Public Accountability
To accredit is to ensure basic standards of excellence.
Accreditation is a system of voluntary self-assessment and external review of educational institutions. It provides an assurance of quality to students, parents, and the public.
The WASC Senior College and University Commission (“the Commission”) is an institutional accrediting agency serving a diverse membership of public and private higher education institutions throughout California, Hawaii, and the Pacific as well as a limited number of institutions outside of the U.S. Through its work of peer review, based on standards agreed to by the membership, the Commission encourages continuous institutional improvement and assures the membership and its constituencies, including the public, that accrediting institutions are fulfilling their missions in service to their students and the public good.
The WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC) is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as certifying institutional eligibility for federal funding in a number of programs, including student access to federal financial aid.
San José State University (SJSU) is one of more than one hundred institutions regionally accredited by WSCUC. Our advertising, journalism, and public relations undergraduate programs and mass communications graduate program are reviewed annually as part of SJSU’s annual review. This is to ensure the SJSU and all its programs, including the School of Journalism and Mass Communications (JMC), continues to meet its mission to provide the best possible educational experience.
Additionally, our journalism undergraduate program is accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, or ACEJMC. This agency is responsible for the evaluation of professional journalism and mass communications programs. ACEJMC accredits programs at colleges and universities in the United States, Puerto Rico and outside the country. Programs requesting a review by ACEJMC are evaluated every six years and, after the evaluative process, receive one of three determinations: accredited/reaccredited, provisional or denial.
The SJSU JMC’s journalism program is one of more than one hundred programs nationally accredited by ACEJMC. Our journalism undergraduate program is reviewed every six years. This is to ensure the JMC School continues to meet its mission to provide the best possible media educational experience.
A comprehensive self-study is conducted after which a team composed of mass media
academics and industry professionals visit the campus to confirm self-study findings
and make recommendations. The most recent ACEJMC full program review team visited
San José State University in 2022, assigning provisional status to the Department
of Journalism with a revisit in
February 2024, specifically looking at Standard 9 (Learning Outcomes). The team site
report for 2022 is available upon request.
Data updated every October to the best of our ability and based on data received from SJSU Institutional Research.
To see continuation/retention rates for first-time-freshman, transfers, and graduate students starting 2015 through 2022 along with other documents please view the attached files.
Graduation and Retention Rates, Enrollment by Gender and Ethnicity 2015-2022 [pdf]
ACEJMC 2022 Assessment Report [pdf]
Journalism Assessment Plan [pdf]
