The Education Corporation of America shut down dozens of campuses nationwide this week, leaving 20,000 students left to figure out the next move of their academic careers with few answers while adding another example to the growing narrative of collapsing for-profit educational models.
Benedict College in South Carolina was among the first historically black colleges to announce its plans to review the credentials of students displaced by ECA school closures, which occurred after the company lost its accreditation from the Accrediting Council of Independent Colleges (ACICS), an oversight body which had its privileges revoked in 2016, and restored last month by Betsy DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education.
Benedict College Welcomes Virginia College Students to Informational Sessions on Friday, December 7th from 12Noon -3PM. Please bring your VC transcripts. @wis10 @WLTX @wachfox @abc_columbia @thestate @AP @SCETV @HBCUDigest @USATODAY pic.twitter.com/fUO7QO2ds0
— Benedict College (@BenedictEDU) December 6, 2018
ACICS has overseen the collapse of two major for-profit higher education companies in the last two years; ITT and now ECA. Both companies’ campuses suffered from declining enrollment, and public pressure to reform its approach to recruitment and promotion of job training and placement outcomes for students.
But where ITT folded under pressure from an antagonistic White House largely against for-profit college access, ECA’s closing comes while an unequivocal partner of for-profit schools sits in charge of the Department of Education. That could spell trouble for many kinds of schools most vulnerable to the same issues of flagging enrollment and institutional debt which shut down the Education Corporation of America’s portfolio; including HBCUs.
If ACICS can move to shut down a school with a supportive administration on Capitol Hill, what incentive is there for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Middle States Commission on Higher Education or Higher Learning Commission to stretch accreditation standards for struggling HBCUs?
If a for-profit advocate is compelled to prune its own membership roster to preserve its brand as a responsible clearinghouse for federal funding, will other accrediting agencies feel the same pressure?
Council for Higher Education Accreditation President Judith S. Eaton put it best in a policy briefing issued last year on governmental interference in accreditation oversight.
“Accountable for whom” is about accreditation now expected to be answerable, first and foremost, to constituents outside higher education–students, government, and the public. It is now no longer enough for accreditors to be accountable to the institutions and programs they review and the higher education community generally, as in the past. Accountability to the broad public arena is emerging as the primary lens through which accreditation is judged. If, for example, an accrediting organization claims to be doing a good job but if the institutions it accredits graduates few students or has other difficulties, the accrediting organization itself is judged as lacking. What institutions and programs judge as effective accreditation is being superseded by the judgment of the public.
The time for accrediting agencies looking poorly in the eyes of the federal government and American taxpayers has arrived. And with this arrival, there is a new culture of accountability that schools will have to face. In the past, HBCUs were able to survive threats of accreditation loss because HBCU presidents and vice-presidents worked in concert to get on site visit committees, and high-ranking officials and board members lobbied firmly for non-HBCU voices to understand the unique challenges faced by black colleges.
ACICS’ action shows that underperformance will no longer be protected by accrediting agencies sticking to their standards and principles. The agencies know how the game is played and understand that the biggest player of all, the Dept. of Ed, holds all of the chips when it comes to which agencies can vouch for which school types and for what reasons.
So what happens when a new day for accountability in higher education could mean doomsday for several HBCUs?
In the short run HBCUs should get a small enrollment increase as long they can accept the credits of those students from the the for profit schools. However in the long run the narrative for small public HBCUs is still the same. US Dept. Of Ed under this administration’s is not trying to preserve our schools
So we saw several HBCUs close during the Obama years, but you want to say the Trump Administration is not trying to preserve our schools. Try getting your facts right. The Trump people increased funding to HBCUs over Obama. I guess that doesn’t matter.
Now that Trump and his cronies are in the Whitehouse ,when examining accreditation for schools,with HBCUs and other learning institutions, they will do their best to see that those colleges will be destroyed.
Honestly, SACS is an example of an accrediting agency set up to fail Black schools.Its just awful how the tiniest of things will quickly get ur school shut down ..and they will make sure that getting a second chance will be so grueling that the school will surrender. I believe that is why the presidents of Paul Quinn and Paine College with TRACS. They had sense not to go with SACS .
Recently, D.O.E. put Howard University on some
” warning ” list. It baffled the president ,the administration. Even I was baffled by it because it didn’t make any sense and it was broad to understand. I guess the DOE want it to be so broad,that it will throw HU in a loop and will slyly try to close the school.
You can’t be serious — Howard’s problems have nothing to do with the Republican Administration. Howard is a total shit show. As a taxpayer, I’m pissed that the government keeps pouring money into this hole called Howard. Give it to other much better and less-expensive HBCUs.
If the school is to be held accountable for the lack of employment opp’s, then the alumni associations better start prioritizing identifying graduates who are in default on loans, have low wages, and have applied unsuccessfully to secure employment. However, schools are in the business of selling education. Employment is the duty of people who have $$$. There’s a 70:1 wealth gap by race per Dr. Wolff at NYU? Obviously with these disparities, our HBCU’s, much less their alumni, obviously cannot hire all the HBCU graduates. These measures are taking us closer to an America without HBCU schools UNLESS our alumni associations shape up and wake up and stop trying to raise money for the schools, before raising the employment rate of the alumni.
HBCU alumni associations must divorce themselves from the idea of altruism – at present, and immediately, it is absolutely unaffordable.