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The Trump administration is finalizing a federal rule that will overhaul accreditation, a designation colleges must earn to be eligible for federal financial aid. These include student loans and Pell Grants. Most colleges rely on a slice of this $120 billion funding pie to stay in business. 

However, the U.S. Department of Education’s accreditation plan is inappropriately sprawling. It would alter far more than, for instance, what policies accreditors would need to follow to become gatekeepers of federal financial aid. 

Trump administration officials have written a regulation that would foist mandates on accreditors they are ill-equipped to handle, like verifying that colleges are complying with civil rights laws and the First Amendment. 

It is also a plan that smacks of authoritarianism and would inappropriately broaden federal influence over academic governance. Colleges would need to create policies that ensure and measure “intellectual diversity,” which accreditors would confirm. It is, in essence, the federal government intruding into who is teaching, and what is being taught, on American campuses. 

The Education Department finished large portions of its proposal during a process called negotiated rulemaking, where parties affected by regulatory change come together to hash out the rule’s details. This occurred in sessions in April and May, though the Education Department has yet to publish the text negotiators voted on.

Below, we recap where the department left critical issues in its draft rule:

Accreditation Switching

The Education Department is seeking to demolish roadblocks for colleges that want to switch which accreditor oversees them. Historically, some colleges have tried to jump from an accreditor to evade sanctions. 

The department’s plan would facilitate exactly that. It would essentially allow for colleges to automatically switch accreditors, so long as they provided proper materials to the Education Department. 

The education secretary would be able to block the change if it was discovered the college was trying to circumvent laws or accreditor rules—but that’s not guaranteed. 

Trump administration officials also intend to remove a prohibition on accreditation switches for colleges whose accreditor punished them in the last 24 months. This provision formalizes and expands guidance the administration released last year, which allowed colleges to automatically move accreditors if the Education Department does not respond to their request within 30 days.

Few Barriers for New Accreditors 

The Education Department controls which accreditors become financial aid gatekeepers, a process called recognition. The standing regulation sets a defined timeline for the amount of experience an agency must have before being granted recognition—accreditors must accredit at least one college or program and carry out other typical duties for two years before applying. 

This waiting period gives the department an opportunity to observe whether an accreditor can consistently apply its standards before conferring it gatekeeper authority over federal aid.

But the Trump accreditation plan would axe that two-year requirement. Instead, an aspirant accreditor would only need to establish their standards and operating procedures before applying for recognition. A would-be accreditor would also need to accredit at least one college or program before being granted recognition, but for an unspecified amount of time. 

The lower barriers for recognition invite laissez faire or otherwise low-quality accreditors to gain entry to the field. This isn’t theoretical. Officials from predatory for-profit colleges or the accreditors who oversaw them have already set the stage for recognition. 

Mandated Enforcement of First Amendment, Free Speech Policies

Accreditors would need to verify colleges are complying either with the First Amendment, or individual free speech policies, depending on whether they are public, or private, respectively, under the draft rule.

But public institutions are already legally bound by the First Amendment, while private institutions are subject to their own contractual and policy commitments regarding speech. The proposal would require accreditors to make judgments in an area typically handled by courts or other regulators. Accreditors don’t have the expertise or resources to adequately check whether every college in their purview has properly followed free speech laws and policies. 

Pushing accreditors to evaluate adherence with such laws also creates opportunities for politicization. Elected officials or other political actors with ideological agendas could point to this requirement to argue that colleges are failing to protect speech whenever institutions do not align with their own views of what constitutes sufficient free expression.

Civil Rights Issues 

The proposal would drag accreditors into the Trump administration’s crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in higher education. 

First, the draft text would forbid accreditors from requiring its colleges to maintain policies that violate civil rights law, a provision that may seem unproblematic if considered in a vacuum.  But the Education Department calls out in the proposal that it has deemed any institutional policy unlawful that gives “preferences to students, faculty, staff, contractors, or any employees based upon their race, color, national origin, or sex.” 

