By now, we all have heard about ITT Technical Institute’s accreditation woes and the subsequent closing of its campuses on Sept. 6, 2016. The shutdown affects about 35,000 students nationwide who were preparing for the start of classes this month, and more than 8,000 ITT employees have lost their jobs.
ITT Educational Services, which owns ITT Technical Institute, is one of the largest operators of for-profit technical schools. In addition to the campus in Albany, ITT Technical Institute has 137 campuses in 38 states, enrolling approximately 45,000 students last year.
ITT was forced to shut down due to financial sanctions from the U.S. Department of Education, which would severely impact ITT Educational Services’ access to millions of dollars in federal loans and grants by not providing financial aid to new students enrolling in the Institute. As a for-profit, ITT was allowed to receive up to 90 percent of its revenue from this type of federal financial aid. Further, ITT’s accrediting body, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS), threatened to revoke the chain of institutes’ accreditation due to the state and federal investigations into the company. A loss of accreditation for a college or university will result in ineligibility to receive federal and state financial aid for all enrolled students, essentially forcing the institution to close. Additionally, according to the June 24, 2016 edition of Inside Higher Ed, ACICS itself is facing a possible shutdown by The National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), the federal panel that oversees accrediting agencies, and the U.S. Department of Education, thereby ending its recognition as an accrediting body.
This news brings to mind a couple of questions. What is a proprietary, or for-profit college, and how are these institutions different from Hudson Valley, say, or Siena College? And what exactly is accreditation and why is it so important?
Let’s start with the first question. The large majority of colleges and universities fall into one of three categories: proprietary (for profit); private, and public. Here is a brief description of each type:
Proprietary, or for-profit, colleges are privately-run educational institutions operated by profit-seeking businesses. For-profit institutions strive to make money and are privately run, and can receive up to 90 percent of their revenue from federal student financial aid. The Capital District’s proprietary or for-profit colleges include Bryant and Stratton, Mildred Elley, DeVry, the New School Center for Media, and, up until Sept. 6, ITT Technical Institute.
Private colleges and universities, funded by endowments, tuition and donations, include the College of St. Rose, Sage Colleges, RPI, Siena College, and Maria College. This type of college is nonprofit, with money put back into the curriculum, instruction and other college operations that support students and faculty.
Public colleges and universities, for the most part, rely on funding from the state. However, in recent years as state education budgets are cut, the reliance on tuition and donor support has increased. Public colleges and universities are non-profit institutions. Regional public colleges include University at Albany, Hudson Valley Community College, Empire State College, and Schenectady County Community College. As with private colleges, money is put back into the curriculum, instruction and other college operations that support students and faculty.
As for the second question regarding accreditation: Accreditation ensures a certain level of quality in the education you receive from an academic institution and ensures that their degrees will be recognized and respected by other educational institutions and by employers. It is the responsibility of an accrediting body to review colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher education to guarantee quality and continuous improvement efforts.
The type of accreditation the institution has makes a difference. Nationally-accredited schools are predominantly for profit or proprietary. Regionally-accredited colleges are predominately academically oriented and are non-profit private or public. However, in non-profit institutions that have regional accreditation, national accreditation is used at the program level; for example, the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF) accredits automotive programs, and the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN), which accredits nursing programs.
An educational institution’s accreditation type impacts several important areas for students. In most post-secondary educational institutions, only degrees from regionally accredited colleges and universities are accepted for professional positions. In addition, if a student has credits from a college that is not regionally accredited, such as ITT, it may be difficult to have the credits or a degree transfer to a regionally accredited college or university. Hudson Valley Community College, for example, does not grant transfer credit from a college that is not accredited by one of the seven regional institutional accrediting agencies (see below), nor do we recognize degrees from institutions not having regional accreditation.
The seven active regional accrediting agencies for educational institutions in the United States are as follows:
Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE)
MSCHE covers post-secondary institutions in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands, and other geographic areas in which the Commission conducts accrediting activities.
New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)
NEASC accredits post-secondary institutions in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Higher Learning Commission (HLC)
HLC accredits colleges and universities in Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Northwest Accreditation Commission on Colleges and Universities (NACCU)
NACCU covers colleges and universities in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC)
SACSCOC accredits colleges and universities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC)
WASC accredits four-year institutions in California, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, Micronesia, Palau, and Northern Marianas Islands, as well as schools for American children in Asia.
Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC)
ACCJS is responsible for accreditation of two-year post-secondary institutions in California, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, Micronesia, Palau, and Northern Marianas Islands, as well as schools for American children in Asia.
As we all know, Hudson Valley Community College is regionally accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), as are all of the 64 SUNY institutions. Regional accreditation is not restricted to private and public colleges and universities; a variety of proprietary or for-profit institutions are regionally accredited. For example, Bryant and Stratton College, a for-profit institution that offers career-oriented programs with a campus in Albany, was granted regional accreditation through MSCHE in 2002.
For a list of all institutions accredited by MSCHE please go to https://www.msche.org/institutions_directory.asp. For more information on and a list of all accrediting bodies that are currently active, see the Council for Higher Education (CHEA) database (http://www.chea.org/search/default.asp). The database lists regional and national accrediting agencies that are recognized by CHEA and/or the U.S. Department of Education (USDE).
Published: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 12:15:41 +0000 by m.geehan