Education Department Establishes Enhanced
Federal Aid Participation Requirements for ACICS-accredited Colleges
Beginning
today, the U.S. Department of Education will inform colleges accredited by the Accrediting
Council on Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) of additional operating conditions required
for continued participation in the federal student aid programs. These new
provisions will apply to ACICS-accredited institutions and follow U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr.’s final decision to withdraw federal
recognition of
the accrediting agency.
Although
ACICS is no longer a federally recognized accrediting agency, the Department
may provisionally certify ACICS-accredited institutions for continued
participation in the federal student aid programs for up to 18 months from the
date of the Secretary’s final decision. This 18-month provisional certification
period allows institutions to seek accreditation from another federally
recognized accrediting agency. During this
period of provisional certification, the Department will require the
ACICS-accredited institutions to comply with additional conditions that are designed
to protect students and safeguard taxpayer dollars. These conditions include additional
monitoring, transparency, oversight and accountability measures. Only
ACICS-accredited institutions that agree to these conditions may continue to offer
Federal Loans and Pell Grants.
The
Department’s Federal Student Aid office will promptly begin sending provisional
program participation agreements (PPAs) to the affected institutions, which will
have 10 days to respond affirmatively to the new agreements or will lose
eligibility for federal student aid programs.
The
additional PPA conditions establish triggers tied directly
to milestones in the accreditation process to ensure that institutions not on
track to receive accreditation from a federally-recognized accrediting agency within
18 months are subject to progressively stronger student and taxpayer protections.
During the term of their provisional PPAs, institutions must also abide by
requirements previously enforced by ACICS.
Within
30 days, all ACICS-accredited institutions will be required to submit teach-out
plans for helping students complete their academic programs elsewhere if
necessary, and submit information about recent and ongoing investigations to
ensure the Department is aware of key risks in this new environment of reduced
oversight.
Additional
conditions triggered by institutions missing milestones on the path to obtaining
accreditation from a federally recognized accreditor include:
- Submitting
teach-out agreements to ensure a path to completion for students in the event
of closure;
- Providing
enhanced disclosures to students regarding potential loss of federal student aid
eligibility;
- Limiting
enrollment of new students;
- Submitting
monthly student rosters and a record retention plan; and
- Posting
a letter of credit to protect against taxpayer losses associated with school
closure.
"Protecting and supporting
students throughout their education is the Department’s
chief priority. When we find that an accrediting agency is not effectively protecting
students, and is putting taxpayer funding at risk, we will use every tool we
have to hold it accountable—just as Congress requires and families expect,” said U.S. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell.
“In this case, that means that we more closely monitor their schools in the
absence of a reliable accreditor. During this transition, we will do everything
we can to help students continue on the path to complete their programs.”
ACICS No Longer
Recognized as Federal Aid “Gatekeeper”
Today,
U.S. Secretary of Education John
B. King Jr.
informed ACICS of his decision regarding its appeal of the Senior Department
Official’s Sept. 22 decision to end federal recognition of the accrediting agency.
His determination is consistent with the
Department’s accreditation staff recommendation and the recommendation of the National
Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), a bi-partisan,
independent advisory board appointed by Congress. Secretary King’s decision is the
Department’s final action. Effective immediately, ACICS is no longer a
federally recognized accrediting agency, and can no longer serve as a
“gatekeeper” of institutional eligibility for federal student aid programs.
In
his decision, Secretary King noted, “I find ACICS to be out of compliance with
numerous agency criteria. Because of the nature and scope of ACICS’s pervasive
noncompliance, I further conclude that ACICS is not capable of coming into
compliance within 12 months or less, even if I renewed its recognition for an
additional 12 months.” He added, “The interests of students are of foremost
concern to me and this Department, but students’ interests are best served by
proper application of the recognition criteria. This is also required by law.”
As
the accreditation staff analysis of ACICS noted, the Department identified
significant areas of concern, including insufficient institutional monitoring, failure
to meet its Title IV responsibilities, lax enforcement of the agency’s existing
accrediting standards, particularly the student achievement standard, and
the rigor of the agency’s
accreditation and pre-accreditation standards. In accordance with agency
recognition renewal procedures, this analysis was shared with NACIQI and
informed its recommendation to withdraw federal recognition of ACICS.
