Franken asked how those statements could be true when three schools that McComis’ agency accredited were found to have misled prospective students.

“Do you think perhaps your rigorous standards aren’t rigorous enough?” Franken asked.

“I don’t think so,” McComis responded.

“To me,” Franken shot back, “there is a real discrepancy here. Doesn’t this industry have any interest in self-policing itself?”

Later, under questioning, McComis acknowledged that a “key” part of its accrediting process is a self-evaluation done by the college that is seeking accreditation.

“You kind of go to the school, ask them how they’re doing, and if they say good, you say fine,” Sen. Harkin observed.

Harkin also questioned why the ACCSC accredited 41 schools with default rates higher than 30 percent within the first three years.

McComis said the ACCSC currently uses two-year default rates but doesn’t take them into account when accrediting a college.

“We have found in our data no correlation to indicate that default rates are directly statistically correlated to the quality of the education,” McComis said, adding that graduation and employment rates are better indicators of a program’s effectiveness.

The U.S. Department of Education has proposed a set of rules that would, among other things, take the student loan default rates among students into account when determining whether the schools should be eligible for federal aid.

Wednesday’s hearing was the second in what Harkin says will be a series of hearings on the for-profit college sector in the coming months. Harkin stated that accreditation was one of the areas he planned to look at in a future hearing.

Click here for a link to the GAO videos.