Overview
The Department of Education must strengthen its oversight over accrediting agencies to ensure that they are keeping low-quality educational providers from accessing federal financial aid.
Introduction and summary
In February 2018, a U.S. Department of Education advisory committee gathered in a dimly lit Washington, D.C., hotel ballroom to consider the fate of the four organizations that oversee the majority of America’s colleges and grant access to nearly 60 percent of the roughly $120 billion in federal financial aid awarded each year.1 These four private nonprofits under review were accreditation agencies that determine which colleges are of sufficient quality to participate in the federal aid programs.2