ACICS
accredits approximately 250 institutions participating in federal student aid
programs according to information from the College
Scorecard and
the Department’s institutional
database. These
institutions enroll roughly 300,000 undergraduate students who receive federal
aid.
Strengthening the
Accreditation System
As
part of an ongoing commitment to strengthen the transparency and rigor of
accreditation for colleges and universities, the Department has taken a series
of steps to promote outcomes-driven accountability, such as:
-
Streamlining the process for
accreditors to share information about institutional statuses. Institutional accreditors are now
required to submit decision letters when they place Title IV eligible institutions
on probation. The Department will soon begin to post online all publicly
releasable portions of such letters.
-
Publishing each accreditor's
standards for evaluating student outcomes. The Department has published each federally
recognized agency's stated student achievement measures, including any specific
thresholds. Accreditors are required by statute to set standards for student
achievement for schools to maintain their accreditation status. Yet there are
significant differences in the form, specificity, and performance levels among
accreditors. Under current law, the Department is barred from establishing any
criteria for agency standards of student achievement. This allows some
accreditors to set low or difficult-to-measure thresholds to maintain
accreditation status, and others to rely on reviews of thresholds established
by the institutions they accredit. Shining a spotlight on current standards is
an initial step toward strengthening them.
-
Publishing key student and
institutional metrics for postsecondary institutions arranged by accreditors. In June, the Department published “accreditor dashboards” based largely on data largely
from the College Scorecard, designed to help policymakers, experts, and the
public better understand the student outcomes of institutions that are approved
by particular accrediting agencies. These dashboards illustrate the performance
of all colleges and universities in each accreditor's institutional portfolio
relevant to those measures.
-
Promoting greater emphasis on
outcomes within current accreditor review processes. Staff in the Office of
Postsecondary Education now have access to critical outcomes data, state and
federal litigation reports, and other information about each agency's schools
prior to conducting their reviews. This information helps Department staff determine
which questions to ask accreditors in preparation for reviews, and helps them
evaluate accreditor effectiveness, especially with respect to struggling
institutions. Through the accreditor dashboards, the Department supplied outcomes
information to NACIQI in advance of its June 2016 meeting to support its
training and policy development activities, to help it frame a policy agenda
regarding the agency recognition process, and for its own evaluation of
accreditor standards and processes. In addition, the Department, within the
scope of its current authority, has encouraged accreditors, to apply
outcomes-directed measures in accreditation and monitoring of institutions that
have weak outcomes.
Shared
Responsibility in Ensuring Institutional Accountability
Despite
the Department’s efforts to strengthen the accreditation system, more work
remains. Congress, states, and accreditors must also join in these efforts.
States
play an important role in overseeing colleges and universities. And they must
take seriously their long-standing role in consumer protection through a robust
state authorization and oversight process, as well as ensure active compliance
and monitoring of institutions doing business in their states. There is
significant opportunity for state attorneys general and state higher education
authorizing and licensure bodies to strengthen their coordination and
collaboration with one another within and across states in an effort to
identify problems, protect students, and hold schools accountable. The
Department stands ready to support those efforts.
All
accreditors must raise the bar for quality, promote transparency, and renew
their focus on student outcomes—not just inputs. And all accreditors must take
seriously their responsibility to monitor and take swift action against schools
that attempt to defraud their students.
Congress must do more to protect students from
unscrupulous institutions that deceive students into taking on debt they will
never be able to repay and stick taxpayers with the bill. We must strengthen,
not weaken, accountability in higher education. In November 2015, the
Department issued a set of legislative recommendations for strengthening accreditation, which include
strengthening outcomes-driven and focused review and recognition of
accreditors; requiring robust teach-out plans and reserve funds for high-risk
institutions; standardizing terminology and reporting of accreditation actions
and key outcomes; and increasing transparency on an expanded set of
accreditation material and actions.
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