After being reinstated by the Trump adminisitration, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) is facing termination under the Biden administration for the same reason it lost its authority under the Obama administration.

Founded in 1912, ACICS serves as the chief accrediting agency for for-profit colleges and universities. The U.S. Department of Education under Obama nullified the status of ACICS in December 2016 for failing to provide adquate oversight. Attorneys general in as many as 37 states had conducted fraud investigations into for-profit colleges for having enrolled underqualified applicants, inflated passing rates of students, and exaggerated employment data of graduates. Yet the Trump administration gave ACICS new life.

“President Donald J. Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, reinstated the accrediting body in 2018, citing a federal court’s opinion that found the Obama administration had not allowed it to properly defend itself,” writes Erica L. Green in The New York Times. “Ms. DeVos did so over the objections of her own staff, who issued a 244-page report detailing how the body had failed to meet dozens of federal standards.”

“The reinstatement,” continued Green, “allowed ACICS to keep operating as a watchdog for the Education Department and a gatekeeper of billions in federal financial aid dollars. At the time, the group said that it had made drastic improvements to its operations.

“Career staff members at the department who have monitored the group’s compliance since then disagree.

“The department’s announcement on Friday said that the accrediting body had ‘failed to demonstrate that it has competent and knowledgeable individuals’ who were trained in the agency’s own ‘standards, policies and procedures.’”

Samuel E. Abrams
Director, NCSPE