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North Idaho College will remain accredited after the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities lifted its show cause status and gave NIC an extension to resolve remaining issues.
NIC had been on show cause since February 2023, a status that required the college to demonstrate why its accreditation should not be revoked due to governance concerns.
The small community college in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, received a series of escalating warnings from its accreditor after a hyperconservative board majority focused on culture war issues, attempted to push out its president, hired personnel with political ties to several trustees without a formal bidding process and violated state open meetings laws on multiple occasions.
Those governance issues imperiled NIC’s accreditation.
But NIC has worked to resolve governance issues over the past year and the three trustees that comprised the majority are no longer on the five-member board following elections in this past fall.
The college community has been awaiting a decision on NIC’s fate since January, when administrators made their case to the commission about why NIC should not lose accreditation. This week, NWCCU noted progress on governance issues in removing NIC’s show cause sanction and gave it a year to remedy any remaining compliance concerns.
“We’re happy they recognized all the efforts and good work being done at NIC. We look forward to putting this completely behind us,” NIC president Nick Swayne said in a written statement.
