[continued from previous post]...Certainly, the market has a place for such schools, just as there are various levels of price and quality in clothing and other markets (you've got Ross, K-Mart, Target, JCPenney, Lord & Taylor, etc--a whole range). But the point is, there would still be a lot of higher-standard schools like the Ivy Leagues and other prestigious schools. Your fears are completely unfounded.

And regarding your other point, I shouldn't have to point out that education is not a basic human right. It's a logical impossibility for anything that is provided at someone else's expense (tax dollars) to be a right (and that applies to primary education, too, despite what the state of NC might want you to think). However, that doesn't mean motivated students who lack financial resources wouldn't go to college. There are plenty of private companies and organizations that help foot the bill for motivated and promising students. Unfortunately, that has been made much more difficult for them since federal college aid has place dramatic upward pressure on tuition. And as for colleges lowering standards in order to increase enrollment, that simply doesn't make economic sense. Any college that did that would quickly become known for having lower standards, and they wouldn't be able to command as high a tuition as they could before...

elcid89, I see you're new to the free market. Profit is in fact the thing that would motivate both the schools and the accrediting organizations to excel--unless of course you think consumers are too stupid or unconcerned with how they spend their limited money to bother checking out the accreditation to make sure it's reputable. Would you rather buy a car that got good reviews from Consumer Reports, or a car that got good reviews from Billy Bob's Car Guide? You see, the market takes care of such things--all because of profit.

Oh, this is not new news for St. Andrews. They have been in trouble with SACS for a while now.

Sounds like it is time for the Presbyterian church to step up, unless they sponser the college in name only. These denominations that start these colleges and almost every private non-profit college is afflitated with a denomination, need to do more to support these colleges.

At this point either radical change at St. Andrews is needed or if the people in power are not up to the challenge then St. Andrews should close.