Senator Warren Applauds Education Department's Decision to Withdraw Recognition of For-Profit Accreditor ACICS

Washington, DC - United States Senator Elizabeth Warren applauded the Education Department's (ED) announcement today that it will withdraw its recognition of higher education accreditor Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS). Senator Warren released a report this summer detailing ACICS's long track record of failing to hold schools accountable for wrongdoing, and urged the Department to take strong oversight action against this accreditor.

"Accreditors are supposed to be watchdogs, but this negligent agency rubber-stamped shady institutions like ITT and Corinthian for years, right up until the moment they collapsed," Senator Warren said today. "The Department of Education stood up for students and taxpayers today by kicking them out of the system - but it's obvious that college accreditation remains badly broken in this country. That's why today I've introduced the Accreditation Reform and Enhanced Accountability Act, which would totally reform accreditation to ensure that the ITT and Corinthian fiascos never happen again."

This morning, Senator Warren introduced the Accreditation Reform and Enhanced Accountability Act of 2016 with Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). This legislation would take steps to reform the higher education accreditation system and strengthen the Education Department's (ED) ability to hold accreditors accountable.

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Photo credit: Anne Meadows, licensed under Creative Commons.