The many current critics of higher education accreditation tend to fall into a few categories.
Some -- let's call them the Marco Rubio types -- believe that the existing quality assurance system, through "cartel"-like behavior that protects traditional institutions, unfairly locks out alternative providers that might provide better training and education at a lower cost.
Others -- represented most visibly by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who calls the agencies "watchdogs that don't bark" -- argue that accreditors don't do nearly enough to guard against institutions with poor outcomes and "value" for what they charge. They are among the political leaders and others who have promoted legislation or regulation to create alternative quality assurance agencies or otherwise transform or replace the current accreditation system.
Carol Geary Schneider has little in common with Duncan, and probably couldn't agree less with Rubio's views on higher education -- she refers to their critiques of higher education as a "steady drumbeat of assaults" on accreditation. But the head of the Association of American Colleges & Universities takes her own shots at accrediting agencies in a statement the association published on Wednesday.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/12/03/critique-urges-accreditors-promote-common-set-learning-outcomes