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West Valley City Journal

ITT Tech Closes- Other Local Schools May Lose Accreditation

Sep 23, 2016 05:18PM ● By Bryan Scott

Eagle Gate College in Murray one of 5 schools in Utah that may soon lose their accrediation.

By Bryan Scott | [email protected]

Salt Lake City, UT- Earlier this month ITT Tech closed its doors to over 130 campuses throughout the United States, including its location in Murray. Leaving current and previous students with more questions than answers.

Now the damage has widened to involve even more local schools. Thursday, September 22, 2016 the Department of Education gave notice to Accrediting Council of Independent of Independent Colleges and Schools (“ACICS”) and their accredited schools, that the department was denying ACICS recognition by the Department of Education.

Some of these accredited schools are located here locally, The Art Institute of Salt Lake, Broadview University, Eagle Gate College, and Neumont University. The Department of Education also notified each of these schools of their decision, that would result in each of the schools becoming unaccredited.

ACICS has made an announcement that they plan to appeal the decision. Roger Williams, ACICS Interim President, stated: “While we are disappointed in this decision, ACICS plans to continue diligent efforts to renew and strengthen its policies and practices necessary to demonstrate this agency’s determination to come into full compliance with the Department of Education’s recognition criteria and, most importantly, to improve outcomes for the estimated 600,000 students currently attending ACICS-accredited institutions.  We are confident that if given the opportunity to do so, we will be able to demonstrate major reforms and ongoing progress towards compliance with the department’s recognition criteria.” 

City Journals reached out to the local schools that are currently accredited by the ACICS as well as the ACICS directly. We left a message for ACICS but at time of publishing we had not heard back from them.

Michelle Knoll, from Broadview University returned our calls and said, “It is our understanding the ACICS plans to appeal the decision.” Knoll also said that “we will explore all our options, nothing has been determined at this point, we just found out about this last night.”

Knoll did confirm that Broadview University was working on other accreditation options should the ACICS not be successful in the appeal process.

Sabrena Suite-Mangum, spokesperson for Neumont University said that “Last year Neumont made the decision to change accreditors while ACICS was in its Department of Education review. We notified staff and faculty earlier this summer that we had applied to a new accrediting body.”

Eagle Gate College has campuses in Murray and Layton. Julie Blake, VP of Operations said, “At Eagle Gate our priority is and always has been our students, we assure our students, that they will attend and graduate from an accredited college.”

Blake also indicated that ACICS filed an appeal to the Department of Education’s decision as of this morning, September 23, 2016. ACICS did not return our phone calls but we did find on their website a notice of appeal, that they indicated they filed with the Department of Education earlier today.

The notice from the Department of Education and the notice of appeal from ACICS is that start of a political process that will unfold and will ultimately result in these local schools remaining accredited or leaving them unaccredited.

Current and prospective students and parents are now asking themselves what this means for them, their education, and their degrees.

During the appeal process students of these schools will remain eligible for federal financial aid, such as the Pell Grant. However students and parents will now have to ask themselves, what the education is worth and should they continue to attend a school that might be unaccredited. 

The City Journals will continue to follow the situation and will update our readers.