What will schools do to stay accredited? Some examples are suing, lobbying, and looking for a new rater.

The Wall Street Journal reports.

How Ailing Colleges Stay Accredited

When a Maryland college went to court last week to try to keep its accreditation, it was following a playbook that troubled schools have used for years to stay in business: sue, appeal to prominent politicians and then, if all else fails, find another accreditor.

An analysis by The Wall Street Journal published last month found that accreditors rarely crack down on their member schools, even when they have low graduation rates or high rates of student-loan defaults. In the past 15 years, the six regional accrediting organizations that give their seal of approval to more than 1,500 four-year colleges have rescinded membership to only 18 of them.

Losing accreditation means losing eligibility to receive federal student loans. That is often tantamount to a death sentence. More than half of the colleges that lost accreditation have closed, but several have survived because of mergers or by getting a second chance from a new accreditor.

Joni Finney, director of the Institute for Research on Higher Education at the University of Pennsylvania, says the workarounds schools seek when they lose accreditation illustrates a level of chaos and irrationality. “The whole system seems meaningless if you can take your problems elsewhere,” she said. Accreditors recently have come under scrutiny for failing to take on more of a watchdog role, even as student-loan debt has climbed to $1.2 trillion.