California's state school-approving agency may close July 1.

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by Lerner, Jan 17, 2007.

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  1. Lerner

    Lerner Well-Known Member

    Posted by Dr John Bear

    quote:

    California's state school-approving agency may close July 1.
    The agency that approves unaccredited schools in California (the Bureau of Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education) will go out of business on July 1 unless renewed by an act of the legislature.

    The Governor has now asked the federal Dept. of Education whether state approval is necessary for students at unaccredited schools to qualify for federal loans.

    My 'source' at the Bureau in Sacramento says that it is believed there that the Dept. of Education will take the Bush administration position, that for-profit schools don't need to be state approved in order to get federal loans -- and that would very likely mean that the California Bureau will go out of business.

    Is this Libertarianism at its finest: the government makes no rules on the legitimacy of a school before dispensing federal money. And California takes a hand's off position on whether an unaccredited school can operate and grant degrees.

    It is 178 days until the Bureau will 'sunset' out of existence unless renewed.

    Longtime aficionados of such matters may recall that I kept a countdown watch the last time this was a hot topic, ten years ago, when a different California governor came out against renewal of the (then) Commission on Private Postsecondary (etc.), but with about three days left before its death, he supported a bill which created the new Bureau -- but not within the state Dept. of Education.

    So California may go from being the only state where schools are not regulated or licensed by the Department of Education, to being the only state where they are not regulated at all.

    Stay tuned.
     
  2. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    As Dr. Bear noted, when California let the Commission on Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education go out of existence ten years ago, they waited until three days before it "sunsetted" before replacing it with the Bureau of Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education and placing the new agency under the Department of Consumer Affairs rather than the Department of Education. I seriously doubt that California wishes to be the only state with no state licensure laws on schools, as witness what happens to states with lax or unenforced school licensure laws ... they get overrun by the degree mills. My guess is that they'll wait till the last minute (again) and then come up with some new solution. The trick will be to come up with something that's not so lax as to become the new prime location for mills and joke schools but also not so repressive as to discourage new schools and innovation in education.
     
  3. Dave Wagner

    Dave Wagner Active Member

    I agree, Ted...

    I heard a rumor the other day indicating that Governor Schwarzenegger wants a new law to deal with this issue, so a last minute solution might not be the funding of the current system. It will be interesting...

    Dave
     

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