Today, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) finalized new regulations governing the U.S. higher education accreditation system.

Get caught up: These new regulations are the output of the Accreditation, Innovation and Modernization (AIM) negotiated rulemaking committee, which met in April and May to produce the draft regulations on which the final rule is based. ED published a proposed version in August and collected public comments through September. The final rule makes only minor technical changes to that draft, leaving the core of the committee’s consensus language intact. Because the rules are finalized before November 1, they will go into effect on July 1, 2027.

These sweeping regulations will fundamentally change the accreditation system. Key provisions include:

  • Expanding competition among accreditors: The regulations eliminate certain existing requirements for accreditors seeking federal recognition that ED deemed arbitrary and creates new regulations to ease the process for institutions seeking to switch accreditors.
  • Reforming transfer credit policy: Under the final rule, accreditors must ensure that institutions maintain a range of transfer credit policies, including fully disclosing institutional transfer credit policies and notifying prospective transfer students which credits will be accepted if they enroll. Institutions that deny transfer credits now must provide students with a written explanation of the specific reasons for the denial and an opportunity to appeal. 
  • New conflict of interest policy: The regulations set forth new rules governing the relationships between accreditors and related, associated, or affiliated trade associations or professional organizations including “by prohibiting co-location, the intermingling of funds, and budgetary co-dependence” amongst accreditors and associations/organizations.
  • Centering student outcomes in accreditation: Accreditors must establish standards that, among other things, evaluate “success with respect to student achievement at the institutional and program level in relation to the institution’s mission.” The regulations note that measures of success can include state licensing examination results, course completion, job placement rates, retention rates, completion rates, graduation rates, and graduate outcomes, among other measures. Importantly, the final rule notes that accrediting agencies should review these metrics “as appropriate to its own standards,” rather than prescribing any one required measure.

What’s Next

Barring legal challenges, the regulations will take effect next summer. Unlike many of the Trump administration’s other major regulatory changes (e.g., the RISE final rule that implemented graduate loan borrowing caps or the AHEAD final rule that operationalized Workforce Pell), the regulatory changes included in the AIM package were not expressly required by Congress which may make it more vulnerable to legal challenges.

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