ACCJC Advocacy

February 2025: C-RAC Feedback on U.S. Department of Education Dear Colleague Letter

On February 14, 2025, the United States Department of Education (ED) issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) addressing the obligations of institutions that receive federal financial assistance from ED, and sharing the Department’s interpretation of federal law related to the 2023 Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. Institutions, state departments of education, state higher education systems, and other agencies are encouraged to provide feedback regarding the guidance. Comments can be submitted by emailing comments to OCR@ed.gov or writing to the following:

Office for Civil Rights
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20202

The Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions (C-RAC), of which the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) is a member, has written a joint letter to provide feedback on ED’s “Dear Colleague Letter.” The letter makes clear our belief that the Department’s interpretation of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA) is overly broad and expansive, a concern shared among legal experts. Moreover, if the Department is to move forward with this broad interpretation, the 14-day timeline for compliance would be impossible for our member institutions to meet. A copy of the letter is available on the ACCJC website at: https://accjc.org/announcement/advocacy-in-action-c-rac-feedback-on-u-s-department-of-education-dear-colleague-letter/.

As stated in our previous correspondence (February 19, 2025), ACCJC is monitoring this situation carefully. All constituents should review the letter, consider providing written comments to the Department as noted above, and expect future guidance that will be issued as more information becomes available from ED and as necessary. Thank you in advance for your thoughtful attention to this matter.

February 2025: Provide Feedback on U.S. Department of Education Dear Colleague Letter

On February 14, 2025, the United States Department of Education (ED) issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) addressing the obligations of institutions that receive federal financial assistance from ED, and sharing the Department’s interpretation of federal law related to the 2023 Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The letter titled “Dear Colleague Letter: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act in Light of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard” addresses what ED interprets as the requirements under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, and other federal civil rights and constitutional law principles, and indicates that institutions must comply with the guidance within 14 days or risk losing federal funding. The scope of the DCL covers institutional operations in areas including admissions, financial aid, hiring, training, and all other institutional programming, whether offered directly or through contractual third-parties. The letter states that further legal guidance will follow in due course.

Institutions, state departments of education, state higher education systems, and other agencies are encouraged to provide feedback regarding the guidance. Comments can be submitted by emailing comments to OCR@ed.gov or writing to the following:

Office for Civil Rights
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20202

Institutions should note that the Dear Colleague Letter specifically states:

This guidance does not have the force and effect of law and does not bind the public or create new legal standards.

Further, constituents should visit Significant Guidance at the Department of Education, a website referenced in the Dear Colleague Letter, where it provides the following:

Guidance documents represent the Department of Education’s (ED) current thinking on a topic. They do not create or confer any rights for or on any person and do not impose any requirements beyond those required under applicable law and regulations.

The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) is monitoring this situation carefully. All constituents should review the letter and expect future guidance that will be issued as more information becomes available from ED and as necessary. Thank you in advance for your thoughtful attention to this matter.

ACCJC has had an active year of advocacy at the state and federal level. Recent potential regulatory changes at the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that will significantly impact our institutions were sent out for comment in May and concluded on June 20. ED received over 7,500 comments on the proposed regulations. You can read a review of the potential changes in the links below. The Department will now review the comments and aims to issue a final rule by November 1, which would then take effect July 1, 2024.

1. Notice of Proposed Rulemaking – Accountability for College Costs and Unaffordable Student Debt [includes Gainful Employment (GE)]
2. Fact Sheet – Holding Colleges Accountable for Delivering Financial Value for Students* (PDF) [5/17/2023]
3. Fact Sheet – New Proposed Rules to Protect Students by Strengthening Department Oversight and Monitoring* (PDF) [5/17/2023]
4. GE Data 1* – Description (PDF) [5/17/2023]
5. GE Data 2* – Data Codebook (Excel) [5/17/2023]
6. GE Data 3* – Dataset (Excel) [5/17/2023]

Additionally, ACCJC continues to monitor ongoing legislative activity related to higher education accreditors. Notably in May, Representative Burgess Owens (UT-04) introduced the Accreditation for College Excellence (ACE) Act, legislation that would prohibit accreditors from requiring the colleges they accredit to meet any political litmus tests, such as requiring adherence to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) standards, as a condition of accreditation. Additionally, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and colleagues recently introduced the Fairness in Higher Education Accreditation Act, legislation that would keep higher education accreditors from including DEI and affirmative action policies as accreditation criteria.

