Accreditation

Southern accreditor puts 10 colleges on probation, including Louisville for its governance problems, several for-profit art schools for financial woes and new University of Texas campus for an array of shortcomings.

The new federal authority over accreditation and the central focus on consumer protection will have drawbacks for accreditors, higher education and students, writes Judith Eaton.

Investors fret that the Education Department's lengthy scrutiny of the U of Phoenix's proposed sale means the deal might be nixed. Politics and optics might be reasons for the delay.

A random review finds five of 10 institutions fell short on backing up claims about graduates' job placement success.

Group of colleges releases voluntarily standards for competency-based education, which Education Department official says could help prevent the rise of bad actors.

While political support in Washington builds slowly for a federal student record database, Indiana and the University of Texas System get creative with their own data on how students fare after college.

National accreditor ACCSC gets inquiries from nearly 300 colleges overseen by ACICS, most of them for-profits. Critics of accreditors will be watching as the agency reviews the flood of applications.

Responding to sharp criticism, regional accrediting agencies will focus extra attention on institutions with below-average performance.