Big Education Ape: What Got the ED Dept. So Mad About American InterContinental University and its Accreditor? � The Quick and the Ed

Friday, April 2, 2010

What Got the ED Dept. So Mad About American InterContinental University and its Accreditor? � The Quick and the Ed

What Got the ED Dept. So Mad About American InterContinental University and its Accreditor?

by Ben Miller

Last December, the Department of Education’s Inspector General released a bizarre alert memorandum concerning American InterContinental University, a for-profit school with branches throughout the country, and its accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (HLC). As Kevin noted at the time, the report certainly seemed like strong stuff, even questioning whether the accreditor should be trusted by the Department. Unfortunately, whole pages worth of redacted information made it impossible to tell exactly what had gotten the Department so incensed.
The Department’s response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Education Sector helps shed some light on the issue. Though the Department refused to release additional documents related to this issue, it did un-redact more portions of the alert memo (PDF).
Based upon this new information, we now know that the accreditor’s concerns about AIU stemmed from the school’s offering of 9 credits for individual undergraduate and graduate courses, mostly in the business department—classes that the alert memo refers as being “inflated in credit.” According to Jeff Leshay, a