Ed Dept’s IG Sends a Shot Across the Bow of Accreditors

For years, for-profit colleges have pointed to the fact that they are accredited by independent agencies recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as proof that they provide a quality education. Why should they be subject to additional regulation when they have received the seal of approval from the august bodies that the federal government relies upon to ensure that students are being well served?

At Higher Ed Watch, we wish we could share the schools’ faith in the accreditation process. The truth is that accreditors have long had a dismal record of policing the proprietary schools they count as members. In case after case, these agencies have failed to take action against unscrupulous schools even when it is clear that abuses are occurring and students are being harmed.

On Thursday, the Education Department’s Inspector General sent a shot across the bow of the accreditors, warning that the government may no longer tolerate such lax oversight. In a move that sent shockwaves throughout the higher education establishment, the IG called on the Department to consider terminating the authority of the nation’s largest regional accrediting agency over its decision to accredit a major for-profit university despite knowing that the institution had potentially violated the law and harmed students.

At the center of the controversy is the Career Education Corporation’s American Intercontinental University (AIU), one of the company’s flagship schools. The university has repeatedly come under intense regulatory scrutiny ever since the giant for-profit higher education company purchased it in 2000. (Disclosure: The author of this post conducted a three month investigation of recruiting practices at the Los Angeles branch of AIU for The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2006, which you can read here. The corporation has since shut that campus down.)

In May, the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools granted accreditation to AIU, which had previously been accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. According to the IG, the commission had given the university its rubber stamp of approval (“full initial accreditation without limitations on programs it offered”) even though it had found serious problems with the way in which the school was awarding credits for classes taken by its large population of online students. The nature of those problems is not exactly clear because the IG’s alert memo is heavily redacted. But it appears that significant concerns were raised about the quality of training that AIU’s online students were receiving.

“This action by HLC is not in the best interests of students and calls into question whether the accrediting decisions made by HLC should be relied upon by the Department of Education, when assisting students to obtain quality education through the Title IV [student aid] programs,” Wanda Scott, an assistant inspector general wrote in the memo.

Unsurprisingly, the commission’s leaders, as well as the higher education establishment in general, were outraged by the IG’s action. In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Sylvia Manning, HLC’s president, agreed that the problems it found at AIU were “egregious.” But she said that the decision to go ahead and accredit the university was “an academic judgment” that the Inspector General’s Office had no business in questioning. “They’re saying, you thought it was okay to accredit them, and we don’t,” she stated.

But instead of attacking the IG, perhaps accreditation agency leaders should take a look in the mirror and determine whether they are really fulfilling the important mission that the Education Department has assigned them – ensuring that students are receiving a quality education and that federal student aid dollars are not being wasted on unscrupulous schools. Apparently in this case and many others like it, accreditors have failed and students have been hurt. It’s about time that federal officials sounded the alarm.