Education Department Proposes a Full Rewrite of the Accreditation Rules

The Department of Education published an 82-page notice of proposed rulemaking on 20 August 2026 that would rewrite the accrediting agency recognition regulations at 34 CFR part 602 more or less end to end, along with parts of 34 CFR parts 600 and 668. It is at 91 FR 53940, Docket ID ED-2025-OPE-1042, RIN 1840-AD82. Comments are due 21 September 2026 and must go through regulations.gov — the Department states it will not accept comments by fax or email, or after the deadline.

One procedural fact should shape how you read it. This came out of a negotiated rulemaking, and the Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization (AIM) Committee reached consensus on the entirety of the draft regulations on 21 May 2026. Under the negotiated rulemaking protocols, consensus means the absence of dissent from any committee member, and it obliges the Department to publish the agreed regulations without substantive alteration unless the Secretary reopens the process or gives the negotiators a written explanation for departing. The NPRM says it reflects that consensus language with minor technical and non-substantive corrections. So the text you are commenting on is not a first draft — it is an already-negotiated settlement between the Department and the non-federal negotiators.

The Department states that the earliest these regulations would become effective is 1 July 2027.

Why the Department says it is doing this

The stated legal driver is Executive Order 14279, “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education,” issued 23 April 2025, which directed the Secretary to take a set of actions on accreditor recognition, some of which required regulatory change. The negotiated rulemaking that produced the text was announced in stages: a notice of intent to hold public hearings and establish committees on 4 April 2025 (90 FR 14741), and a notice establishing the AIM Committee and requesting negotiator nominations on 27 January 2026 (91 FR 3403). Negotiations opened on 14 April 2026.

The preamble’s framing is blunt. Accrediting agencies are described as gatekeepers for federal student aid programmes that provide more than $100 billion in Pell Grants and federal loans annually; the Department says many are failing to act as “reliable authorities regarding the quality of education or training” and that some have “improperly shift[ed] their focus away from student achievement.” Readers will form their own view of that characterisation. The operative question for an institution is what the proposed regulatory text actually requires.

The competition provisions — the structural change

The most consequential cluster is about making the accreditation market less concentrated.

§ 600.11 would be amended to make it less burdensome for an institution to change accrediting agencies or to use more than one.

§§ 602.11 and 602.12 would remove geographic restrictions on agency scope — the final step in eliminating the regional/national distinction — and require review of contractions of scope as well as expansions.

§ 602.12 would also eliminate the “two-year rule” for initial recognition of new agencies, on the ground that it is not required by statute.

§ 602.13, currently reserved, would be unreserved to state that recognition by the Department confers no immunity from the antitrust laws. Other anticompetitive behaviour would become a negative factor in recognition decisions.

§ 602.14 would strengthen the fiscal and administrative criteria an agency must satisfy to demonstrate it is fully separate and independent from any related, associated or affiliated trade or membership organisation — and the NPRM adds a definition of “related, associated, or affiliated trade association” at § 602.3 to support it. The Department’s own effective-date reasoning refers to giving an agency time “to find separate space,” which indicates how literally it means separation.

The Department’s economic reasoning, drawn from the negotiated rulemaking record, is that competition among accreditors improves quality and expands institutional choice, and that the current high concentration among a handful of institutional accreditors makes withdrawal of recognition an impractical penalty. It quotes its own negotiators: “With regional and programmatic monopolies, withdrawal of recognition can throw industries into chaos.”

What agencies would have to require of institutions

Several proposals push obligations downstream to accredited institutions, even though the regulations formally bind only the agencies.

§ 602.15 would require agencies to administer their standards, policies and procedures in a way that minimises unnecessary compliance costs and administrative burden on accredited institutions, and to maintain conflict of interest controls. This is the affordability lever: the Department is explicit that it wants administrative cost out of the system.

§ 602.16 would codify that an agency may set additional lawful standards it considers appropriate to institutional or programmatic quality and integrity. The statutory anchor is HEA section 496(a)(5), which requires standards covering student achievement, curricula, faculty, facilities, fiscal and administrative capacity, student support services, recruiting and admissions, programme length and credentials, student complaints, and title IV compliance. Student achievement measures are to be assessed in relation to the institution’s mission, and may include State licensing examinations, course completion and job placement rates.

§ 602.17 would clarify expectations on student achievement and faculty policies — including academic freedom and intellectual diversity — and add new requirements for cost-benefit analysis, institutional flexibility and mission, programme length review, and safeguards against misrepresentation.

§ 602.18 would require accrediting agency decisions to be neutral with respect to viewpoint and ideology, with a carve-out for institutions with a religious mission. Related provisions would require academic freedom protections applied consistently to faculty “regardless of appointment classification, race or other immutable characteristics, viewpoint, or ideology,” again excepting religious-mission institutions, and would have agencies measure student and faculty perceptions of the range of viewpoints offered.

§ 602.23 would require agencies to ensure that institutions comply with all applicable federal and State laws, and would bar agencies from applying standards that direct institutions to violate those laws.

That last pairing is the one most likely to generate conflict in practice: an agency must verify legal compliance, and simultaneously must not impose a standard that would push an institution into non-compliance. Institutions with mature federal-compliance functions — the offices that already own Title IX and Clery Act obligations — are the ones likely to be asked to evidence this to a visiting team.

Transfer of credit and teach-out

The proposals here bite directly on institutional practice. HEA section 496(c)(9) already requires agencies to verify that institutions maintain publicly disclosed transfer of credit policies with clearly articulated criteria. The NPRM would go further:

§ 602.24 would define consistent criteria, prohibit discriminatory denials, require acceptance of comparable credits, and give students an appeals process. Institutions would keep the ability to deny transfer credit where it fails to meet their standards — but would have to provide written reasoning for the denial.

