By Gordon Jones, a founder of Trustee of [John Adams] College; originally published in the Deseret News
“Are you accredited?”
When my colleagues and I opened [John Adams] College seven years ago, this was the first question we were asked. If we had $1,000 for every time we have been asked it since, our endowment would rival Harvard’s.
And yet, it is a question that wasn’t very relevant then, and one that has become even less relevant since, as I hope to explain in this article.
The answer to the question then, and now, is “No, we are not. Nor will we ever be.”
[John Adams] is licensed by the state of Utah to issue academic degrees, but the state is only concerned that we are offering our students what they pay us to deliver: a Great Books-oriented curriculum imparted through courses conducted primarily on the basis of the Socratic method — reading and dialogue. The content of those courses and the delivery system we use is a matter of concern only to us and to our students.
Nevertheless, the question is understandable, and we have been at some pains to explain to concerned parents and applicants our negative answer, citing both the academic literature on the subject and the drumbeat of headlines about pressure from accrediting institutions on ostensibly autonomous institutions of higher learning. This combination has produced political and educational calls for reform of the accreditation system. The culmination (to date) of the political aspect is the Trump administration’s threat to the Department of Education, the political entity that governs and enforces the accreditation regime.
Behind that No. 1 question has always been another: “What if I (or my child) graduate from [John Adams]? What will I do then?”