Application and Regular Review of HLC Policies, Including HLC Requirements

HLC will apply all institutional accreditation policies in a fair and consistent manner, ensuring due process, as aligned with this policy.

Where necessary HLC will take follow-up action to ensure that an institution that does not meet HLC requirements either has its accreditation or candidacy withdrawn or denied following policies related to those processes, or, if applicable, comes into compliance within no more than three years, inclusive of any good cause extensions where provided for in policy.

All institutions are responsible for regularly reviewing all HLC policies in their entirety, including any noted related procedures and guidelines as may be published by HLC.

The HLC Board of Trustees recognizes that higher education is rapidly changing and that HLC policies need to reflect those changes. Therefore, the Board is committed to regularly reviewing HLC policies, including HLC requirements, particularly but not exclusively related to institutional dynamics and change, to evaluate their responsiveness to the higher education environment, their effectiveness in providing quality assurance, and their usefulness in enhancing institutional and educational improvement.

HLC, through its system of self-evaluation, will regularly seek comments from stakeholders, including member institutions and peer reviewers, regarding the effectiveness of HLC policies. HLC’s review process will provide opportunities for a broad group of stakeholders, such as employers, students, parents, business leaders, etc., to evaluate HLC policies. The feedback from the stakeholders may lead the Board of Trustees to revise HLC policies. In addition, at least every five years, the Board will review the effectiveness of the Criteria for Accreditation and revise as needed to ensure their continued effectiveness.

Should the Board of Trustees learn from its review of policies that a change in HLC policy is necessary to ensure that the policy is being interpreted properly or is being properly applied in the evaluation process, the Board will ensure that such change is initiated within no more than 12 months of the Board learning about the necessary change.

Policy Revisions

The Board of Trustees may revise these policies at any time, including adding policies or deleting policies.

In general, the Board will consider proposed policy revisions on first reading at a regularly scheduled Board meeting. The Board will then adopt the policy revisions on second reading at the regularly scheduled Board meeting subsequent to the first meeting when the proposed policy revision was presented. Policy revisions affecting institutions shall generally be circulated in writing to all member institutions for a comment period of not less than 60 days between the first and second reading of the proposed policy revision. The Board will consider any comments on any proposed policy revisions it has approved on first reading before it takes action to adopt such policy revisions on second reading.

This policy does not preclude the Board from adopting policy revisions without a comment period if necessary.

Policy Edits

HLC staff may make minor edits to policies without Board approval and without providing a comment period. Such minor edits may include items such as clarifications, technical corrections, standardization of language, grammatical changes, and renumbering.

Policy History

Last Revised or Edited: November 2025
First Adopted: November 2012
History:* revised November 2020; edited February 2021; revised February 2023; revised November 2025
Notes:

* In the history, “revised” indicates that the HLC Board of Trustees adopted changes to the policy, and “edited” indicates that HLC staff made technical amendments or minor editorial revisions that did not require formal Board approval.