Democratic lawmakers and higher education pundits have long criticized ACICS for poorly monitoring the institutions under its purview.
ACICS managed two high-profile for-profit college chains, Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute, which collapsed in 2015 and 2016, respectively. This launched a federal crackdown of the industry, which the current administration is attempting to roll back and has pushed some of these schools to consider alternative operations.
Losing recognition would mean the schools that the accreditor oversees couldn’t issue federal student aid. ACICS challenged the Obama administration’s decision in court, a process that allowed it to retain its recognition.
