For -Profit Higher Education remains on the Obama bull's eye, even as Trump names a pro-profit secretary to the DOE

             As Jill Stein demanded recounts and as Change.org circulated its quixotic petition to subvert/convert the Electoral College for Hilary Clinton… and as President-elect Trump names his cabinet members… the biggest story of all may get submerged in a sea of babble.  On December 12th, U.S. Secretary of Education John King announced that his Department has denied the appeal of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools.

            Back in September the DOE decided to strip the organization, which accredits some 250 for-profit colleges and universities, of its powers.  The ACICS  appealed. Yesterday’s denial of that appeal would seem to be its death knell.  If so, what would this mean for the for-profit sector of the higher ed industry?  Quite simply, it means that the schools currently accredited by ACICS will no longer be qualified to partake of the $150 billion federal student grant-and-loan cornucopia.  And, since such federal funding is the lifeblood of most of these organizations, they are likely to go bankrupt, as did two major for-profit players, Corinthian Colleges and ITT, earlier this year.

        The ACICS came under fire two years ago, when it continued accreditation of Corinthian Colleges.  At the time, despite having numerous campuses and thousands of students, Corinthian was under investigation by some 20 federal and state entities regarding allegations of defrauding its students.  When the DOE cut Corinthian off from the federal student-loan spigot, the company quickly collapsed, leaving thousands of active students scrambling to pay off loans and find berths at alternative institutions.  Earlier this year the DOE provided many of them with relief, such as deferred-payment options.

        Meanwhile, the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, reportedly at the instigation of the DOE, voted back in June to yank ACICS’s authority.  The DOE acted on that recommendation in the early fall.  In denying the appeal, Secretary King cited “a profound lack of compliance with the most basic Title IV (student loan) responsibilities of a nationally recognized accreditor,” such as assessing student achievement, determining licensure standards, and monitoring troubled schools.

       For his part, ACICS Interim President Roger Williams decried the decision, warning it will “result in immediate and meaningful harm to hundreds of thousands of students currently enrolled in ACICS-accredited institutions.”

       Will it indeed?  Under the decision, schools will be eligible for “provisional” status up to 18 months, during which time they can still take in grant and loan dollars.  Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has announced his choice of billionaire Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education in his cabinet.  DeVos is an avid advocate of privatizing the K-12 education system via vouchers and charter schools, as is Trump himself.

        And, while DeVos has literally no track record in the higher ed environment, her strong commitment to private, for-profit players in the public school realm strongly suggests sympathy for similar for-profit participants in post-secondary education.

        Thus, some reasonable assumptions: first, if we assume that the Electoral College won’t go rogue and Stein’s recounts don’t alter the November election’s outcome --- both eminently reasonable assumptions --- then Donald Trump will be the President on January 20^th.  Second, if we assume prompt Senate confirmation of the Trump cabinet, then it follows that Secretary King’s action of yesterday will be reversed or nullified post haste following DeVos’s swearing in.

         On the other hand, nothing about the presidential election and its aftermath has been kind to reasonable assumptions.  So, perhaps, we shouldn’t assume anything about the ultimate impact of this unprecedented bureaucratic initiative, made quite literally at 11:59 PM on the Obama Administration’s clock.