Accreditation Neg Reg Was Just One of Many Important Events Taking Place This Week
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** Overview
While the higher education community and many other interested parties understandably focused on monitoring the Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization (AIM) Committee’s review and deliberations regarding the Department’s proposed regulations to overhaul the accreditation system, several other key events also took place this week that we wanted to ensure the community was aware of.
Below CSPEN provides–
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1. A summary of the first week of the accreditation negotiations heading into today’s final day of session one deliberations:
2. Highlights a new Senate bill focused on the 90/10 Rule;
3. Shares breaking news regarding a report developed by Diane Auer Jones entitled “Robbing from the Poor to Give to the Rich: The Flawed Logic and Failed Methodology Behind the Do No Harm Earnings Test” offering commentary on the metric’s design, data sources, anticipated outcomes, and alternative recommendations; and
4. Abrupt cancellation of scheduled and requested E.O. 12866 Meetings with the White House and Department to discuss the pending Earnings Accountability proposals prior to publication of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM)
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Session One – AIM Committee Federal Negotiated Rulemaking
On Monday morning, the Department of Education made it abundantly clear that it intends to deconstruct and reconstitute the accreditation system as detailed in the one-hundred-and-fifty-one-page discussion draft provided to the Non-Federal negotiators in advance of the first session. Under Secretary Nicholas Kent provided remarks making it clear that the Administration intends to take aim at specific concern regarding both the accreditation system itself to the standards and practices of the accrediting agencies as well. Taking the comments a step further, as the Department’s negotiator provided his opening remarks he stated that while he and the Department were interested in sharing ideas, the discussion draft was the Administration’s intended outcome. He added that with or without revisions and/or consensus, a Final Rule on accreditation will be promulgated before the end of the year.
As CSPEN noted during last week’s Federal Legislative & Regulatory Update webinar, the Department’s extensive list of proposals includes both benign and highly volatile items. Beginning Monday afternoon, the AIM Committee addressed all items by reviewing each page and discussing every proposal individually. Monday afternoon one of the lengthier discussions centered on the Administration’s frustration that more institutions had not voluntarily changed accreditors following the 2020 regulatory revisions that eliminated the regional accreditation system. The Department asserted that market forces were prohibiting institutions from changing, while for the most part institutions and others shared different perspectives. Throughout the entire week some of these differences of perspective have been on display. At other times the discussions have been more focused and heated, for example the discussion on transfer of credit and efforts by the Department to force the accreditors oversight in
this area were openly opposed. Similarly, negotiations have gotten more tense when issues like academic pedagogy, intellectual diversity, and outcomes.
Senator Jim Banks Introduces 90/10 Legislation
On Monday, Republican Senator Jim Banks of Indiana introduced new legislation entitled the “Promoting Access and Revenue Integrity Through Institutional Transparency Act.” The two-page bill proposes repealing Section 487(a)(24) of the law as well as subsection (d). The legislation does not have a bill number yet, but when it does, we will share those details with the community as well.
New Report Critical of “Do No Harm” Earnings Accountability Law and Proposed Regulations
Yesterday, former Principal Deputy Under Secretary Diane Auer Jones released a new report entitled “Robbing from the Poor to Give to the Rich: The Flawed Logic and Failed Methodology Behind the Do No Harm Earnings Test.” which is a MUST READ. The Abstract introducing the report states:
“This report critically examines the Do No Harm (DNH) earnings test, a highly flawed and scientifically unsound higher education accountability metric enacted by Congress as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Although Congress requires this metric to be applied to undergraduate degree programs, graduate degree programs and graduate certificate programs, the Department of Education (the Department) has proposed to use its regulatory authority to expand the test to include undergraduate certificate programs. The Department’s desire to hold all schools and programs to the same standards is commendable; however, the metric imposed upon them by Congress lacks validity and merit, rendering it an arbitrary and capricious regulatory test.
This report evaluates the DNH metric against accepted standards of experimental design, including those established by the Department 1 as the minimum required to demonstrate suitability for policy-making decisions, and finds that it fails in numerous and significant ways. The report demonstrates that the metric’s design systematically disadvantages low-income students and the institutions that serve them and in particular, has disparate impact at the certificate level on non-traditionally aged females and students of color. Importantly, the DNH metric ignores well understood employment trends, including that earnings grow significantly during the first 10 years of one’s career, that individuals from low-income families tend to take lower-paying jobs initially and experience slower wage growth than those from more advantaged families, and that women aged 24 to 35 are more likely than others to seek part-time rather than full-time work. Though this report points out the many reasons why
earnings tests are not a valid form of quality assessment or regulatory control, it includes recommendations that would at least align earnings-based accountability frameworks with accepted standards of scientific rigor and the access-oriented mission of Title IV programs.”
CSPEN has requested the authority to post the report on our website for community review. We will notify the higher education community on how to obtain the report very soon.
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Cancels Requested E.O. 12866 Meetings
On Wednesday, April 15th the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of the Office of Management and Budget abruptly concluded the process of enabling interested parties to share comments with Administration representatives. In making the determination, the Administration cancelled several requested and scheduled meetings. CSPEN anticipates that the Department of Education will likely move quickly to complete the final process of any modifications before submitting the final NPRM to the Federal Register for publication in the near future. CSPEN will be on the lookout for both the potential soft release of the NPRM by the Department as early as today and the official publication in the Federal Register which will establish the comment period and deadline.