Colleges must also maintain policies that protect civil rights, according to the proposal. 

All of this sets the expectation that the Trump Education Department is tapping accreditors to be its DEI police.

It’s not a hypothetical—the Education Department last year already tried to publicly pressure accreditors to punish high-profile institutions for what it claims were civil rights violations, a significant overreach. 

Title IV During Appeals Processes 

When the Education Department first released its plan, it contained a provision that would have allowed the agency to continue the flow of federal aid to colleges that lost their accreditation, should it determine that an accreditor had violated its own policies.

That piece of the plan completely undermined the point of accreditation, which Congress set out as necessary to access federal aid. It would have given the Education Department power to circumvent accreditor decisions.

This part of the proposal was reworked amid criticism it would weaken the accountability system. Now, the Education Department would be able to continue federal aid to a college if that institution is appealing a decision to withdraw accreditation, such as through a court proceeding. It is not clear, though, under what circumstances the Education Department would determine federal aid should continue.

Academic Freedom Definition

The proposal would require accreditors to enforce academic freedom protections among faculty. 

The concept of academic freedom is widely supported across higher education. However, the Education Department’s language is concerning because it dictates what such a policy should look like, and how it should be enforced.  It would put accreditors in the role of enforcing policies with respect to ideology and viewpoint and would create an opportunity for the federal government to step in when it disagrees. 

Intellectual Diversity Requirement 

At the very end of negotiated rulemaking, the department added a new requirement that accreditors would need to enforce an intellectual diversity standard. 

This is essentially the government—dictating through accreditors—that colleges maintain policies to facilitate more conservative ideas on campuses. It is government overreach and presents a danger for the continued independence of American higher education. 

The plan would also demand colleges measure student and faculty opinions “on the range of viewpoints and perspectives offered by the institution or program,” but it sets out no examples of how to do so. 

Transfer of Credits 

The question of which college credits should be allowed to be transferred among institutions has long bedeviled the sector. The draft rule attempts to bring some clarity to these types of processes, and would require accreditors to check whether a college maintains a transfer of credit policy.

That policy must allow for transfer of credits from any college accredited by an Education Department-recognized accreditor, so long as the completed coursework is “comparable in content and learning outcomes.”

Students would also have 15 days to appeal any denial of credit transfer under the required institutional policy. 

Student Achievement 

One area of bipartisan agreement is that accreditors should pay closer attention to student outcomes. 

A debate over tightening expectations around what accreditors review occurred during the Biden administration. But the Trump administration’s proposal goes further, spelling out specific outcomes accreditors would have to evaluate, and how they would need to do it.

Under the draft rule, accreditors would need to set minimum benchmarks at both the institutional and program levels for metrics like graduation and completion rates, employment outcomes, earnings compared to program cost, and, where relevant, standardized assessments.

Separation from Professional Associations

The Trump administration has argued that professional associations and similar membership organizations often exert too much influence over the accreditors that oversee their respective fields. Administration officials have repeatedly , the primary accreditor for law schools, as an example, criticizing the organization for what they describe as politically driven standards and excessive overlap between the trade association and its accrediting arm.

The Education Department has proposed significantly tightening the statutory requirement that accreditors be “separate and independent” from related trade, professional, and membership organizations. 

Members of an accreditor’s decision-making body would not be able to be selected by affiliated associations, or serve as staff for those organizations. It would also force accreditors to maintain much more stringent conflict-of-interest controls, such as separating dues and finances from affiliated organizations, and developing budgets without their consultation. 

What’s Next?

The Trump administration intends for its rule to take effect next year. 

Before that occurs, the Education Department will publish its proposal for public feedback, including any changes it has added after negotiated rulemaking. That will likely happen in the next few months. 

The public should weigh in here—because while it’s unlikely to do so, the department should be paring back some of the most intrusive language in its proposal. Conservatives have long said they value limited government intervention, and this plan is clear cut overreach. If the administration is serious about easing up federal micromanagement, it should rethink a proposal that does exactly the opposite.