Another tradable commodity?

In the heyday of the railroads, it was not unusual for an otherwise failed railroad company to retain a certain amount of value, not because of its physical assets or ongoing business, but because it possessed a state-granted charter giving it legal permission to build, operate and exercise the power of eminent domain within certain geographical parameters. Purchasing a bankrupt, broken-down shortline that possessed a desirable charter was sometimes easier than getting such a charter granted anew if a large railroad concern decided it wanted to expand.

In some major cities today, taxicab medallions, which connote the privilege of participating in a business where competition is limited by government edict, sell for extraordinarily high prices. (A 2005 price of $379,000 for a New York City corporate taxicab medallion is quoted by this website.)

Both are, essentially, intangible assets representing nothing but legal permission to do things which are otherwise restricted.

Now it seems that educational accreditation may be about to join the ranks of intangible assets of this type that can be bought and sold as part of an institution, regardless of any significant degree of continuity in the identity of the institution itself, according to this article from the Chronicle of Higher Ed. (Subscription required for full article, but a short summary is available for free.) Is this a good thing?