How Federal Regulation Props Up The Accreditation Trust And Why It Should Stop

Forbes ^ | October 22, 2015 | George Leef

[reaganaut1]

Before the federal government got into the business of subsidizing higher education, almost nobody paid any attention to the various college accrediting bodies. Colleges and universities could seek their stamp of approval and many did, but there wasn’t any penalty for not doing so.

That changed when, during LBJ’s Great Society, the federal government began establishing the grant and loan programs meant to make college “affordable” to more Americans. The problem was, how to keep students from wasting the money on bogus degrees at ersatz colleges?

Here’s the solution our politicians devised: students could only use their federal money at schools that were accredited. The operative assumption was that accredited colleges must be reasonably good and unaccredited ones were probably bad if not downright fraudulent.

Thus, the accreditation organizations “recognized” by the Department of Education became the gatekeepers for the greatly desired flow of federal student aid. As usual, though, the politicians didn’t consider the long-run implications of their action.

One implication was that the accreditors had been given enormous power over colleges that soon became hooked on students with federal aid money.

Senator Marco Rubio, a leading Republican contender for the White House, has criticized that power and in this Des Moines Register op-ed, advocates changing federal law to allow the creation of new accreditation bodies. Doing that, he maintains, would “transform higher education by exposing it to the market forces of choice and competition.”

[pepsionice]

Back around 2011....I had to go and travel on a last minute situation and landed at some airport of a smaller town. At 10PM, there was just one car rental place open and the gal at the desk was alone but willing to help me with a car.

We chatted for five minutes and I came to note that she was the manager of the shop. Mid-20’s and seemingly educated. The topic came up. She was a recent graduate of the local university and had a bachelor’s degree.

I sat there in some form of disbelief. This was the kind of job (manager of such a shop) where ten years prior....it would have been a non-degree guy in his 40’s. We’ve arrived at a point now we offer up such jobs to people who’ve wasted four years of college and this is the best there is for a job.