On Friday, November 1, 2019, the U.S. Department of Education officially released its long-awaited final rule on accreditation and state authorization issues, the culmination of a multi-year negotiated rulemaking process. Most of the wide-ranging regulatory changes in this package—including the accreditation provisions summarized in our prior post—will take effect on July 1, 2020.
However, of immediate impact to schools with distance education programs, the Department is permitting early implementation of its changes to the state authorization rule and related disclosure requirements. These changes include numerous common-sense improvements, including to aspects of the current rules that could be quite burdensome to schools with large distance education populations.
This does not mean that early implementation will be right for all institutions. Of particular significance, some revised disclosure requirements will extend for the first time to residential (on-ground) programs—not solely to those offered by distance education—and ED will expect early-implementers to demonstrate immediate compliance. This post summarizes the changes that, in our view, are most important for institutions to keep in mind when deciding whether to early-implement, and discusses the process for early implementation. Of course, if you elect not to early-implement, continued compliance with the current regulations is expected.
Please do not hesitate to contact a Powers Education professional if you need assistance understanding the latest changes, effecting an early-implementation, or designing a compliant disclosure process.