4. In the aftermath of AAU’s stopping its listing of approved institutions and given the
constant increase in the number of accrediting associations that reviewed programs (such
as medicine, engineering, business, forestry and law), a new national organization was
formed in 1949, the National Commission on Accrediting. Its purpose was to discourage
additional programmatic bodies and encourage them to be a part of regional accreditation.
The National Commission would do this by refusing to fund them through membership
fees. The commission’s list of accrediting agencies and associations later became a basis for
a list published by Earl McGrath, the Commissioner of Education, in 1952. McGrath’s list
was designed to implement the revised Veteran’s Readjustment Assistance Act. The national
commission soon went out of business.