On April 3, 2018, the U.S. Department of Education announced that the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) is once again deemed a nationally recognized accrediting agency. Moreover, this decision applies retroactively to December 12, 2016, which is when the ACICS was stripped of its status as an accrediting agency. http://www.acics.org/news/content.aspx?id=7154
Here's the official US Dept of Education press release: https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/following-court-ruling-devos-orders-further-review-2016-acics-petition And here's the actual order: https://www2.ed.gov/documents/press-releases/acics-docketno-16-44-0.pdf It appears that a federal judge from the US District Court for DC ruled on March 23 that (as the Dept of Education press release describes it): "Calling the Department's decision-making process "flawed", the court ruled that the prior administration violated not only the Higher Education Act and Department's own implementing regulations, but also the Administrative Procedures Act when it ignored certain evidence and data the Department had requested from ACICS." So the case was remanded back to the Secretary of Education. The Secretary says in her Order: "As a result of the district court's remand, there is no final decision on the recognition petition that ACICS submitted to the Department Accreditation Group in January 2016 regarding its recognition period that was set to expire in December 2016. Accordingly, ACICS's status as a federally recognized accrediting agency is restored effective as of December 12, 2016. Pursuant to 34 C.F.R. section 602.37(h), ACICS will remain in that status until such time as I reach a final decision on its January 2016 petition. ... ...Consistent with the court's remand, I will conduct a further review of ACICS's 2016 petition for recognition. If I determine that full recognition is not warranted, I will also consider whether, instead of denial, ACICS should be allowed continued recognition for a period not to exceed 12 months to demonstrate compliance with any criteria for which I find ACICS is not in compliance, as allowed in 34 C.F.R. sections 602.36(e)(3) and 602.37(d)."
So ACICS is severely wounded but alive. Are there any schools that will get their retroactive accreditation, how the rulling is affecting their schools? It appears provisional recognition that will allow ACICS to address any compliance issues so its a life line and oportunity to get compliant. Another question is financing and student loans that come with recognition.
I don't know if this is in the public information, but ACICS has told schools who have applied that they will no longer consider applications from schools with doctoral programs. Such schools will not be grandfathered in, either.
The (previous) US Dept of Education de-recognizing ACICS didn't cause all the ACICS schools to suddenly lose their ACICS accreditation. ACICS was still in business (and in fact was still CHEA recognized). But... it did mean that all the ACICS schools lost their eligibility for federal student financial aid. That probably caused many of them to resign their ACICS accreditation and seek another federally recognized accreditor. The schools that resigned their ACICS accreditation presumably will no longer have it. (Maybe ACICS will offer them a streamlined process for reenlisting.) Here in California this news regarding ACICS has huge implications. The new state law that eliminated the old California-approved category require that all post-secondary degree granters possess accreditation recognized by the US Dept of Education. (No mention of CHEA.) And ACICS was by far the largest accreditor of these schools. So a large number (dozens? hundreds?) of California post-secondary schools suddenly found themselves in danger of being forced out of business. (Which I expect was the original intent.) The Secretary has reinstated ACICS' recognition until such time as the Department can reconsider ACICS' 2016 application for continued recognition. (Recognition is for set periods and accreditors have to reapply periodically.) We don't really know that there are any compliance issues. The judgement by the previous administration that there were was found to be flawed and the issue sent back to the Secretary for reconsideration. The Secretary's Order was artfully worded, I thought. Even if real compliance issues are indeed found, the Secretary will consider putting the accreditor on probation, so to speak, giving ACICS a year to address them. I doubt if that clause would have been inserted in there if she didn't have a strong intention of using it if necessary. So it seems to me to be a signal that the US Department of Education has changed course and will be adopting a friendlier and more supportive attitude regarding "for-profit" educational entrepeneurship. That's an interesting question. Lots of students might have lost their student loans due to ACICS no longer being recognized. Now ACICS' recognition is restored retroactive to December 2016. So what happens to all of the 2017 loans? It's going to be complicated. Will loan monies that weren't received be paid retroactively to students who previously had loans and remained enrolled during 2017? What about all the students who dropped out of schools that seemed to no longer have recognized accreditation but wouldn't have quit if all this hadn't happened? How will ACICS' retroactive recognition effect them? Given that thousands of students have likely suffered real damages, I can imagine that lawyers are already revving up for a new set of lawsuits. Perhaps a nice lucrative class-action. The US District Court's ruling that the Dept of Education violated various laws and regulations in how it considered ACICS' application might already have made half the tort case for those plaintiffs.
Thank you for the excellent analysis, hierophant. I've been writing positively about Western Institute for Social Research for more than 40 years, and served briefly on their Board of Directors. They were well along in the ACICS application process when the axe fell. If schools with doctoral programs are indeed no longer welcome at ACICS, then WISR will continue its process with DEAC.
