After nearly a century, Jacksonville’s Jones College is closing its doors after losing accreditation.
According to a notice on Jones College homepage, the school is no longer accepting applications and will close by Dec. 31.
As our partner News4Jax reports, the 300 students enrolled in a degree-seeking program will be transferred to Jacksonville’s Keiser University.
Jones College features associate and bachelor's degree programs in business, information technology, legal, medical and education fields, and has been accredited through the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools.
According to the DOE’s official blog, accreditation is the process of validation in which colleges, universities and other institutions of higher learning are evaluated. Last year, the U.S. Department of Education pronounced accreditation from ACICS unsatisfactory.
“There were a lot of red flags with how ACICS was doing business as a quality assurance agency, and it did not seem likely that the agency could possibly fix them all in a reasonable amount of time,” according to the DOE blog.
Some of the issues documented by the DOE included “the accuracy of data ACICS-accredited institutions provided to the accrediting agency, difficulties meeting the accrediting agency’s federal financial aid responsibilities under the Higher Education Act,” which includes concealing critical information from the department.
Several calls to Jones College were not returned.
Nikeya Heath can be reached on Twitter @Nikereports or at newsteam@wjct.org