The Kentucky College of Art and Design (KyCAD) is now accredited through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.
Students at the state’s only independent four-year arts college are now eligible to apply for federal financial aid and transfer class credits to other institutions.
“It's really important for the students to be able to say that they've come from an accredited college of art and design,” KyCAD president Moira Scott Payne said at a press conference Monday. “It is the endorsement of quality. It means that our peers have decided that we are of a standard that will allow our students to move forward into any masters program of their choice now.”
To achieve accreditation, KyCAD had to meet criteria set by accrediting bodies to showcase its fitness as an intuition of high learning.
Scott Payne said the school will be able to retroactively award the two most recent years of graduates with accredited degrees. Diplomas for the school's first two graduating classes will not change.
Scott Payne said leadership is still trying to figure a path forward for the school’s earliest students.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges is the accrediting body for several schools in the commonwealth including the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky. It also accredits other arts colleges including the Savannah College of Art and Design.
KyCAD has been seeking accreditation for many years, and leaders redoubled those efforts when the school became an independent institution in the spring of 2018.
“My hope would be that this accreditation is a signal to the city and to the state about how real this is,” Owsley Brown III said.
Brown has been on the KyCAD board since its beginning and has been a financial supporter of the school through large donations and fundraising efforts.
“For a long time, people needed to be convinced of could this really work, and is it possible? I think there is no higher standard than the [Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges] accreditation. So I think to anybody who is wondering whether this can work, they needn't wonder anymore,” Brown said Monday.
Scott Payne said she hopes accreditation will help cement KyCAD’s place within the city.
“I think Kentucky College of Art Design, in a way, was the sort of the missing part of the arts community in Louisville,” Scott Payne. “There are amazing community programs right across Louisville… but what has not happened is a dedicated college of art and design.”
The school reached the candidacy status of the accreditation application process in December 2023.
KyCAD currently has 29 students enrolled. Scott Payne said the school aims to grow to 150 to 200 students, but wants to remain relatively small.
“We're not ambitious for more at this stage,” Scott Payne said. “Let's see who is attracted to the programs that we develop, and we'll develop those programs, you know, we'll be looking at, what do the students need?”
KyCAD current students are looking forward to new opportunities accreditation could bring to their school.
“It's a relief that we're accredited,” KyCAD junior Beige Price said. “That not only opens up opportunities for FAFSA, to help me get through and not spend as much of my own money.”
Price said taking a chance on KyCAD while it was unaccredited was akin to taking a chance on herself as an artist.
“I wanted to be an artist, and I wanted to pursue college, and traditional [Jefferson County Technical College, University of Louisville] just wasn't appealing to me,” Price said. “I like the school because it was smaller, it was a lot more individual and personal, and I felt like I could thrive here.”
KyCAD’s recent accreditation comes after the school received a collective $5.5 million in monetary support from state and city governments in recent budgets.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect how long KyCAD has been an independent college.
