ACICS fired! "For-Profit College Watchdog Nears Death After Education Department Ruling"

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-22/for-profit-college-watchdog-nears-death-after-education-department-ruling

Sept. 22

....Department of Education on Thursday formally endorsed a plan to terminate their oft-criticized accreditor’s authority to act as a gatekeeper for federal student aid.

The move immediately imperils their long-term access to the roughly $130 billion in federal student loans and grants that annually flows to schools, threatening their ability to stay in business. Analysts said that affected schools unable to find a new accreditor will either merge with other colleges or close their doors.

Emma Vadehra, chief of staff to Education Secretary John King Jr., decided to withdraw the department’s recognition of Washington-based Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges & Schools (ACICS), which oversaw schools owned by Corinthian Colleges Inc. and ITT Educational Services Inc., following earlier recommendations from department staff and an outside group that advises the department on accreditation issues.

ACICS plans to appeal the decision, the organization said in a prepared statement. "We are confident that if given the opportunity to do so, we will be able to demonstrate major reforms and ongoing progress towards compliance with the department’s recognition criteria,” said Roger Williams, the accreditor's interim president.....

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"Now DoE is pulling the same over reach. "

ACICS accredited your school, not individual programs so all programs suffered because some were failing the criteria. That isn't overreach.

The DoE did what needed to be done in ITT Tech's case and in the case of ACICS it is the DoE's view that ACICS cannot correct all problems within the allowed 12 month period. Again, not overreach.

Where the DoE failed was in not acting sooner!

I used to work for one of 37 colleges that career education corporation, parent of Colorado technical university, closed in 2012 when ACICS investigated the Job placement rates being claimed for several flavor of the month type of degree programs such as Fashion Design. I was an instructor in Computer Science and Programming for Game Design. My programs easily passed all inspections because we actually made our students perform extremely detailed and complex laboratory real world real equipment final exams, proving their competence before graduating them. All of our students who did not possess criminal records or other job seeking handicaps like an utter lack of personality... got jobs in their chosen technical field even during 2008-2010. Fashion Design placed NONE in the types of jobs their recruiters bragged about. ACICS over reacted and ordered the closure of entire schools because of one or two failing programs. Now DoE is pulling the same over reach. What guarantee exists that ACICS will be replaced with anything better? Major universities are graduating nitwits every day, with mountains of debt and degrees they will never use. Revamp the entire system. Why does a Master's degree with a couple of years work experience get a full faculty position when an experienced engineer, programmer, etc with decades of real world experience but only a Bachelor's degree can't even get an adjunct position with more than two classes per term? Who provides a better communication of business career needs to the students? I believe the Certification Industry is another big scam on people who pay for boot camps and take certification exams but really cannot function in a real world situation.

Here's link to original Sept. 22 letter, sent from Department of Ed to ACICS president, re pulling the plug.

https://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/server_files/files/ACICS%20S2016%20Senior%20Department%20Official%20s%20(SDO)%20Decision%20Letter.PDF

"The collapsed Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute chains were ACICS members, among other controversial and failed for-profits."

Education Department Plans to Nix Accreditor, Sept 23, Inside Higher Ed

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2016/09/23/education-department-plans-nix-accreditor

Directory of schools is on ACICS website.

http://www.acics.org/

List of other schools accredited by ACICS?

I worked at two for-profits, and both always got so worked up when ACICS showed up. I always just watched the deans have panic attacks, giggled, and reminded everyone that ACICS was just another cog in the wheel. Nothing to worry about.

ACICS is nearly a completely bogus operation, elaborately disguised to make it appear some type of inspection is going on. In reality, no inspection of significance is occurring. Campus has 6 deans, 3 directors All full time faculty fired---wouldn't that be a flag for ACICS? Students admitted that can barely write a coherent sentence---wouldn't that be an issue? The list of issues goes on & on & on. This allows a waste o money all around.

The best reform for ACICS is to shut down.

Play what if: say ACICS actually did their job and moved to revoke ITT's accreditation in August. Do you think the DOE would have imposed the death sentence sanctions? Might have been able to teach out the remaining students.

In the media, ITT-Tech has now been given its final identity in the pages of history. Forever forward, ITT and Corinthian will be lumped together in the same sentence.

Modany's legacy is that he led one of the two biggest and baddest scam colleges in the know universe. Ultimately, his actions led to Department of Ed to cutting out an entire accrediting agency to slow down the rot of runaway greed.

Seems like just yesterday, people were still wondering if ITT-Tech was going to be the next Corinthian.

Thread regarding ITT Educational Services Inc. layoffs

ACICS fired! "For-Profit College Watchdog Nears Death After Education Department Ruling"

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