Rerun: Accreditation Helps Student Loan Plundering

  

(I know, statistics discussions aren't fun for everyone, and the following is of some relevance for the next post)

By Professor Doom

     Time and again I’ve highlighted the immense frauds going on in our community colleges; the top-down set up of these places, combined with lack of oversight, really makes it easy for the plundering to go on hand-over-fist here.

     “Lack of oversight” isn’t exactly accurate. There’s this thing called “accreditation” that is supposed to make sure schools are legit. Alas, accreditation is pretty much in on the scam nowadays, and, being run by the same people that run the schools, generally won’t shut down a school no matter openly fraudulently the school is run. 

     There is also a Board of Trustees that’s supposed to oversee the school’s spending, to make sure it’s done responsibly. All too often, there’s a quid pro quo arrangement between the “trustees” and the administration of the school to split the plunder as much as possible, although shared governance with the faculty (you know, actual educators) usually slows that down. Not all community colleges have shared governance, which is why they’re so prone to plundering.

     Some time back I highlighted a rarity in higher education: a school losing accreditation. City College of San Francisco was threatened with having its accreditation removed, but not for fraud, or for anything relating to education—because, hey, accreditation really has nothing to do with education. Instead, the issue was the school was operating far too legitimately, with shared governance, and, I’m serious, not enough administrators. Yes, insufficient administration was cited by the accreditor as a problem, even though the school was running fairly well for a community college.

     The Federal government stepped in and pointed out that the committee removing accreditation didn’t have much in the way of faculty on it (just administrators, bitter over the plunder they weren’t claiming), and asked the accreditor, ACCJC, to make some more reasonable complaints, or else.

      ACCJC made some demands, and the community college gave in to the accreditor, making changes:

Because of ACCJC sanctions, shared governance was dismantled and the elected Board of Trustees was removed from power. A "Special Trustee With Extraordinary Powers" was installed who could do as he wished in the name of efficient operation.
ACCJC's critique and its sanctions were the impetus for the installation of a revolutionary new reign of new Administrators.

     So, instead of a fairly reasonable system designed to help students and provide the education taxpayers were paying for, a new system without checks and balances, and a new band of administrators, moved in. What, pray tell, do the new accreditation-approved administrators do?

     Commence to plundering:

City College of S.F. splurges on administrators’ travel, meals

     That’s right, the new Poo Bah goes on fabulous junkets to China, Taiwan, Viet Nam, and eating whatever he wants for free (and these guys’ eating habits are positively royal, as I’ve shown a time or two in this blog). I really want to point out: this is a community college Poo Bah…he has no business traveling all over the world on the college’s expense account, which is probably why he can provide no records explaining the purpose of the trip. Administration provides a laughable excuse:

“…without required records about the purpose of the trip. College officials said the trip was to recruit foreign students but couldn't say whether any enrolled as a result.”

     Do the citizens of San Francisco honestly want to pay for a community college to help educate Vietnamese, Chinese, and Taiwanese kids in those countries? Seriously? This is the lie admin wants people to believe.

City College of San Francisco has spent thousands of dollars on fancy restaurants and international and cross-country travel for two top administrators — often with no record of what the expenses were for — since the school’s successful campaign in 2013 for a parcel tax to help save the college from bankruptcy, records show.

     Anyway, the Poo Bah at any institution doesn’t just “up and go” with nobody noticing. I grant that these guys are irrelevant to education, and this particular Poo Bah certainly proves it, by being gone for so much and yet the school still ran fine. In any event, he had to have provided, in advance, notice that he was disappearing for a while. In theory, the Poo Bah’s boss is the Board of Trustees…one that was placed there with influence from the accreditor.

     I’ve often insinuated that accreditation is in on the scam, and certainly I’ve seen and shown numerous cases where accreditors clearly looked the other way while institutional fraud was being committed. However, simply looking the other way is one level of facilitation, but this case is different, as accreditors ripped out a legitimate system, and helped to install a fraudulent system.

     What then, does this accreditor-approved Board have to say about this plundering? Let’s see:

Rafael Mandelman, president of the City College Board of Trustees, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the district started an investigation after the newspaper started looking into the issue.

     I ask the gentle reader to read between the lines. The president here knew full well the Poo Bah was traveling all over the world on highly questionable trips, but he had no problem with it until, and this is key, after the newspaper started looking into the issue.

     It’s a safe bet, then, that all sorts of plundering is going on at CCSF now, plundering that will continue unabated unless it makes the newspapers. Now, the Poo Bah being gone for a month or two was easy enough for our media to notice…the gentle reader needs to understand there are many, many frauds going on that media will never figure out and, as the president of the Board of Trustees admits, such frauds will never be stopped by the board, or even officially noticed, until it hits the papers.

      And the accreditor is on the record now, stating that schools which don’t use this pro-fraud system will risk losing accreditation. How does one consider this, and not deem that accreditors are part of the fraud of higher education today?

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