For-Profits Serve Poor, Get Better Results Than Government Schools

[Yancy Derringer]

Another nice post by Glen S. McGhee in the otherwise useless IHE today, regarding the proposed for-profit standards of conduct:

There Is Only One List That Matters
Posted by Glen S. McGhee , Dir., at Florida Higher Education Accountability Project on September 15, 2011

If accurate information is so important, why misrepresent the existing Title IV gatekeepers as "independent accreditors"?

At the root of the current quality problems is the fact that accreditors are not independent, but drawn from the schools themselves, and accreditation is self-administered.

Moves such as this are meant to address threats to the for-profit sector as a whole, and are nothing more than a new layer of "additional voluntary standards of conduct" over and above existing safeguards. Note how these proposals jump ahead of current accrediting standards, in terms of rigor, and even, in some cases, federal Title IV requirements.

The biggest problem is -- as has always been the case -- enforcement. Getting "dropped from the list" always sounds impressive, but this isn't the list of those institutions given access to Title IV funds. It isn't even a real list yet. So, there is a tremendous credibility problem here that needs to be addressed, but cannot be, because this is not a new Title IV accreditor, and consequently, it is not even recognized by the US Secretary of Education. Or CHEA, for that matter.

Those legislators endorsing this proposal are, in fact, undermining the credibility of the gatekeeping triad as it now exists. Maybe some of them have better ideas and proposals for accreditation that they can bring to the table for accreditation reform -- maybe incorporating these changes into existing 34 CFR 602.

Why would this be a good idea?

Think about it -- it's not just the for-profit schools that are having these problems, but public sector schools have quality issues as well.

The only difference here, is that the for-profit sector seems willing to risk addressing its problems. The public sector never will -- until *its* flow of federal dollars is threatened as well.

For this proposal to really mean something, the foundation needs to move ahead with recognition, and then openly compete with existing accreditors for members. Without this kind of status, it cannot amount to much where it counts -- being dropped from the list. Right now, there is only one list that matters.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/..._take_hold