The Department of Education awarded $14.5 million to projects aimed at creating alternative accreditors and easing institutional switches, accelerating a federal effort to reshape college oversight. Grants under the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education target organizations proposing novel accreditation models and, in several cases, groups with limited prior accrediting experience. The awards respond to an April 2025 executive order and are the most concrete federal step yet to diversify the U.S. accreditation landscape. Officials granted funding to 15 projects that could seed up to 10 new accrediting bodies; the initiative signals a shift away from the regional-accreditor model that has governed U.S. higher education for decades. Colleges and established accreditors will face fresh compliance choices if institutions pursue switches to newly funded agencies. The change may alter oversight, federal aid eligibility processes and institutional strategic planning.