"Yet in practice, accreditors—who are paid by the institutions themselves—appear to be ineffectual at best, much like the role of credit rating agencies during the recent financial crisis." David Deming and David Figlio in Accountability in US Education: Applying Lessons from K–12 Experience to Higher Education (2016)
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/higher-learning-commission-accreditation-sign-quality-dahn-shaulis/