I can't access the article either, but this sheds some light on what happened; https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/07/13/judge-finds-accreditor-misrepresented-profit-colleges-status
WSJ Opinion | Review & Outlook March 27, 2016 6:28 p.m. ET Why Americans Hate Government The regulators who destroyed Decker College have never been held accountable. As government expands, so does its potential for abuse. Yet in the Obama era the media have largely abandoned their role as watchdogs, and even gross abuses of power go unpunished. Consider the sordid persecution of for-profit Decker College, which has belatedly received vindication after being driven into bankruptcy a decade ago by a malicious regulator. Education Department administrative law judge Robert Layton recently affirmed a 2012 bankruptcy court finding that the Council on Occupational Education had failed to tell the truth in stating that Decker’s online programs were never accredited. The Council’s “factually erroneous” assertion caused the Education Department to withdraw federal student aid in 2005, which precipitated Decker’s bankruptcy. As we wrote in July 2012, a large docket of evidence showed that the Council had in fact accredited Decker’s online programs. Its accreditation application included several mentions of distance learning, and Council inspectors who visited its campus also noted “Dist. Ed” on their evaluations, among other evidence. The Council yanked Decker’s accreditation after its executive director Gary Puckett received an unusual phone call from Kansas City Federal Student Aid (FSA) case team director Ralph LoBosco. At the time the Council was itself up for review, and Mr. Puckett testified that he felt the need to assure its government regulators that Decker’s online programs were not approved. Bankruptcy trustee Robert Keats alleged Mr. LoBosco was trying to exact revenge against Decker CEO William Weld who as a U.S. attorney during the 1980s had prosecuted Mr. LoBosco’s former employer for fraud. While bankruptcy Judge Thomas Fulton didn’t infer regulators’ motivations, he ruled that Decker had been accredited. Judge Fulton’s finding should have barred the Education Department’s bankruptcy claim for $31 million, as Mr. Layton has now ruled. Mr. Layton noted that “it is troubling that FSA relied exclusively on [the Council’s] letter as a scant basis for imposing a $31 million liability and that FSA chose not to conduct any examination of the facts and circumstances behind the letter,” especially since “in other actions FSA has factually looked to the underlying facts on an accrediting agency’s decision.” Equally troubling is what Mr. Layton calls the procedural “quagmire” that the Federal Student Aid office and Council created to freeze the bankruptcy case for more than a decade. The Federal Student Aid office argued that the bankruptcy court decision was not final. However, the Council chose not to “make the Bankruptcy Court’s ruling on the accuracy of the letter appealable,” as Mr. Layton put it. This “procedural quirk” created “a permanent bar” that prevented administrative and bankruptcy claims from “proceeding, since both forums would be required to wait on the other to proceed.” Mr. Layton has now lifted the “permanent stay” on Decker’s administrative appeal and rejected the government’s $31 million claim. “There is a point at which a delay in the hearing process becomes a constitutional violation of Decker’s right to procedural due process,” he explained, and that’s for sure. So at least now the bankruptcy can proceed and other creditors including many students and workers can recover their losses. But all of this is too late for Decker’s employees, its students and investors. They were victims of statements found to be false in two court proceedings. Yet there has been no accountability that we can detect for those who destroyed Decker. After all these years, Mr. LoBosco continues to draw a taxpayer salary from the Education Department, according to the Federal Student Aid website. The department IG hasn’t investigated complaints by Decker’s outside counsel—which were filed prior to the bankruptcy—against Mr. LoBosco. The Education Department renewed the Council’s recognition as a college accreditor in 2007 and most recently in 2013. A spokesman for the IG’s office hasn’t responded to our request for comment. Nor has Mr. Puckett, although the Council has said it disagrees with the bankruptcy court’s determination. If Americans must live with a gigantic and intrusive government, then at least they should know there will be some accountability for abuses of power. Arne Duncan, the secretary of education for seven years, did nothing about the Decker outrage. John King was recently confirmed as the new secretary. The least he can do to set a better standard is to show that there is some accountability for regulators who scheme to destroy a company based on falsehoods and then spend years trying to deny the victims due process under the law.
I don't agree with Rubio on pretty much everything he says. But when he calls accreditation a "cartel" and people snicker, I think about situations like this. You know, when accreditors act like a cartel. People seem to think that all for-profit schools are these huge corporate conglomerates. But I've seen far more family owned career schools. Some are good and reasonable priced. Some are good and overpriced. Some suck in virtually every area. But if any of them lied to the USDOE there would probably be some indictments and congressional hearings and what-not. When an accreditor lies? Well, no one seems to care as long as the victim was an "evil" for-profit school. I'm sure that some good and innocent people lost their shirts even though the school dotted their "i's" and crossed their "t's" and I have a suspicion that the Council on Occupational Education will suffer any consequences.
The alternative to accreditation is to do what every other country on earth does: governmental control. Personally, I'd like to see that, but at the Federal level, since the states have shown huge variances in their quality control efforts. (Not just recently, but always. For example, a couple of decades ago the Fed wanted the states to certify schools for Title IV participation. Each state had to designate an office/agency that would manage this. What a debacle. It was soon rescinded.) But, as we know, GOP politicians normally call for smaller government. (At least, in the areas they don't like, like education.) How does such a person deal with this? If not the Federal government--and certainly not the individual states--then who does it? When politicians rage against governmental regulation, they then support the marketplace's self-governing. But that's what accreditation actually does. So, scrap the self-regulation in favor of what?
It's true. Though some states did pull it together. And the New York Board of Regents remains a USDOE recognized accreditor. Personally, I'd like to see the states that could pull it together forming an interstate association and have that be "regional accreditation" if we couldn't just have the USDOE administer the program federally. Some states would be excellent. Some states would be terrible. I would imagine it would come to pass that some states would probably blacklist other states. Of course, all of it only really gets tricky if Title IV remains in the mix. I'm not convinced that Title IV actually helps students. But that's a conversation for another day. If Title IV funds are out of the mix then accreditation is just a QA function. And then I think we might see more innovative methods of QA. Perhaps a UK-like system of institutions "accrediting" other institutions would emerge. Would it be reasonable to assume that College X is legit if Harvard vouches for it? Considering how disastrous self-regulation often is I'm not sure that's a good argument for accreditation. Self-regulation is largely an illusion because the involves parties tend to further their own self-interests. If their self-interests come into conflict with the greater good then the former will likely win out. So the question is, do we have regulation or no regulation? I would argue for regulation.
