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The Trade School Accountability Report

2026 edition · DAPIP actions through Sept 2026 (36-month window); College Scorecard June 2026. Free to cite.

Key findings

• 701 of 3,741 campuses (19%) received a formal accreditor sanction — probation, warning, show-cause or loss of accreditation — in the last 36 months. 438 have not yet had it lifted.
• Show-cause orders, the step before losing accreditation, were issued 164 times; accreditation was lost or denied 92 times.
• Sanction rates by ownership: for-profit 21%, non-profit 19%, public 16%.
• 8 campuses are on the Department of Education's Heightened Cash Monitoring 2 list, its stricter financial-oversight status.
• The federal loan default rate is not shown: it is near zero for every school in the current release because of the pandemic repayment pause, so it currently carries no information.

Sanction rate by state

States with at least 10 campuses in the directory.

Campuses currently under a sanction or federal oversight

Method

Actions come from the U.S. Department of Education's Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs (DAPIP), which records every action taken by recognized accreditors. We count as sanctions: probation or equivalent (including show-cause and warning statuses), warning for factors affecting academic quality, and loss or denial of accreditation. We do not count routine "heightened monitoring or focused review" statuses or voluntary withdrawals, which are often benign. A sanction is "lifted" when a later removal, reaffirmation or reinstatement action is recorded. Program-specific accreditors (nursing, dental, radiography) count toward the campus. Heightened Cash Monitoring status is from the College Scorecard institution file. A sanction is a reason to ask questions, not a verdict; the school can explain what it concerned.