Student Defense's Quality Assurance Initiative is a project intended to empower the quality assurance community by ensuring that accreditors are equipped with the tools and methods they need to improve their work on student borrower protections, and to help institutions improve student outcomes. Accreditors are an important part of the higher education triad, along with states and the U.S. Department of Education. Beyond accreditors’ traditional focus on instructional quality, in recent years it has become clear they are well-positioned to also play a role enhancing consumer protections for students throughout the course of the educational experience.