Dive Brief:
- Cambria-Rowe Business College will close next month, after federal officials recommended the revocation of its accrediting body's monitoring power.
- The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, one of the nation's largest accreditors for for-profit institutions, was targeted for expulsion from the Department of Education’s list of approved accreditors last month, for allowing schools like Corinthian Colleges to defraud students with predatory recruitment practices and degrees which hold little value in the professional marketplace.
- Cambria-Rowe will provide transfer options for its 229 students, divided between two campuses in rural Pennsylvania.
Dive Insight:
Smaller colleges with ties to questionable accrediting agencies will be in significant trouble over the next four months, as the Department of Education continues to close in on accrediting agencies and schools which present financial risk in students defaulting on loan payments, or not being able to secure gainful employment soon after college.
While most of the language targeting ACICS is aimed at eliminating for-profit businesses, schools with fewer than 1,000 students and which have high levels of student debt will be the next wave of closures and sanctions from the government’s control of critical financial aid disbursement.