When Is Our Visit?

A team of five HLC Peer Corps members, faculty and administrators from other HLC institutions like ours, will be on campus October 12 & 13, 2026.  

Why You Should Care

The Higher Learning Commission's Peer Corps team visit gives NMU the opportunity to reflect on what we do best -- what you do well, how you contribute! -- and to show off. We know we are a strong institution. We know we can always strive to do more and to do better. This visit let's us demonstrate to peers the many ways we put students first and strive for excellence. 

We can and should be in good standing with our institutional accreditors. The importance runs through our most basic functions, such as our ability to participate in Federal Student Aid programs and the recognition of the earned credentials on our students' transcripts. When graduate and professional schools review our graduates' applications for admission, when businesses consider our graduates as candidates for employment, when healthcare organizations bring on our graduates as valued staff serving patients' medical needs, they trust NMU transcripts as documenting competencies in part because of our institutional accreditation. Maintaining our accreditation is essential for maintaining our role in the education ecosystem. 

Top Five Reasons for YOU to Care:

1. Financial aid – the U.S. Dept of Education  requires good standing with institutional accreditation for colleges and universities to be eligible to disperse Federal Student Aid such as Pell Grants, subsidized student loans, and other forms of financial assistance. Student can only continue to use Federal Student Aid to attend NMU if we remain accredited.

2. Quality assurance – Reaffirmation of accreditation verifies that NMU meets rigorous standards of quality.

3. Continuous improvement – Preparing for our visit and attending to accreditation through the ten-year cycle encourages Northern to assess our strengths and areas needing attention. This commitment to quality benefits students most of all, but also our graduates, the community, and all NMU constituents, including faculty and staff.

4. Employer and college confidence – Employers and graduate schools who receive NMU students when they finish studying here value degrees from accredited institutions; affirmed accreditation signals that graduates have the competencies necessary to thrive in their chosen field.

5. Pride – NMU’s reaffirmation of accreditation is a collective point of pride for students, alumni, faculty and staff.

Your Role

While on campus, the members of the HLC Peer Corps will meet with specific individuals and groups, hold themed and open sessions where they will ask us about our work, see our campus close up, and review our records. They will seek evidence of how Northern meets students' educational needs, based on the HLC’s Criteria for Accreditation

What you can do is attend appropriate sessions and talk honestly and with pride about your work. 

The campus visitors will have read about NMU's policies, practices, and operations, but they won't really know us until they meet you and others who make up the campus community. They want to hear from faculty, students, and administrators, so make it a point to share your story and show our collective -- and your individual -- good work. 

Preparation Timeline

2024-25
  • With leadership in Academic Affairs, review the Criteria for Accreditation and assess Northern's standing relative to all standards.
  • Appoint and empower accreditation team to lead the work developing NMU's assurance argument and evidence files to support our claims of excellence.
2025-26 
  • Accreditation team writes NMU's assurance argument. 
  • Accreditation team meets with on- and off-campus constituents and assembles evidence that supports the claims of excellence we will make in our assurance argument. 
  • Institutional Effectiveness holds campus engagement activities to prepare campus constituents to host an effective peer visit. 
2026-27
  • In early fall, NMU finalizes assurance argument and evidence files and submits to HLC.
  • Peer Corps members visit campus in October to meet with a wide range of constituents and to explore our operations. 
  • NMU responds to reviewers' comments and recommendations. 

HLC Accreditation

The Higher Learning Commission, HLC, is one of six independent institutional accreditors for higher education that ensures postsecondary educational institutions put into practice their quality and credibility standards. Accreditors develop their own standards and criteria; they conduct evaluations through a rigorous review process, predominantly by peers from other member institutions. The HLC looks at the institution as a whole, not just specific programs.

The goal of reaffirmation of accreditation is to assure Northern Michigan University students -- as well as parents, employers, graduate schools and other constituents -- that NMU provides a quality educational experience.

NMU is on HLC's Open Pathway of accreditation, which is run on a ten-year cycle. Our accreditation was last reaffirmed in 2016-17, and then reviewed mid-cycle in 2020-21. Our upcoming Comprehensive Evaluation will be in 2026-27 and will include a team of from peer intuitions first reading the assurance argument and supporting evidence we submit as well as researching our operations on their own, and then visiting our campus to see first-hand how we function.  

Northern has been continuously accredited by HLC since 1916.

Questions, or Getting Involved

For more information or to talk about how to get involved, contact Dan Cullen in Institutional Effectiveness.