The ACICS “Part II” Submission That ED Must Now Review
On December 12, 2016, the U.S. Department of Education terminated recognition of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (“ACICS”) after finding that the accreditor was pervasively noncompliant with numerous criteria required of such entities. On March 23, 2018, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an Order remanding the December 2016 decision back to the Secretary for consideration of what the court termed ACICS’s “Part II response” or “Part II Submission.”
On April 4, 2018, NSLDN submitted a FOIA request to the Department for all documents constituting ACICS’s Part II response or Part II submission, as described by the District Court in the March 23, 2018 Order.
A copy of the FOIA request is available here.
On May 22, 2018, NSLDN filed litigation against the Department - together with the Project on Predatory Student Lending of the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School - to enforce rights under FOIA.
Update 1: On October 5, NSLDN received an interim production of documents from the Department in response to our litigation. A copy of the letter provided by the Department is available here. Those documents are posted below. Due to the size of the files (as produced by the Department), we have broken them up into pieces.
- 10/3 Production (1-100)
- 10/3 Production (101-200)
- 10/3 Production (201-275)
- 10/3 Production (276-350)
- 10/3 Production (351-425)
- 10/3 Production (426-500)
- 10/3 Production (501-575)
- 10/3 Production (576-650)
- 10/3 Production (651-723)
Update 2: On October 31, the Department of Education produced a second interim production of documents in response to this request. A copy of the letter provided by the Department is available here. The documents are posted below. Due to the size of the files (as produced by the Department), we have broken them up into pieces.
- 10/31 Production (1-100)
- 10/31 Production (101-200)
- 10/31 Production (201-300)
- 10/31 Production (301-427)
Update 3: On November 30, 2018, the Department of Education produced a third interim production of documents in response to our litigation. A copy of the letter provided by the Department is available here. The documents are posted below. Due to the size of the files (as produced by the Department), we have broken them up into pieces.
- 11/30 Production (1-99)
- 11/30 Production (100-200)
- 11/30 Production (201-298)
- 11/30 Production (299-402)
- 11/30 Production (403-500)
Update 4: On December 21, 2018, the Department of Education produced another interim production of documents in response to our litigation. A copy of the letter provided by the Department is available here. The documents are posted below.
Update 5: On January 31, 2019, the Department of Education produced another interim production of documents in response to our litigation. A copy of the letter provided by the Department is available here. The documents are posted below.
Update 6: On February 27, 2019, the Department of Education produced another interim production of documents in response to our litigation. A copy of the letter provided by the Department is available here. The documents are posted below.