Accreditation

Accreditation is a voluntary peer review process that helps colleges and universities assure and advance quality in their educational programs. Accreditation:

• Assures the quality and integrity of MCC's programs and services.
• Allows students to transfer credits to other accredited colleges and universities.
• Enables students to obtain financial aid and veteran's services.
• Empowers the college to participate in projects funded by federal grants.
• Assists the college with recruiting and retaining quality faculty and staff.

Mesa Community College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC).

Higher Learning Commission

230 South LaSalle Street, Suite 7-500
Chicago, IL 60604
800.621.7440

Programmatic Accreditation 

In addition to institutional accreditation with the HLC, some MCC programs maintain their own programmatic accreditation. Programmatic (or Specialized) Accreditation examines specific programs or specialties within an educational institution (e.g., nursing program, automotive program, simulation center). The Standards by which these programs are measured have generally been developed by the professionals involved in each discipline and are intended to reflect what a person needs to know and be able to do to function successfully within that profession or functional area. Accreditation in the disciplines also serves a very important public interest as a tool intended to help assure a well-prepared and qualified workforce is providing essential services.

MCC Accreditation Timeline

The HLC offers institutions multiple options for maintaining their accreditation, called pathways. MCC is on the Open Pathway for accreditation. The Open Pathway follows on a 10-year cycle focused on quality assurance and institutional improvement, with major milestones bolded:

MCC completed its last accreditation cycle in 2025 with a comprehensive evaluation. As a result of this successful evaluation, the HLC continued the accreditation of MCC with the next Reaffirmation of Accreditation scheduled for 2034-35. 

*Institutions with more than three additional locations (locations where an institution offers more than 50% of a degree or certificate program) are required to have a multi-location visit of a random sample of additional locations every five years, during years three and eight of the 10-year pathway cycle.

HLC Assurance

The HLC conducts an Assurance Review to determine whether an institution is in compliance with the Criteria for Accreditation and other HLC requirements. MCC completed an Assurance Review as part of its reaffirmation of accreditation comprehensive visit in March 2025. Based on this assurance review and comprehensive visit, the HLC determined that MCC meets all HLC Criteria for Accreditation. MCC's next Assurance Review will occur in 2028-29.

Institutional Improvement

The Open Pathway requires an institution to designate one major improvement effort it has undertaken during its 10-year accreditation cycle as its Quality Initiative. MCC's Quality Initiatives are listed below. 

2016-2025 Quality Initiative: HLC Assessment Academy

After completing a successful assurance review in 2019, MCC chose to showcase the important work of student outcomes assessment by participating in the HLC Assessment Academy as the institution's Quality Initiative. Members of MCC’s Assessment Academy team attended a virtual HLC results forum in Fall 2021 to present results, and the HLC accepted the team’s final report as fulfilling MCC’s Quality Initiative requirement. MCC's focus during this five-year project was to increase faculty participation in student outcomes assessment, create a systematic approach to assessing student learning outcomes, and develop assessment expertise within the co-curricular and student service areas.

2006-2015 Quality Initiative: informed improvement 

In the 2006-2015 accreditation cycle, MCC's quality initiative was called informed improvement, which empowers a culture of evidence-based decision-making dedicated to advancing student success. Informed improvement acknowledges the 21st century community college’s greatly increased capacity to gather and analyze relevant data, and to deploy that information to make the most effective use of the college’s resources. Placing an iterative process of critical inquiry at the heart of every college unit’s planning processes, informed improvement is premised upon the realization that every aspect of the college contributes to student learning and success.

In January of 2015, MCC received a Quality Initiative Recommendation indicating that the HLC formally accepted its informed improvement initiative as having completed the Quality Initiative requirement. In the report, the HLC praised the college's "focused purpose and excellent work." There were many outcomes of the project that drew praise, especially the shift in the college's culture and processes toward evidence-based decision-making dedicated to student success.