Higher Learning Commission

HLC 2020 Evidence and Writing Deadlines:

• Criterion 2 – June 1
• Criterion 1 – June 29
• Criterion 5 – July 27
• Criteria 3 and 4 – August 31
• Writing/Evidence clean up –September 1-6 
• First executive review – week of September 7-11
• One Voicing and executive review changes – September 21 – October 30
• Second writing/evidence clean up – November 1 - 8
• Final Executive review – week of November 9-13
• Final changes – November 14-30
• Submit to HLC – December 1

HLC specifies five criteria for accreditation, which are addressed in a document called the assurance argument.

1. Mission: CCD’s mission is clear and stated publicly; the mission documents guide what we do.
2. Integrity: Ethical & responsible conduct; CCD acts with integrity; its conduct is ethical and responsible.
3. Teaching & Learning: Quality, resources, & support; CCD provides high-quality education, wherever (on campus, at an additional location, in a high school) and however (online, face-to-face, hybrid) courses are offered.
4. Teaching & Learning: Evaluation & improvement; CCD demonstrates responsibility for the quality of its educational programs, learning environments, and support services. CCD evaluates the effectiveness of student learning through processes designed to promote continuous improvement.
5. Resources, planning & institutional effectiveness: CCD’s resources, structures, and processes are sufficient to fulfill its mission, improve the quality of its educational offerings, and respond to future challenges and opportunities. The institution plans for the future.

Email your comments to HLC@ccd.edu.

All colleges must meet mandated federal compliance guidelines.

The areas of federal compliance are:

• Institutional Records of Student complaints: We will explain how we process student complaints, mainly through our incident reporting system and the extenuating circumstances committee.
• Publication of Transfer Policies: This covers both what credits we accept in as transfer credits, and what articulations we have with other institutions who accept our credits.
• Practices for Verification of Student Identity: Focusing on online instruction, we will explain the process we go through to ensure the student in the class is the student of record.
• Title IV Program Responsibilities: Title IV funding provides students with financial aid to attend school. In order to continue to be able to offer Title IV funding, we need to explain our default rates, Clery Act compliance, financial aid policies, satisfactory academic progress (SAP) process, attendance policy, and any contractual and consortial relationships we enjoy.
• Required Information for Students and the Public: We must demonstrate where in our website and catalog we provide information on our academic calendar, grading policies, admissions policy, academic program requirements, tuition, fees, and refund policies.
• Advertising and Recruitment Materials and Other Public Information: We must demonstrate that our marketing materials are accurate.
• Review of Student Outcome Data: We must demonstrate how we use student information of program completion, job placement, and licensing examination information to improve student outcomes.
• Publication of Student Outcome Data: We must demonstrate that we publish on our website student information on program completion, job placement, and license examination pass rates.
• Standing with State and Other Accrediting Agencies: Several of our programs maintain outside accreditation, and we must publish that.
• Public Notification and Opportunity to Comment: This includes a Public Comment in which we will be soliciting comments from the general public and students about CCD.
• Credit Hour, Program Length and Tuition Review Worksheet: This is a worksheet that reviews all of the courses CCD offers and assures that we meet the requirements for both on-ground and online courses.

• View the findings of our accreditation in this final report, dated April 2017.
• View the interim report we submitted to HLC in January 2018.
• View the findings of the interim report, update November 2018.
• View the multi-site report we submitted to HLC, dated October 2019.
• View the findings of our multi-site visit in this final report, dated November 2019.
• View the findings of our accreditation in this final report, dated February 2021.