WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos disregarded a scathing review by her own staff this spring when she reinstated the watchdog body that had accredited two scandal-scarred for-profit universities whose bankruptcies left tens of thousands of students with worthless degrees and mountains of debt, a new report has revealed.
A 244-page internal document, written by career staff and delivered to the secretary in early March but made public late Friday, found that the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, or Acics, had failed to meet 57 of 93 federal quality and management compliance standards as it vied to continue operating as a gatekeeper for billions in federal financial aid dollars. The findings were released late last week after the department was sued by the National Student Legal Defense Network and the Century Foundation.
Education Department officials said that despite the March report, Ms. DeVos was obligated to reinstate Acics as an accrediting body for colleges and universities because of a federal court order that had faulted the process the Obama-era department had used to terminate its recognition. A federal judge sent the decision back to Ms. DeVos for reconsideration.
“The secretary did not make the determination to reinstate Acics,” Liz Hill, a department spokeswoman, said in a statement. “This department can’t operate on or enforce a decision that was found invalid by the court.”
But higher-education groups said that Ms. DeVos went above and beyond the court’s order in restoring the organization’s status while she considered the new information.
“It’s no wonder that Acics and Secretary DeVos didn’t want this report to come out,” said Alex Elson, a senior counsel at the National Student Legal Defense Network. “Clearly, she was well aware that Acics was getting worse, not better, and has been working to help them anyway.”
