Today, the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) will begin meeting to review the status of accrediting agencies, which play the role of gatekeepers to federal financial aid. We entrust the nation’s system of higher education quality assurance—including accreditors—with ensuring that students use more tha...

In a new special report on adult learners, The Chronicle of Higher Education featured executive director Julie Peller and board member Teresa Lubbers of the Indiana Commission on Higher Education in a forum on how institutions and policymakers can better help adult students complete postsecondary credentials. Download the entire special report...

Current Gainful Employment regulations require programs at for-profit institutions and certain career and technical programs at all other schools to meet certain debt-to-earnings ratios of their graduates or face the loss of eligibility to participate in federal financial aid programs. This week, critical conversations about higher education accoun...

“Issues of quality, outcomes and accountability are on the forefront of members’ minds in a way they haven’t been before,” said Julie Peller, executive director of Higher Learning Advocates, a non-profit founded in 2016 to advance policy that increases student success.

…As Julie Peller, executive director of Higher Learning Advocates, pointed out, despite Congress’s best intentions to move away from standardization and other proposals offering some solutions, the vagueness and ambiguity in the bill may lead to little progress — with accreditors afraid to approve out-of-the-box ideas, and schools and sy...

This week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing on the complex topics of accountability and risk. As the conversation highlighted, it’s time to re-examine the ways we hold higher education providers accountable for the outcomes they produce for students. So who decides which colleges can participate in federal...

The Promoting Real Opportunity, Success, and Prosperity through Education Reform (PROSPER Act) (H.R. 4508) was introduced by House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) on December 1 to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. The bill makes significant changes to the underlying law, including expanding partnerships and...

Dear Colleague, As we wind down 2017, we reflect on the dynamic year it’s been for changes in higher education policy, even in just the past few weeks. In the final Higher Learning Advocates update of the year, we’d like to share with you some recent products and resources. We also take a look ahead…

H.R. 4508, introduced by House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), would significantly change how accreditors are recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education and how they grant accreditation to institutions of higher education. The chart below compares the accreditation provisions in current law and in the PROSP...

A new policy framework identifies a three-pronged plan to shift the focus of federal policy from higher education to higher learning by ensuring high-quality outcomes, focusing on today’s students and creating a more affordable and responsive system of education and training beyond high school.”

The PROSPER Act, in its current form, extends Pell eligibility to short-term programs that are at least 300 clock hours of instruction over 10 weeks but includes no employer engagement to ensure that these programs are aligned with industry needs. Several organizations, including Higher Learning Advocates and AdvanceCTE joined NSC in members o...