A controversial for-profit college watchdog is getting new life.

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced Tuesday that she would restore federal recognition to the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, an accreditor that oversaw troubled for-profit colleges, including Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institutes, in the lead up to their collapse. The Obama administration withdrew federal recognition of ACICS in 2016, but a recent court order instructed the Department of Education to reconsider that decision.

Though a seemingly wonky controversy, America’s higher education system places accreditors in a crucial role in ensuring that schools function properly. They essentially work as gatekeepers to federal financial aid funds for colleges and universities; many colleges, particularly for-profit schools, rely on these funds to operate.

ACICS was accused by lawmakers and others of allowing tax dollars to continue to flow to troubled for-profit colleges. In the three years leading up to 2016, 17 colleges facing investigations and overseen by ACICS took in $5.7 billion in federal financial aid, according to a report from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.

“The idea of giving them more time is ludicrous,” Ben Miller, the senior director of postsecondary education at CAP, said of ACICS. “The only thing that [ACICS] can consistently show is that it’s incapable of ensuring quality in higher education.”

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The announcement comes amid continued complaints from consumer and borrower advocates that the Department of Education under DeVos is more attuned to the needs of industry than students and borrowers. The Department has indicated interest in rewriting two Obama-era rules that aimed to strengthen oversight of for-profit colleges and ensure that students who claim they were ripped off by their schools are made whole.

The Department and industry has countered that many of the decisions regarding for-profit colleges made during the Obama era were flawed and amounted to an overreach of officials’ roles. In a statement announcing the decision to restore ACICS’s status, DeVos said “we will fairly consider all of the facts presented and make an appropriate determination on ACICS’s petition.” The Department didn’t immediately provide comment beyond the statement.

That includes considering evidence submitted to the Department by ACICS in May 2016, which the court accused the Obama administration of failing to consider when deciding whether to terminate the accreditor’s status. In a statement following the court order, Michelle Evans, ACICS’s president, commended the court order and Devos’s response to it.

“In the last two years, ACICS has implemented significant reforms designed to address concerns, strengthen the accreditation process and, ultimately, enhance our ability to hold schools accountable for meaningful student outcomes,” the statement reads. ACICS didn’t immediately provide comment beyond the statement.

But critics like Miller worry that allowing ACICS to continue to operate could put students at risk of enrolling in troubled schools, given the organization’s track record. Prior to the court order, schools overseen by ACICS were in an18-month period of limbo where they were given the opportunity to search for new accreditors. The bulk of schools had already found a new accreditor or were relatively close to finding one or had shut down, according to a CAP analysis.

That indicates to Miller that the remainder of accreditors operating aren’t meeting the standards of other watchdogs. “We’re saving the bottom of the barrel,” he said.