Welcome to The University of Texas at Austin’s website for accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). The university is accredited by SACSCOC to award the baccalaureate, professional, masters, and doctorate degrees.

Regional accreditation is important to the maintenance of our reputation and essential for access to federal student financial aid and to federal grants. Just as importantly, if not more so, the accreditation process offers us the opportunity to improve as an institution. The 80 plus SACSCOC standards deal with the structure and function of a higher education institution including institutional mission, governance, administration, institutional effectiveness, educational programs including undergraduate, graduate, and post-baccalaureate professional programs, faculty, library and other learning resources, student affairs and services, financial resources, physical resources, and substantive changes in these areas. These are basic standards - standards against which institutions have the opportunity to examine themselves and to make improvements where needed.

The institutional effectiveness standards are perhaps the most important for they ask institutions to engage in continuing improvement of institutional quality. They ask institutions to be data driven and to review systematically their mission, goals, and outcomes as an institution and those for each undergraduate and graduate program, general education requirement, student support service, administrative support service, research, and community/public service.

You will find useful information about accreditation on these web pages as well as helpful information about how to do the tasks asked of you whether you are writing portions of the various documents to be submitted to SACSCOC, developing and implementing assessment plans for academic programs and administrative support units, or just curious about the accreditation process. Various types of resources can be found in the Process and Resources sections above. Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), News about our accreditation activities, a Glossary of terms used in the accreditation process, and Upcoming Events are available.

The University was last reaccredited by SACSCOC in 2008 and will undergo its next reaffirmation of accreditation in 2018 preceded by the submittal of a Fifth Year Report in 2014.

Thanks to all of you who are involved in some way in our SACSCOC accreditation activities. Your support is vital to this effort.

Sincerely,
William Powers, Jr.
President