The educational accrediting agency is a powerful instrumentality in the United States-able, with minimal governmental interference, to set policies and standards in an area of vital concern to the public. As education becomes more complex, and as our society increasingly relies upon educational training and upon the standards by which that training is evaluated, the impact which the accrediting agency will have upon educational institutions and students enrolled in them will correspondingly increase. For all its influence, however, the accrediting agency occupies an ambiguous legal position. Therefore, in order to lay the framework for a more thorough understanding of the status of accrediting agencies in our legal system, this Comment will analyze the actual and potential judicial and legislative restraints on their activities
