This week, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) released its initial proposed regulatory reforms for the U.S. higher education accreditation system. The proposal will serve as the starting point for the Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization (AIM) negotiated rulemaking (Neg Reg) committee which will convene for a first set of negotiations next week.

The proposed changes are extensive; with the initial draft regulatory changes stretching just over 150 pages with only two weeks worth of Neg Reg meetings to try to reach consensus. The proposal is consistent with President Trump’s April 2025 executive order on accreditation and has five broad focus areas:

  1. Regulatory Burden: Reducing regulatory burden for accrediting agencies
  2. “Accreditor integrity”: Limiting anti-competitive behavior across the accreditation landscape.
  3. Legality and constitutionality: Mandating that accreditors ensure institutions comply with federal and state laws, particularly with regard to freedom of speech and “the prohibition of preferential treatment based on protected characteristics, such as race-based scholarships or programs, and preferential hiring or promotion practices.
  4. Student outcomes: Requiring accrediting agencies to use program-level student outcomes to identify “minimum student expectations” with regard to accredited institutions’ and programs’ return on investment.
  5. Affordability: Making institutions’ efficient use of financial resources a factor that accrediting agencies consider in the accreditation process. The regulations also include language to require institutions to “presume the transferability” of general elective credits and count them toward graduation requirements.

It’s worth noting that the AIM Committee is only the latest action the Trump administration has taken on the issue of accreditation. In fact, during President Trump’s last term, ED promulgated new regulations on accreditation that remain active today. This Trump administration issued new sub-regulatory guidance in May 2025 focused on easing the pathway for institutions to change accreditors. The Trump administration also announced this past December that it would be updating the Accreditation Handbook, a document maintained by ED that provides guidance to accreditors on how to comply with ED’s requirements for recognizing accrediting agencies.

What’s Next

The AIM committee will convene its first week of negotiations April 13-17, 2026 and will convene a second, and final, week May 18-22, 2026. Assuming that ED finalizes the regulation by November 1, 2026, the regulations can go into effect as soon as July 2027, though ED will have discretion to provide additional time for implementation.

This article is sourced from Whiteboard Notes, our weekly newsletter of the latest education policy and industry news read by thousands of education leaders, investors, grantmakers, and entrepreneurs. Subscribe here.