Schooled on ‘junk’ degrees

Students have a stake in accreditation debate

Going to Brightwood College in the 2018 fall semester was supposed to be a safe bet. So thousands of students enrolled across the country.

For those students and others, a degree is supposed to be a lifeline. They sink in time and money, all for the prospect of higher earnings and a more fulfilling career.

But Brightwood students’ investment didn’t pay off. What’s more, a regulatory group had signed off on the college’s programs – only to change its mind.

Accreditation, as it’s called, is meant to prevent predatory or shoddy schools from leading students astray. And the Accrediting Council of Independent Colleges and Schools had giv

en its signal to students that Brightwood was a worthwhile investment.

Yet in December 2018, the agency revoked the accreditation of Education Corp. of America, which ran the Brightwood locations and other colleges across the country. The closures of dozens of institutions followed swiftly. Students had spent the time and money but still had no degrees and no clear path forward.

Many of them still struggle. In a Facebook group for students of the closed college, some commiserate over what they call worthless degrees. Others try to give advice about how to get their student loan discharged or receive their transcripts.

What’s more, the accrediting council itself had a checkered history. President Barack Obama’s administration had moved to strip it of its powers to OK school programs, but after a legal battle, President Donald Trump’s administration undid that move.

The Education Corp. of America colleges were just some of the institutions that suddenly closed in recent years. ITT Tech closed in 2016. Corinthian Colleges did the same in 2015. Both had been accredited by ACICS. The accrediting group said it gave multiple warnings, but the colleges weren’t able to meet its standards.

Now, the Education Department is looking to change the arcane and bureaucratic process of accreditation.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and accreditors of universities say new rules ultimately will allow colleges to offer programs more quickly and effectively. That means students landing a job in fields that are hiring, they say.

“With these reforms, our nation’s colleges and universities can spend more time and effort on serving students and less time, energy, and money focused on bureaucratic compliance,” DeVos said in a statement.

But critics of the newly proposed rules say they would make it easier for shady colleges to operate for longer and with less federal oversight.

Many colleges already are doing a poor job of preparing students, said Clare McCann of the think tank New America, and giving them more latitude under the guise of innovation may lead to students taking chances on junk programs.

“What these regulations really do is make it so it is much harder to hold those schools accountable,” McCann said.

Among the changes, the proposed rules would allow colleges to offer new programs with less scrutiny from accreditors. The idea is that colleges could see a hole in the workforce and quickly come up with a new degree or credential to fill it.

The proposed rules also would allow schools that have failed to meet accreditation standards as long as four years to fix their problems – double the previous amount of two years. The rationale? These changes sometimes take a long time, and allowing the university to fix a problem may lead to more students graduating.

Closing an underperforming college right away, in contrast, may leave students without an education and nowhere to go to finish their degree.

But allowing a bad institution to operate longer may mean more students attend the failing institution, wasting time and money. And it could cost taxpayers more money because the school could continue to get federal grants and loans, Antoinette Flores, an associate director at the liberal Center for American Progress, has argued.

Plus, she said, the proposed rules could make it easier for outside entities to buy failing colleges.

“In practice, that means we’re never going to see any of these institutions going away,” Flores said. “That increases the likelihood we’re recycling failed, toxic assets in the system.

Education coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation does not provide editorial input.

“What these regulations really do is make it so it is much harder to hold those schools accountable.”

Clare McCann