Education Dept. Sends Reminder about Pending “State Authorization” Rules
February 07, 2013
The U.S. Department of Education sent a “Dear Colleague Letter” (DCL) to state education officials to remind institutions of the new requirements related to state authorization.
The new rules, first released in October 2010, derived from concerns that states were not doing enough to oversee colleges authorized to operate in their states and seeks to rein in fraud and abuse by colleges ” for-profit schools, in particular ” participating in student aid programs.
Most of the attention related to the controversial regulations revolved around their potential application to distance education programs. In 2011, a federal court invalidated the rule requiring colleges offering online programs to students in other states to seek approval from each of those states. A year later, the department announced that it would not enforce that particular piece of the regulation.
The remaining requirements do go into effect on July 1, 2013. In the recent DCL, Education Department administrators noted that the delays in enforcement ” of up to two years ” that individual colleges could seek if they had been unable to obtain authorization to maintain a physical presence in a given state would be exhausted this year. Any institution that has not been granted approval to operate a physical campus in a state under the terms of the 2011 rules risks losing its eligibility to participate in federal student aid programs, the letter states.
Related Links:
Dear Colleague Letter: State Authorization Regulations Effective Date Extension ” Final Year
https://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/server_files/files/FINALGEN-13-04StateAuthorization.pdf
Michelle Cormier Mott
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