{"id":88794,"date":"2018-02-24T04:32:25","date_gmt":"2018-02-24T09:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=88794"},"modified":"2018-02-23T14:05:36","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T19:05:36","slug":"schneiderman-fellow-ags-to-devos-dont-reauthorize-accrediting-agency-that-approved-predatory-failing-for-profit-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=88794","title":{"rendered":"Schneiderman, fellow AGs to DeVos: Don’t reauthorize accrediting agency that approved predatory, failing, for-profit schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Schneiderman, fellow AGs to DeVos: Don’t reauthorize accrediting agency that approved predatory, failing, for-profit schools<\/strong><\/p>\n

20 AGs oppose petition by Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools to regain status as nationally recognized accreditor following ACICS\u2019 \u201cExtreme and Far-Reaching Oversight Failures\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today joined a coalition of 20 Attorneys General demanding that\u00a0the U.S. Department of Education reject\u00a0the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools\u2019 (ACICS) application to regain its status as a nationally recognized accreditor.\u00a0In a letter sent today to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos<\/a>, Attorney General Schneiderman and his fellow Attorneys General note the accreditor\u2019s \u201cextreme and far-reaching oversight failures\u201d and the serious harm it caused students and taxpayers across the country by enabling fraud and abuse by predatory for-profit schools like Corinthian Colleges. Today\u2019s letter follows a number of actions taken by Attorney General Schneiderman to protect students from unscrupulous for-profit colleges, including a\u00a0multimillion-dollar settlement agreement with Devry University<\/a>\u00a0and another with\u00a0Aequitas Capital Management, Inc. to provide loan forgiveness and debt relief<\/a>\u00a0for 350 Rochester-area students victimized by the Corinthian College loan provider.<\/p>\n

“For years, thousands of students were duped into pursuing degree programs that essentially had no real world value \u2014 saddling many New Yorkers with mountains of debt and very few job prospects. As an accreditor, ACICS had a basic responsibility to protect those students but, instead, allowed them to be taken advantage of by predatory for-profit colleges,” said\u00a0Schneiderman. “Secretary DeVos must do her job to protect students by rejecting ACICS\u2019s petition to regain its status as a nationally recognized accreditor. ACICS thoroughly failed students before and it cannot be entrusted with that responsibility again.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to the U.S. Department of Education\u2019s call for written comments, Attorney General Schneiderman and the coalition of Attorneys General are calling for the Department to reject ACICS\u2019s application for initial recognition. In the comments, the Attorneys General note that the Department terminated ACICS\u2019s recognition just over a year ago due to ACICS\u2019s pervasive oversight failures, so any attempt by ACICS to become nationally recognized once again \u201cshould be treated with great skepticism.\u201d Under the Department\u2019s regulations, the Attorneys General assert, ACICS cannot meet the threshold eligibility requirements for receiving national recognition.<\/p>\n

Accreditors serve a critical role in ensuring that schools provide students with an education that meets minimum standards of quality. They function as gatekeepers, protecting students from abuse by institutions that offer education of little-to-no value. When accreditors fail to fulfill this responsibility, they enable abusive schools to engage in misconduct that can be devastating to students.<\/p>\n

As the letter details, ACICS\u2019s oversight failures include its decision to extend accreditation to schools like the Manhattan School of Computer Technology, along with a large number of campuses operated by the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges, such as the\u00a0Everest Institute Rochester. ACICS continued accrediting Corinthian even after Schneiderman and upwards of 20 state and federal agencies initiated investigations into Corinthian\u2019s fraud, and up until the day Corinthian declared bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

\u201cACICS\u2019s previous stint as a nationally recognized accreditor provides a stark illustration of the damage done to both students and taxpayers when accreditors fail to fulfill their oversight responsibilities. During these years, ACICS willingly accredited predatory schools that left students across the country mired in debt and without the quality education they were promised,\u201d the letter states.<\/p>\n

The letter was signed by the Attorneys General of New York, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Schneiderman, fellow AGs to DeVos: Don’t reauthorize accrediting agency that approved predatory, failing, for-profit schools 20 AGs oppose petition by Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools to regain status as nationally recognized accreditor following ACICS\u2019 \u201cExtreme and Far-Reaching Oversight Failures\u201d Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today joined a coalition of 20 Attorneys General demanding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23810,32,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellbeing","category-crime","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-n6a","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Attorny_General_Eric_T_Schneiderman.jpg?fit=260%2C221&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}