Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Education unveiled an extensive regulatory agenda Friday to carry out the Trump administration’s policy priorities, including reshaping accreditation and the agency’s civil rights enforcement.
- The agency plans to release a proposed rule on accreditation this month that would make it easier for new accrediting bodies to form and for colleges to change accreditors. The rule would also expand accreditor duties to include oversight of campus policies related to free speech and intellectual diversity.
- The Education Department also expects this month to amend regulations to “streamline the process” for cutting off federal financial aid to colleges that it determines violated civil rights laws and refused to voluntarily come into compliance.
Dive Insight:
The Education Department released several regulatory packages in recent months as it raced to implement the education-related provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act before July 1. Those regulations introduce new federal loan limits and create an earnings test that college programs must pass to retain eligibility for federal student loans, among other measures.
With those regulatory packages in the rear view mirror, the agency is now looking to carry out the Trump administration’s other education-related policy priorities.
U.S. Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent signaled some of what is to come late last month. During a student financial aid conference near Washington, D.C., Kent said the Education Department would pursue new regulations to make it easier for colleges to merge or close.
According to Friday’s regulatory agenda, the Education Department plans to issue a notice this month to get the process started.
The department then plans to bring together representatives from the higher education sector to develop regulatory language, an arduous process known as negotiated rulemaking. If the group reaches consensus on new regulations, the department must use that agreed-upon language for its proposed rule. If they don’t reach consensus, however, the department is free to write its own regulations.
Along with streamlining college mergers, the Education Department also wants to seek changes to the long-standing 90/10 rule, which requires for-profit colleges to receive at least 10% of their revenue from sources other than federal financial aid. The agency said current regulatory provisions give “public and nonprofit institutions a competitive advantage.” The decades-old statutory requirement was designed to curb prices at for-profit colleges and ensure federal financial aid would only flow to institutions that could derive at least some revenue from other sources.
The Education Department is also gearing up to target race-focused education programs via regulations. It wants to remove the race-based eligibility requirements of the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, which aims to increase the number of doctoral graduates from low-income or underrepresented backgrounds.
The department further plans to amend regulations on race-based educational programs in August, according to its regulatory agenda. The agency said it would clarify how Title VI’s protections impact diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as well as race-based or race-conscious programs.
Title VI bars federally funded colleges from discriminating based on race, color or national origin. The Trump administration has wielded Title VI to attempt to cut off federal aid to high-profile colleges including Harvard University and the University of California, Los Angeles.
The Education Department’s regulatory sprint is set to continue into the fall. In September, the agency plans to take the first steps to begin negotiated rulemaking to create textbook packaging regulations to foster more competition among booksellers. At the same time, it will seek to amend regulations to improve the transferability of college credits, according to the agenda.
In November, the department is planning to start the negotiated rulemaking process to amend regulations on Section 117, which requires colleges to report foreign gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more, and also the Clery Act, which requires colleges to report crime statistics and notify their campus of emergencies in a timely manner.