The Trump administration backtracked this week on two proposals that would reshape the role of college accreditors.
The administration in January embarked on a rule-making process to overhaul the standards for accreditors, which act as the gatekeepers for federal student aid. But it came under fire from those organizations and colleges themselves for a proposed change that would alter the geographic scope of regional accreditors.
The Education Department suggested in its proposal last month requiring that regional accreditors — which oversee most public and nonprofit colleges — operate in no fewer than three but no more than nine contiguous states. New language released by the department this week dropped that standard. But it kept a requirement that all branch campuses be located within a region, which would be troublesome for colleges that maintain campuses in other states.