Academic

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: College Dropout Factories: While public universities are in theo?

By Glenn Reynolds

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: College Dropout Factories:

While public universities are in theory overseen by a combination of state officials and voluntary accrediting bodies, none of them use their power in a manner that?s genuinely ameliorative. Low graduation rates will never cause a loss of accreditation. The fifty dropout factories listed on page 22?some of which have graduation rates in the single digits?are all accredited and advertise that fact prominently on their Web sites. Even when accreditors do pay attention to problems at a school, they tend to be slow and secretive in revealing their findings. Chicago State?s accreditor expressed ?serious concern? about the school as far back as 2003, but this was never publicized. Not even the Illinois Board of Higher Education, which monitors Chicago State, knew about it. Only in 2009, when the Chicago Tribune published damning excerpts from a leaked confidential letter from the accreditor to the university, did more than a few parties know that Chicago State might be in trouble.

As for helping your students earn degrees, why bother? State appropriations systems and federal financial aid are based on enrollment: as long as students keep coming, the money keeps flowing.

Read the whole thing.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on August 25, 2010 (boomark / email).