§ 668.43 would require transfer of credit disclosures and direct written notice to students.

§ 602.24 would also expand teach-out planning requirements, including transcript access, and increase transparency and support for students when an institution is disrupted.

A “written reasoning for the denial” requirement is a workflow change, not a policy change. Registrars’ offices that currently deny transfer credit by exception code will need a documented rationale per decision, and an appeal route.

Oversight of agencies, and NACIQI

§ 602.2 would require the Department to give public notice on its accreditation website when the Secretary denies continued recognition, or limits, suspends or terminates recognition mid-period.

§ 602.26 would modernise required agency notices and allow temporary continuation of title IV eligibility after an erroneous accreditor decision — a genuinely useful protection for an institution caught by an agency’s mistake.

§ 602.27 would require the Department’s website to display the current accreditation status of all institutions and programmes, updated on a regular and timely basis.

§ 602.28 would broaden the circumstances in which an agency must re-evaluate an institution or programme after negative action by another authority.

§ 602.34 would require NACIQI to review applications for contractions of scope, with agencies posting public notice of upcoming NACIQI reviews.

§ 602.22 would refine the list of changes requiring accreditor approval and add prison education programs as a defined substantive change.

Deregulatory items run alongside: prescriptive site visit mandates, unnecessary documentation requirements and “rigid and overly long processing timelines” would go, and §§ 602.20, 602.21 and 602.25 would each shed “overly prescriptive requirements.”

The small-entity determination worth commenting on

Buried in the regulatory flexibility analysis is a determination with real consequences. The Department concludes that institutions of higher education are not directly regulated by this rule and are only indirectly affected, so it does not analyse the impact on small institutions at all. It does expect a significant economic impact on a substantial number of institutional accreditors that qualify as small entities.

But it excludes programmatic accreditors from small-entity treatment entirely, reasoning that there is usually only one — at most one or two — recognised agency per field or occupation, and that this accreditation is used not only for federal programmes but also for professional licensure eligibility. The Department expressly invites comment on that determination.

For healthcare education, that is the paragraph to read twice. Nursing, allied health, medical laboratory science, pharmacy and similar programmes typically sit under a single programmatic accreditor whose approval gates graduates’ licensure. The Department is simultaneously saying those agencies are dominant in their field, applying antitrust-adjacent recognition criteria to them, and declining to analyse the burden on them as small entities. Programmes whose licensure pipeline runs through one of those agencies have a direct stake and a narrow window.

The Department also acknowledges, in the same analysis, that new student outcome standards “could force some institutions to reform or close programs,” and that credit-transfer policies could reduce institutional revenue.

What to do before 21 September

Read the consensus point before you plan a campaign. Because the AIM Committee reached full consensus on 21 May 2026, the Department has committed to publishing the agreed text without substantive alteration absent a reopening or a written explanation to negotiators. Comments arguing for wholesale redrafting are pushing against that. Comments supplying evidence — particularly on questions the Department expressly asked about — are not.

Answer the small-entity question if you are a programmatic accreditor or depend on one. It is one of the few determinations the NPRM openly puts up for challenge.

Map the transfer-of-credit workflow now. Written reasoning per denial, an appeals process, and direct written notice under § 668.43 are operational requirements with a July 2027 floor, not a policy statement.

Comment through regulations.gov only, under Docket ID ED-2025-OPE-1042, including the Docket ID at the top of your comment. The Department publishes comments in full and says it will redact personally identifiable information about third parties.

Frequently asked questions

Is anything in force yet?

No. This is a notice of proposed rulemaking. Nothing changes until a final rule is published, and the Department states the earliest effective date would be 1 July 2027.

Does this regulate institutions or accreditors?

Formally, accreditors — the Department says institutions are not directly regulated and are only indirectly affected. In practice, most of the substantive provisions describe what an agency must require of the institutions it accredits, which is how they reach institutional operations.

Does consensus mean the final rule is already fixed?

No. The consensus protocol described in the NPRM obliges the Department to publish the agreed regulations without substantive alteration unless the Secretary reopens the process or provides a written explanation to participants for departing from the agreement. It is a strong constraint, not an absolute one, and a comment period still runs.

Does removing geographic scope mean regional accreditors disappear?

No. It means the regulations would stop recognising geographic constraints on an agency’s scope, so institutions are not restricted by region in choosing an agency. The agencies themselves continue to exist and to be recognised.

What is the “two-year rule” being eliminated?

A requirement in the current initial-recognition criteria at 34 CFR 602.12 that the Department proposes to remove because it is not required by statute. The NPRM pairs this with clarified requirements on the policies and capacity an agency must have to seek initial recognition.

Where does the money figure come from?

The Department states in the executive summary that the federal student aid programmes accreditors gate “currently provide more than $100 billion in Pell Grants and Federal student loans annually.”

Primary source: Department of Education, “Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization: The Secretary’s Recognition of Accrediting Agencies: Institutional Eligibility Under the Higher Education Act of 1965, as Amended, Student Assistance General Provisions,” notice of proposed rulemaking, 91 FR 53940 (20 August 2026), Docket ID ED-2025-OPE-1042, RIN 1840-AD82, comments due 21 September 2026. Cited within: Executive Order 14279 (23 April 2025); 90 FR 14741 (4 April 2025); 91 FR 3403 (27 January 2026); sections 496(a)(5), 496(c)(5) and 496(c)(9) of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended.