Frequently Asked Questions

Institutional accreditation validates the quality of an institution as a whole and evaluates multiple aspects of an institution, including its academic offerings, governance and administration, mission, finances, and resources. Also, only accredited institutions are allowed by the U.S. Department of Education to disperse federal financial aid to students.

HLC’s accreditation includes all degree levels as well as onsite and online course delivery. Institutions of higher education in the United States may also seek accreditation through specialized or programmatic accreditation agencies, which accredit programs, departments or schools within a college or university.

More information on NIU's accreditation, including list of accreditated programs, is maintained by the Office of Institutional Effectiveness.

The principal purpose of the quality initiative is to support all of our students to achieve their academic goals by assessing, improving and modifying approaches in gateway courses to support higher levels of student success. Of particular importance is ensuring success for students from underrepresented populations.

1. Identify and redesign gateway courses with low success rates or high equity gaps.
2. Assess and deploy support for course transformation or other improvements in the identified courses to enhance student success.
3. Monitor data from and engage in continuous quality improvement of identified courses to enhance student success in courses and beyond (e.g., retention and graduation).

This initiative also aligns with the university’s presidential goals, the NIU Strategic Action Planning Framework, the NIU Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) Plan and SEM Accountability Plan, and NIU’s Illinois Equity in Attainment (ILEA) Equity Plan.

A gateway course is defined at NIU as a course that a student needs to take to advance within a major or is a course required to complete general studies requirements.

An equity gap exists when the success rates for students from under-served communities are statistically significantly less than the average success rate in the course.

Targeted gateway courses are based on following criteria:

• Gateway courses with DFUW rates of 20% or greater and at least 25 enrolled students in the 2018-2019 and 2020-2021 academic years, and/or
• Courses with at least a 10% equity gap that impacted at least 10 students in the 2018-2019 and 2020-2021 academic years *NOTE: 2019-2020 omitted due to pandemic anomaly of that academic year

NIU's next HLC assurance review is scheduled for 2023-2024.

Preliminary plans are underway, with more details to be forthcoming and shared as they become available.