As part of our ongoing legislative efforts, ACCJC has been working with members of Congress and Congressional staff to tell the stories of how our institutions continue to provide outstanding, high-quality, affordable, and accessible education. Moreover, our newly adopted 2024 Standards of Accreditation reflect the diversity of ACCJC member institutions and the Commission remains committed to producing effective policies, procedures and institutional review in support of equitable student success for all.

In addition to ongoing advocacy efforts in Washington, DC., President Powell participated in a panel at the 2023 CHEA Annual Conference entitled “How Does Accreditation Address and Advance Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”. The panelists included Belle Wheelan (President of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges) and Sonny Ramaswamy (President of the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities). The conversation highlighted the ways in which institutional transformation can support the closure of equity gaps, and the role that accreditors play in the process of self-reflection and continuous quality improvement. ACCJC’s advocacy for equity, through its Policy on Social Justice, and through its ongoing revision of its standards and practices to reinforce the need for quality education for all students (regardless of race, ethnicity, or background) was highlighted, as were institutional practices within the region that are creating space for change.

President Powell visited Capitol Hill and the United States Department of Education and met with Senior Department Officials and congressional staff to discuss regulatory and legislative changes anticipated in the next legislative cycle. President Powell was joined by the presidents of the Council of Regional Accrediting Agencies (C-RAC) and ACCJC’s lobbyists from Penn Hill Group. Topics included student loan forgiveness, institutional accountability, the use of data in accreditation decisions, and the prospects of negotiated rule making for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in the 2023 Congress.

The Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement (CLDE) Coalition was formed by five national organizations, the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), Campus Compact, Complete College America (CCA), College Promise, and State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO), to bring together educational and policy leaders with the goal of making students’ Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement expected, inclusive, and “equity-committed.”

The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) recently signed on to the CLDE shared commitment statement to demonstrate its support of and commitment to civic learning and democracy engagement in higher education.

Signatories of the shared statement commit to:

  1. Affirm the civic mission of postsecondary education and take vigorous action to help higher education fulfill that mission;

  2. Showcase examples in our community of civic engagement and democracy learning at scale – involving all students and especially students from communities that have been chronically underserved in U.S. society;

  3. Engage public and policy leaders with the importance of higher education’s civic mission and the need to advance equity-committed civic learning in college;

  4. Support and align with educational reforms in P-12 civics and history that also are moving forward in U.S. states, communities, and schools;

  5. Work in our own contexts to provide high quality civic learning for students, including: connections between curricular and experiential learning; opportunities to work on significant public problems; practice in constructively engaging views different from one’s own; and disaggregated evidence about what works and what needs improvement in students’ experience of democracy learning;

  6. Provide leaders and educators the support needed to deepen civic learning and democracy engagement in their own contexts; to make equitable participation a documented achievement; and to work toward a common goal of creating a high quality, civic-oriented postsecondary education for all U.S. students.

For more information, check out https://collegeciviclearning.org/sharedcommitment.

Each year the U.S. Department of Education facilitates a Negotiated Rulemaking (Neg Reg) process to make regulatory changes for the Federal Student Aid programs authorized by Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended. For 2021-2022, the department established committees of negotiators for Affordability and Student Loans, Pell Grants for Prison Education Programs, and Institutional and Programmatic Eligibility to conduct the Neg Reg work.

ACCJC, in collaboration with the other six institutional accreditors, is monitoring and contributing to the Neg Reg process through our membership in the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions (C-RAC). This spring, Jamienne S. Studley, C-RAC vice chair and president of the WASC Senior College and University Commission, is serving as a primary negotiator representing accrediting agencies on the Institutional and Programmatic Eligibility Committee. The committee began its work in January and will meet for a total of three sessions in 2022: January 18-21, February 14-18, and March 14-18. The committee will address:

  • 90/10 under 34 CFR 668.28;

  • Ability to benefit under 34 CFR 668.156;

  • Certification procedures for participation in title IV, HEA programs under 34 CFR 668.13;

  • Change of ownership and change in control of institutions of higher education under 34 CFR 600.31;

  • Financial responsibility for participating institutions of higher education under 34 CFR 668.15 and 34 CFR part 668, subpart L, such as events that indicate heightened financial risk;

  • Gainful employment (formerly located in 34 CFR part 668, subpart Q); and

  • Standards of administrative capability under 34 CFR 668.16.


Meetings are open to the public and will be live streamed. As part of the process, the committee reserves time for public comment. ACCJC looks forward to engaging in the process.

To learn more and to register to attend the next session, click here.