When Accrediting Agencies Don’t Adhere To Established Standards

There are two types of accreditation–national and regional. Most people would

assume that national accreditation is better. After all, competitions are organized such

that you have to perform well against your regional competitors in order to advance to

compete on the national level. However, in the case of accreditation, this is not

necessarily the case.

Thousands of students have not been able to secure employment in their fields of

study despite the fact that the schools from which they graduated (predominantly for-

profit and career colleges) were nationally accredited by agencies recognized by both

the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education. Why?

Because potential employers recognized that the national accrediting agencies were

failing to hold accredited schools to standards which ensure educational quality.

Consequently, students of these nationally accredited schools were amassing

significant student loan debt, but not acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to

be successful in their chosen career fields. As such, they end up defaulting on their

student loans. This is the reason for the high student loan default rates among

nationally accredited colleges.

The argument has therefore been made that it’s probably not a good idea to have the

U.S. Department of Education overseeing itself. The national DOE is responsible for

the quality of higher education and the federal student financial aid program.

If the same department is also responsible for addressing students’ complaints about

the quality of higher education and the federal student financial aid program, there’s

definitely a conflict of interest that doesn’t exist with the regional accrediting agencies

which are solely responsible for ensuring that students receive quality education.

In March 2014, USA Today reported that for-profit and career colleges were in danger

of being excluded from federal student aid programs if they failed to comply with new

federal regulations. Determined to end the corrupt practices of those colleges taking

advantage of their students, the Obama administration imposed requirements for

colleges and universities to demonstrate the quality of their education.

In January 2014, the U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into Santa

Ana, California-based Corinthians Colleges, Inc. which, at its largest, operated over 100

campuses under the names Everest Institute, WyoTech, and Heald College in the U.S.

and Canada.

The company was fined $30 million by the U.S. DOE for inflating job placement rates,

falsifying attendance records, and altering grades. In July 2014, the company

announced that it was selling the majority of its campuses.

The plan was to sell eighty-five of its campuses and close twelve others. Then, in

September 2014, Corinthians Colleges was hit with a lawsuit by the Consumer

Financial Protection Bureau for allegedly using inflated placement rates to lure

students during the recruitment process and duping them into taking out loans to

finance their education.

Finally, in April 2015, the company announced the immediate closing of its remaining

twenty-eight campuses, effectively kicking 16,000 students out of school overnight.

Next was ITT Technical Institute, one of the country’s largest chains of for-profit

colleges. In September 2016, ITT Tech’s parent company announced the immediate,

permanent closure of its 130 campuses operating in thirty-eight states. Company

officials pointed to the U.S. Department of Education’s barring of ITT from the federal

student aid program as the cause for the nationwide campus closures.

Students had previously been promised a teach-out. In other words, those students

currently enrolled would be allowed to complete their programs and earn their

degrees. However, the company did not keep this promise. The result? 35,000

students had their graduation hopes dashed, and 8,000 company employees lost their

jobs, all without any advanced warning.

Well-known for-profit chain DeVry University Group entered into a $100 million

settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in 2016. The school allegedly duped

potential students with advertisements that exaggerated their chances of securing

employment after graduation in fields related to their majors. In January 2017, DeVry

settled yet again with the New York Attorney General for similar allegations.

The company changed its name to Adtalem Global Education Inc. in May 2017, but the

name change wasn’t enough to change the school’s fate. The company was still under

investigation in multiple states for allegations of fraudulent lending and illegal

compensation practices. School enrollment continued its drastic decline from 70,000

to 25,000 students. In the end, the once well-known chain was sold for a relatively

low price to a very small company.

And what did all of these colleges have in common? They were nationally accredited.

The obvious question, then, was how could a college earn accreditation status if it had

questionable lending practices, lacking educational quality, fraudulent academic

reporting, and/or misleading recruiting tactics? This led the U.S. Department of

Education to scrutinize not only the schools, but the agencies that accredited them.

Both Corinthians Colleges and ITT Technical Institute were accredited by The

Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS).

In September 2016, the Department of Education officially stripped ACICS of its authority,

terminating its national recognition by the Department as an accrediting agency, and

formally recommending that the agency be eliminated due to its failure to properly

oversee the educational institutions under its supervision.

ACICS appealed the decision, but on December 12, 2016, the U.S. Department of

Education announced that it no longer recognized ACICS as an accrediting agency.

As a result, Sage College of Moreno Valley, California joined the list of for-profit

colleges that have closed their doors in recent history. The career college educated

students for over forty years in the legal field through court reporting and paralegal

programs.

When the school’s accrediting agency, ACICS, lost its recognition, the college emailed

the student body, faculty, and staff over the 2017 winter holiday break, informing them

of the situation and promising that the matter would be resolved. But, when students

and employees returned at the first of the year, they found that the school had

permanently closed.

The U.S. Department of Education is attempting to assist the Sage College students,

some of whom may receive loan forgiveness. However, this form of assistance has not

been extended to many students in the same boat.

So, what can be learned from this case study? First, it is imperative that schools

thoroughly research accrediting agencies before seeking accreditation. It’s a good idea

to research schools accredited by an agency, keeping in mind that the quality of the

schools accredited by an agency is a reflection of the quality of the agency itself.

In terms of higher education, the loan default rate is a key factor in assessing the

quality of education that a college or university provides. A high loan default rate is an

indication that students are ill-prepared for careers in their field of study, resulting in

their inability to afford to pay their student loans.

In terms of K–12 schools, student learning outcomes (such as standardized test scores

and college acceptance rates) are excellent barometers for assessing school quality

and, in turn, the quality of the school’s accrediting agency