Writing at See Thru Edu, my colleague Jay Schalin critiques regional accreditation agencies and offers a sound alternative to those “fiefdoms unto themselves” and “cartel-like” institutions:

[The] best accreditors of all would be private lenders. After all, they absolutely need to discover whether they are lending money to students attending a credible school or a fraudulent diploma mill, since their borrowers’ ability to pay depends in a great deal on their educations or vocational training. Their profits, and therefore their jobs, depend on it.

Schalin also criticizes the U.S. News & World Report rankings, writing that they “[favor] inputs and image over outcomes and rigor.” I saw the deleterious effects of those rankings at my law school alma mater, the University of Baltimore School of Law. During my 2L year, I discovered that UB Law and a dozen or so other schools had fudged post-graduation job placement rates, an illicit tactic that can be used to climb the rankings. The intense pressure to attract students and artificially gain prestige via the ranking system had put schools like mine in a “damned if we do, damned if we don’t” situation and may have caused some schools to fraudulently entice prospective students.

Click here to read Schalin’s piece in its entirety.