The Department’s Recognition of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools as an Accrediting Agency

The objectives of our inspection were to determine (1) the U.S. Department of Education’s (Department) process for assessing the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and School’s (ACICS) compliance with Federal regulatory criteria for recognition, and (2) what evidence the Department considered in its review of selected recognition criteria and whether the Department’s conclusions were supported by evidence. We determined that the Department’s process for assessing ACICS’ compliance with Federal regulatory criteria for recognition followed applicable policies and regulations except during the 2016 recognition review. We determined that the Department did not comply with all regulatory requirements during its 2016 review of ACICS’ petition for recognition renewal because its process did not consider all available relevant information during its review as required. We determined that the Department implemented a process for assessing ACICS’ compliance with recognition criteria following a court remand in 2018 that was permitted under applicable policies and regulations as well as the court’s remand order. We determined that the conclusions of the SDO (DeVos) in the 2018 review regarding ACICS’ compliance with each of the six recognition criteria we reviewed were supported by the evidence cited. However, we found that the Office of Postsecondary Education’s (OPE) “Guidelines for Preparing and Reviewing Petitions and Compliance Reports” (Guidelines) allowed for areas of reviewer subjectivity.