Tom Harkin: “I say to my friend, first of all, Westwood was one of the schools that the GAO had an undercover investigation into that…”

“I say to my friend, first of all, Westwood was one of the schools that the GAO had an undercover investigation into that had one of the most deceptive programs of getting students to sign up. That is all documented on film. Second, the accrediting agency that accredits Westwood was out at Westwood about the same time. Yet they found none of the things the GAO found. I talked to them. I had a hearing. I had them before our committee. I asked the accrediting agency: How could it be that on the one hand the GAO finds out all this, yet you say they are fine and they get accredited? They did admit there was some laxness or some loopholes, some things they were not paying attention to, that they needed to do a better job in accrediting. I say to my friend, what the Federal Government does is we say to a school: To be able to be eligible for Federal financial aid so you could accept Pell grants and get the guaranteed student loans, you would have to be accredited. The Federal Government doesn't do that accrediting. That is done by private agencies. Here is another one, I say to my friend from Illinois, that we need to look into. Get this. The accrediting agencies that accredit let's say a Westwood, do you know where they get their funding? From the schools they accredit. Talk about a fox in the chicken coop. They go out to accredit Westwood, but it is Westwood that is paying them to accredit them. This is something that I think we as a Federal Government have to get into.…”