HOW COLLEGES ARE BUYING RESPECT

摘要

ITT Educational Services didn't pay $20.8 million for debt-ridden Daniel Webster College in June just to acquire its red-brick campus, 1,200 students, or computer science and aviation training programs.rnTo ITT, the third-biggest higher-education company in the U.S., the Nashua (N.H.) college's "most attractive" feature was its regional accreditation, says Michael Goldstein, an attorney at Dow Lohnes, a Washington firm that has long represented the Carmel (Ind.) company. Regional accreditation, the same gold standard of academic quality enjoyed by Harvard, is a way to increase enrollment and tap into the more than $100 billion the federal government pays out annually in financial aid.