Federal Updates

 U.S. Department of Education 

On June 12, 2019, the U.S. Department of Education published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Federal Register proposing to amend the regulations governing the Department’s recognition of accrediting agencies. See. The Secretary also included proposals to revise the state authorization requirements for institutions offering distance education or correspondence courses. The public comment period is now open and schools may submit comments electronically through https://www.regulations.gov/ by Friday, July 12, 2019. AACS will be distributing by Monday June 24, 2019 a notice to all members summarizing key provisions of the proposed rules and highlighting areas schools may want to focus on for comments. AACS is also preparing public comments for submission over the association’s name through the AACS Government Relations Committee.

On June 12, 2019, the U.S. Department of Education published an Electronic Announcement to notify institutions of Changes to Third-Party Mailings. Effective July 1, 2019, the IRS will no longer mail tax transcripts to third-parties as requested on Form 4506, Form 4506-T and Form 4506T-EZ. These forms will be amended to remove the third-party mailing option. Third-parties, including institutions who use these forms for income verification, have other alternatives to access these transcripts as a third-party. The IRS offers an Income Verification Express Service (IVES) which has several hundred participants, who, with proper authorization, order transcripts directly from the IRS. Institutions can either contract with existing IVES participants or become IVES participants themselves by registering for e-Services on IRS.gov.

Congress

The AACS lobbying team at Duane Morris LLP (Katherine Brodie and Kristina Gill) hit the Hill this week to meet with members of the Senate Health Education and Labor Committee regarding progress on the Higher Education Act reauthorization bill. They met with staff from Senators Cassidy (R-LA), Senator Braun (R-IN), Senator Roberts (R-KS), Senator Jones (D-AL), Senator Scott (R-SC) and Senator Romney (R-UT). Each of these Senators serves on the Senate education committee and has AACS member schools in their state. Although Senate leadership remains committed to trying to get an HEA bill to the President’s desk this year, there remain significant barriers to reaching this goal, including reaching bipartisan compromise on Title IX issues and regarding and new or amended HEA accountability metrics. In addition to the Senate meetings, on the House side we met with Congressman Tom Cole (R-OK), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, Education and Related Agencies, and the minority staff of the House Education and Labor Committee. The Duane Morris team will be providing a full report and recommended next steps to the AACS Government Relations Committee on its regular calls.

Last week, as reported, the House Rules Committee is considering a number of proposed amendments to a FY 2020 appropriations bill package, several of which targeted for-profit colleges. One amendment increasing the budget for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General was added to the funding package, but no proprietary-school specific amendments have been included. The AACS Government Relations Committee continues to actively monitor the appropriations process. 

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