The American Council on Education (ACE) along with 38 higher education associations, sent comments to the Office of Postsecondary Education regarding the Department of Education’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking titled “Accountability in Higher Education and Access Through Demand-Driven Workforce Pell: Pell Grant Exclusion Relating to Other Grant Aid; and Workforce Pell Grants.” The associations suggest, among other things, that (1) students enrolled in a program should not count in the job placement rate, (2) basic elements of an appeals process should be standardized, and (3) the Department should abide by the Master Calendar, which would result in an implementation deadline of July 1, 2027 at the earliest.
Topics:
Accreditation, Authorizations, & Higher Education Act | Financial Aid, Scholarships, & Student Loans | Higher Education Act (HEA) | Students
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it has entered into a settlement agreement with the international student recruiting firm Study Across the Pond LLC (SATP) requiring the firm to pay $1.3 million to resolve allegations that SATP violated the False Claims Act when it knowingly caused foreign universities in the United Kingdom to submit false claims to the Department of Education (ED) through arrangements that violated the federal ban on incentive compensation. Specifically, the DOJ alleged that SATP demanded a share of the tuition paid to the universities for any students the company recruited and then created sham records to hide the tuition-sharing arrangements from ED.
Topics:
Accreditation, Authorizations, & Higher Education Act | False Claims Act (FCA) | Financial Aid, Scholarships, & Student Loans | Higher Education Act (HEA) | Immigration | International Students | Research | Students
Topics:
Accreditation, Authorizations, & Higher Education Act | Higher Education Act (HEA) | Program Integrity & Gainful Employment
The Department of Education has announced a January 2, 2026 launch of its new portal for reporting foreign gifts and contracts under section 117 of the Higher Education Act. The new portal makes a number of updates and improvements based on comments the Department has received from institutions since the portal’s creation in 2020. Among the changes, the new portal will allow for bulk uploads of data and will provide an “executive summary” page allowing institutions to view their submissions in condensed form. The redesign is also expected to address previously shared concerns, such as: (1) automatic log off; (2) duplicative and onerous submission requirements concerning identifying information for the IHE; (3) save-as-draft capability; (4) ease of review of prior draft and final submissions; (5) capacity to self-correct prior submissions; (6) ability to review and revise another institutional user’s submission; (7) summary page of entries to allow final review; (8) publication of a reporting portal user’s guide; and (9) ability to download the full set of records that were submitted. The Department plans to provide a training webinar on the new portal on December 15, 2025, at 2:30 pm and a recording of the webinar will be available on December 18, 2025. The announcement also reminds institutions that the next deadline for submitting section 117 disclosure reports will be Monday, February 2, 2026.
Topics:
Accreditation, Authorizations, & Higher Education Act | Endowments & Gifts | Higher Education Act (HEA) | Taxes & Finances
Topics:
Accreditation, Authorizations, & Higher Education Act | Higher Education Act (HEA)
The American Council on Education (ACE) in addition to 35 other higher education associations, issued a statement expressing opposition to the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. The associations expressed that the compact “would hinder, not safeguard” freedom of speech and wrote that it runs counter to the interest of higher education and the nation itself. The statement concludes that “the compact is a step in the wrong direction” and urges the administration to withdraw the compact and reverse course.
Topics:
Accreditation, Authorizations, & Higher Education Act | Higher Education Act (HEA)
Opinion and Order Granting Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiffs, two associations representing not-for-profit, public and for-profit cosmetology schools, challenged the Department of Education’s 2023 final gainful-employment rule, arguing that it violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The court rejected plaintiffs’ claims that the final rule exceeded the Department’s statutory authority, finding that that there was nothing about the term “gainful employment” in the Higher Education Act to suggest the Department “can’t call employment unprofitable when a student remains in high loan debt.” The court also rejected plaintiff’s argument that the final rule was arbitrary and capricious, finding, in part, that the Department’s thresholds for its debt-to earnings metric, when applied together, were “more than reasonable.”
Topics:
Accreditation, Authorizations, & Higher Education Act | Higher Education Act (HEA) | Program Integrity & Gainful Employment
