Accreditation's Future: Assessing For-Profit College Quality

Inside Higher Ed reported on U.S. Department of Education's National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity's initial meetings leading to a potential revamping of the accreditation process. One of the issues in contention is whether accreditation agencies are being asked to perform tasks so far outside their original mission that they cannot possibly fulfill the mandate.

Historically, accreditation agencies developed as peer review evaluators, helping to ensure member schools' attainment of minimum standards of educational quality. The accreditation process was collegial, not adversarial. Some of these agencies existed long before Congress passed the Higher Education Act of 1965 or created the U.S. Department of Education as an independent agency in 1980.

At the Department's forum on accreditation held Feb. 3-4, Kevin Carey of Education Sector argued that accreditors lack the expertise and capacity to evaluate the quality and legitimacy of "complex, for-profit higher education companies."

He suggested that the for-profits be channeled into a new regulatory scheme, one in which the Federal government assumes a more prominent role.

This is an interesting suggestion and could prove workable. The for-profit sector has certainly been responsible for an overwhelming proportion of the misuse of Federal student financial aid funds. However, while accreditation agencies' expertise does not lie in fraud detection, some competent level of document review is essential if accreditation is to carry any legitimacy. Many of the frauds perpetrated by for-profits would never have happened had the accreditors performed any reasonable semblance of a review of documents submitted to them in furtherance of the accreditation process.

Shouldn't an accreditation agency look twice at a so-called postsecondary educational institution whose source materials are riddled with grammatical and logical errors and factual inconsistencies- or whose educational quality is suspect based on commonly understood qualitative measurements? I don't have access to accreditation files for this article but a look at some of the online information that is available regarding some accredited schools will serve as a proxy in demonstrating this point.

* Alhambra Beauty College is accredited by the National Accrediting Commission of Cosmetology Arts and Sciences. It says on its website: "Interview is required prior to be accpeted for admission."

"Prior to be" and "accpeted" should raise a red flag. Someone should take a closer look at such an entity presenting itself as a postsecondary level institution upon observing such anomalies. This illiterate statement does not stand alone on the website. Under the heading "Career Goals-Cosmetology," the websites states, "Graduates are able to work in skin care center, salon manager, salon owner product demonstrator..." And so on.

* Concord Law School, owned by Kaplan University, obtained accreditation as a distance learning school from Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council. This accreditation means next to nothing as far as becoming a lawyer upon graduation is concerned; the American Bar Association is the recognized authority for accrediting law schools. The ABA does not recognize any laws schools whose curriculum consists solely of distance learning.

The ABA says of the law school accreditation process: "Accreditation policies and procedures must serve to advance the goals of legal education... The fundamental goal of legal education is to provide a sound program of legal education that prepares students for admission to the bar..."

The California bar allows graduates of Concord to take the bar exam only as graduates of an unaccredited law school. California students graduating from ABA approved law schools, taking the bar for the first time and passing in July 2010 was 75.2 percent. For the unaccredited schools, the rate was a dismal 20 percent.The overall pass rates, including first time and repeat takers, was 67.7 percent for students from ABA-accredited schools and 12.9 percent for students non-ABA-accredited law schools. If the accreditor's role involves an assessment of educational quality, surely such statistical evidence ought to be pre-eminent. Yet, DETC reaffirmed this school's accreditation in 2005, five years after its initial grant.

The simple message to be absorbed is that all recognized accrediting agencies must accredit with their eyes open and their powers of reason engaged. If they do so, many potential federal student financial assistance frauds won't have an opportunity to take root.