Education Secretary Betsy DeVos last Wednesday restored federal recognition to a controversial agency that accredits for-profit colleges, reversing an Obama administration decision to put it out of business, the Washington Post reported. The move is one in a number of steps DeVos has taken to undo an Obama-era crackdown that she argues unfairly targeted for-profit schools for scrutiny not applied to other colleges. But critics say that she is propping up an industry with a record of misleading students and poor educational outcomes. In December 2016, the Obama administration ruled that the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, known as ACICS, should no longer be allowed to serve as a gatekeeper between colleges and billions of dollars in federal financial aid. It concluded that the agency was incapable of rectifying years of lax oversight and “exhibited a profound lack of compliance” with the “most basic” responsibilities of an accreditor. But in March, a federal judge ordered DeVos to reconsider that decision, finding that the Obama staff had failed to review thousands of pages of evidence. A senior Education Department official, Diane Auer Jones, reviewed the record and in September recommended that DeVos reinstate ACICS. She found that the council was out of compliance with two of 21 criteria but recommended it be given a year to fix those problems. She also recommended monitoring in a handful of other areas.
