APSCU Blasts Letter from Attorneys General on Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools

Washington, DC - April 11, 2016 - A group of attorneys general chose to act this week against the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, a move that can only be seen as acting in their own political self-interest, instead of the interests of new traditional students seeking higher education access and opportunity. These same attorneys general remained silent when: 

• ​four-year state institutions were found to have committed academic fraud in an effort to ensure they remained competitive in college athletics; and
• a community college in California was set to be shut down by its accreditor and there was political intervention at the highest levels to stop action by the accreditor and reverse course. 

To write this letter with a straight face requires them to overlook the fact that private sector institutions outperform two year public institutions when it comes to graduation rates, while also having lower default rates. 

There are good and bad institutions in every sector of higher education - to act in such an obviously political and hypocritical manner proves that these attorneys general will seize any opportunity to inject themselves into a news cycle. 

"We remind the attorneys general that Congress has an important role to play in accreditation which must be recognized and the underlying principle of accreditation is to remove political agendas from the oversight of American higher education," said Steve Gunderson, president and CEO of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities. "As an organization, APSCU has never asked an accreditor to make a political decision regarding an institution of higher education's accreditation. We won't. And neither should politically motivated Democrat attorneys general."