ED Restricts Membership for Cosmetology Accreditor

The Department of Education announced Wednesday it will prohibit the National Accrediting Commission of Career Arts and Sciences from adding new members, and it put the association on notice that it could face more severe penalties if it doesn’t address a range of compliance concerns.

The limitation comes after a July showdown with the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, when members grilled NACCAS officials over a lack of transparency, poor student outcomes and other issues at the cosmetology accreditor. NACIQI members voted 9 to 3 at the July meeting to recommend stripping NACCAS of federal recognition. (Accreditation from a federally recognized agency can unlock access to federal student aid for institutions and programs.)

But the final decision—which lies with the Education Department—stopped short of that. Instead, Under Secretary Nicholas Kent restricted the accreditor from taking on new members, halting about 300 pending applications, until it addresses multiple findings of noncompliance.

Altogether, NACCAS accredits more than 1,000 programs and institutions. One issue for ED staff and the advisory committee was that NACCAS failed to independently monitor whether its member institutions had been sanctioned by other agencies.

“If NACCAS is unable to adequately monitor its institutions—or prospective institutions—to a sufficient level to understand what actions are taken by outside actors, perhaps NACCAS has reached an unsustainable number of institutions it accredits,” Kent wrote in his decision letter.

Kent’s decision marks the second time he has overruled a NACIQI recommendation to strip an accreditor of federal recognition this year. In March, NACIQI members voted 12 to zero to recommend that the department not renew federal recognition for the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education. But in June, Kent extended recognition for CNME for another year on a conditional basis. ED imposed similar growth restrictions on the Council on Occupational Education on Wednesday, barring it from taking on new members and halting pending applications. In that case, Kent went further than NACIQI had recommended since members had not sought any actions against the accreditor beyond additional compliance reports.

NACCAS officials argued in July that given the number of programs it accredits, stripping federal recognition would be catastrophic for students. But ED rejected the idea that it is too big to fail.

He wrote that given its size, he found a “greater risk to students and taxpayers of allowing it to continue to operate in this fashion” and that “severe lack of oversight and ensuring institutions are providing a quality education may lead to significant increases in nonpayment or default rates, if the agency were to continue evaluating its institutions in such an inadequate manner.”

Kent gave the accreditor 12 months to address compliance concerns and indicated he had faith in the organization to do so, which appears to be what spared it from losing federal recognition.

“I do, at this time, believe that NACCAS is capable of taking corrective action to address these serious concerns; however, I do not believe that NACCAS should continue to add institutions,” Kent wrote.

NACCAS officials did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has called on ED to “get tougher” on accreditors, including NACCAS, said he welcomed the decision.

“NACCAS doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to upholding high standards of student achievement, and I do think that it is time that the Education Department took appropriate action against this accreditor,” Cooper said. “Obviously, full derecognition of NACCAS was something that could have been on the table, and I would have been glad to see.”

Despite stopping short of what he had hoped to see, Cooper said that the Education Department sent a powerful message by taking action against the accreditor.

“Stopping them from accrediting new institutions is still a major step forward in holding them accountable,” he said. “And I hope that this is a toolbox that the department will consider with other accreditors that might not be upholding the highest standards of student achievement.”

Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, investigations manager for the higher education program at New America, which has issued critical reports on NACCAS, also supported the decision to restrict membership and noted that the organization has struggled to uphold quality at the institutions it accredits.

“Last year, when we investigated and secret shopped at beauty schools that NACCAS accredited, they would regularly tell us wrong or incomplete information. Even if schools were not being malicious, their mistakes can still mislead students and skew life-changing decisions,” Bauer-Wolf said by email.

He called Wednesday’s action “gratifying.”

Despite working at think tanks on differing points on the political spectrum, both Cooper and Bauer-Wolf concurred that many institutions that NACCAS accredits are failing students. Both cited concerns about student outcomes and a failure by NACCAS to hold members accountable.

If ED had stripped NACCAS of recognition, it likely would have set off a scramble among institutions to find a new accreditor and resulted in some closures. But even with this reprieve, Cooper believes some member institutions will likely close in the near future when they fail to meet a new federal earnings test that could restrict eligibility for student loans. More than 90 percent of cosmetology undergraduate certificate programs are expected to fail the test.

Bauer-Wolf argued that the sector of institutions accredited by NACCAS is in need of an overhaul.

“As we have documented, beauty schools, especially for-profit chains, often do not lead students to quality jobs—in fact, they often struggle to pay off debts from these types of programs,” Bauer-Wolf wrote.