Education Department officials and the accrediting industry say the changes would benefit students and spur innovation, but some advocates say they would invite industry abuse.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. By Danielle Douglas-Gabriel Danielle Douglas-Gabriel Reporter covering the economics of education Email Bio Follow April 3 at 11:10 PM The accreditation system designed to compel colleges and universities to live up to high standards would be weakened under regulations advanced Wednesday by a U.S. Education Department committee.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos praised the agreement as a critical step toward spurring innovation in a sector that needs to be more responsive to a changing workforce. “While some of the Department’s initial proposals were scaled back through negotiation, many agreed upon today will still serve a similar purpose: allow federal dollars to flow to unproven and untested programs under the guise of innovation,” said Michael Itzkowitz, a senior fellow at the center-left think tank Third Way.
Under Wednesday’s agreement, accreditors would no longer be required to take action against colleges that fail to live up to accrediting standards, nor would those agencies have to inform students there is a problem. “Given the Department’s stamp of approval of ACICS, there is virtually no expectation that an accreditor that falls down on the job would be held accountable,” said Antoinette Flores, a higher education policy analyst at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. “This is what is to be expected when the higher education lobby is allowed to write its own rules.”
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