The Failure of Accreditation

by Kevin Carey College is the most complicated expensive purchase most people ever make. Houses are relatively easy—you can walk through ahead of time and hire an inspector to check the foundations for rot. Higher education, by contrast, is what economists call an “experiential good” – you don’t really know what you’re getting until after you’ve gotten it. That’s why students and their parents need robust consumer protection. The government has a strong interest in ensuring that students get a high-quality education, particularly given the hundreds of billions of dollars in direct and indirect public subsidies that colleges receive every […]