Kathleen - You bring up a good point on the fact that accreditation is voluntary. Unfortunately, the link to Title IV funding can paint a picture of motives tied to financial gain versus purely for the sake of creating a compliant campus. A colleague once made a good point regarding the perception of career colleges versus traditional universities. He asked if I would trust someone with a bachelors degree in business more than someone with a credential from a cosmetology school to cut my hair. My answer was obvious - and I have always respected career colleges for delivering on their objectives. Twenty years ago, when I started my career in education, the objectives of career colleges were more clearly delineated from the objectives of traditional universities. Over time, with increased regulation and career colleges' expansion strategies, the lines have become blurred. Some career colleges offer higher degree credentials than they did in the past, some have added general education to meet the requirements of higher degree levels and, on the other side, traditional colleges have become more innovative in offering accelerated programs and some have added more "practitioner" faculty in addition to their professors. By now competing more directly with one another, the skeptics of career colleges have fueled the media by focusing on the "bad apples" that you mention. I agree that the public needs more awareness of the fact that the same regulations (and even more as some have specifically targeted the for-profit institutions)apply to the career colleges.