The Impact of National Accreditation on Institutional Performance and Global University Rankings: Meta-Analytical Evidence from Indonesia (2016–2025)

Abstract

The transition of Indonesia’s higher education accreditation system from a compliance-based model toward an outcome-oriented, nine-criteria framework during 2016–2025 was intended to strengthen institutional quality and accountability. However, empirical evidence concerning its actual impact on institutional performance remains inconsistent. This study aims to evaluate the aggregate effect of national accreditation administered by BAN-PT and LAM on higher education institutional performance. Guided by the PRISMA protocol, this study employed a mixed-methods meta-analysis of 79 empirical studies examining accreditation and institutional outcomes. A random-effects model was applied to account for substantial sector-wide heterogeneity, with I² exceeding 50%. The synthesis reveals a critical distinction between administrative conformity and substantive academic improvement. Accreditation demonstrates a strong effect on administrative standardization, governance, and institutional compliance, but its association with substantive academic outcomes, including research productivity and graduate employability, remains weak to moderate. The analysis further identifies institutional status and resource capacity as important moderating factors. Well-resourced public universities, particularly PTN-BH, tend to leverage accreditation as a strategic foundation for institutional development and global competitiveness, whereas resource-constrained private universities (PTS) often experience accreditation requirements as an administrative burden and focus primarily on minimum operational compliance. The study concludes that national accreditation is effective as a baseline quality assurance mechanism but requires a differentiated, outcome-oriented evaluation paradigm to bridge domestic regulatory compliance with sustainable academic excellence.