Ivy Bridge Sues Accreditor Over Closure

The owner of the defunct Ivy Bridge College has sued the Higher Learning Commission over the institution's demise two years ago. The lawsuit, which Ivy Bridge filed in a federal court last week, alleges that the accreditor unlawfully shut down the college as part of a politically motivated "witch hunt."

Ivy Bridge was an unusual public-private partnership between Tiffin University, a small nonprofit institution located in Ohio, and Altius Education, a Silicon Valley-based education technology company. The two entities paired up to offer online, two-year degrees under the Ivy Bridge brand. It enrolled roughly 3,000 students in 2013.

The commission raised questions about Ivy Bridge's ownership structure, arguing that Altius had too much control of the program. The accreditor, affiliated with the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, also criticized aspects of the academic quality of the degree tracks, although it had praised Ivy Bridge in previous years. Tiffin was forced to withdraw from the partnership as a result of the commission's scrutiny, and Ivy Bridge and Altius collapsed.

Ivy Bridge's lawsuit claims the commission failed to follow its legal standards during its "complete sham" of a crackdown on the partnership. "HLC was under political pressure to kill nontraditional higher education, so that's what it did," the lawsuit said.