College-accrediting agencies don’t do a good job of ensuring that students get a quality education. Many of the schools they approve have allowed academic standards to fall so badly that there’s truth in the saying, “College is the new high school.” Often, it’s more like college is the new middle school. Courses are easy, and grades are high to keep students enrolled and paying. Accreditors look the other way.

One reason for that is the fact that the boards of the accreditors are mostly composed of college insiders. They’re comfortable with the status quo and don’t want to rock the boat. But as Lucy Maher points out in today’s Martin Center article, federal law says that the accreditors are supposed to have at least one “public member.”

She writes, “The purpose of the ‘public-member’ provision in the Higher Education Amendments of 1992 was to prevent clubbiness and insider-ism among higher-ed accreditors. Without board representatives from outside the postsecondary-education world, the accrediting bodies could easily become insular or riddled with conflicts of interest.”

Unfortunately, the accreditors have made little effort at complying with the law. The point was to give the public more voice in the important matter of what colleges should have to do to qualify for federal student-aid money, which might make a difference. Too bad this law has been ignored.