling regional or statewide need for new programmes before they are authorised, while the state also considers whether proposals unnecessarily duplicate existing provision elsewhere. The aim is to steward the overall pattern of provision in the public interest. In another interview that formed part of the same research, a state regulator saw it as self-evident that new provision should not undermine existing programmes, though he also noted the extent to which state regulatory decisions were often influenced by political considerations.

This is an interesting paradox. The U.S. is often characterised as having a highly market-driven higher education system, yet states retain a clear strategic role in determining how their higher education provision develops, potentially impacting significantly on student outcomes.

In England, as greater powers are devolved to mayoral combined authorities and regions, could similar approaches emerge here? If responsibility for skills and economic development becomes increasingly regional, there may be a stronger case for local influence over higher education provision to ensure that new courses respond to regional priorities rather than simply market demand. The West Virginia example suggests that strategic programme authorisation can coexist with high levels of institutional autonomy, while providing a mechanism for aligning higher education with wider economic and social objectives.

America’s dispersed regulatory landscape, while undoubtedly complex,  also facilitates significant and visible institutional diversity and innovation. Although the English regulatory model seeks to promote diversity, in practice we see providers in England – including many new providers – mimicking existing traditional provision rather than branching out in innovative ways. This reflects factors well beyond just regulation, but given the relentless pace of technological, political and economic change we do need to consider how our regulatory model can do more to proactively encourage greater diversity in models of provision.

Ultimately, however, perhaps the most important finding from comparing England and the U.S. is not how different the systems are, but how similar the underlying challenges remain.

Both countries struggle to define what quality actually means. Is it learning gain? Graduate employment? Value for money? Civic contribution? Different stakeholders invoke the language of quality while often meaning very different things. This is entirely understandable given the many purposes higher education serves, but it becomes problematic if it obscures clarity of regulatory purpose.

Both systems also wrestle with the challenge of interpreting institutional performance fairly, given that graduate outcomes are shaped not only by teaching, but by student characteristics, subject mix, and local labour markets. A theme in both the U.S. and England is at what point context obscures poor quality provision.

And perhaps most surprisingly, both countries regulate quality extensively while possessing remarkably little evaluation evidence about which regulatory interventions actually work. The literature on quality assurance and accreditation is extensive, but impact evaluations are rare. In our research, only 16 substantive impact evaluations of quality regulation were found over the last 25 years in the U.S. and England. Instead, the evaluations that do exist prioritise process not substance, leaving us with remarkably little evidence as to what regulatory approaches have most impact and in what contexts. Similarly, although complaints of regulatory burden are commonplace in both countries, there is very little systematic evidence that balances the burden created by the regulation against its positive impact.

As technological change, artificial intelligence, financial pressures and evolving labour markets shape and reshape higher education, these questions will only become more pressing. In response, we need to be asking not so much whether we have the right regulatory model, but whether our regulation is sufficiently ambitious; is clear about the outcomes it seeks to achieve; whether those outcomes are responsive to a rapidly shifting political and economic environment; and whether we have evidence that regulation is achieving its purpose. Looking abroad, including to the U.S., may help us define the questions we must ask, as well as assisting us in determining the solutions.

This blog draws on research carried out at the University of Bristol and during a two year MRCBG fellowship at Harvard Kennedy School.