SF GATE: College accrediting group gets more public oversight under bill

Career College Central Summary:

Expressing frustration with the private process for accrediting California’s community colleges — an obscure system that nearly led to the closure of City College of San Francisco last year — the state Senate’s Education Committee approved a bill Wednesday to increase public oversight of the group.
The Education Committee also passed a bill to help former students of the shuttered for-profit Corinthian Colleges (Heald, Everest and Wyotech colleges) in several ways, including waiving community college fees for those who wish to enroll; creating one point of contact for former Corinthian students who need refunds or to discharge student loans; and, most controversially, paying for that help by shifting $1.3 million from the state’s Private Postsecondary Education Administration Fund, though Corinthian’s students were not among the students who paid into that fund.
The Corinthian bill, AB573 by Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, passed on a 7-0 vote and heads to the Appropriations Committee.
Public input
The accreditation bill, AB1397 by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, would require the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges to open its semiannual meetings to the public and allow public comment before accrediting decisions are made. Those decisions would still be made in private. The commission now lets in only a few members of the public during one part of its meeting.

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