Inside Higher Ed

Kery Murakami

June 9, 2020

A proposal expected to be ruled upon by the Education Department soon, to waive measures of institutions’ financial health for three years, would mainly help troubled for-profit colleges, according to a report released Tuesday by the progressive Center for American Progress.

In question is a controversial request for the waiver that the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and the American Council on Education made in March. The groups raised concerns that the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic would hurt the financial responsibility scores of institutions. Those that fall below a threshold would be barred from offering distance learning.

Though the associations represent nonprofit institutions, the report found that the “main immediate beneficiaries of relaxing oversight would be troubled private for-profit colleges; this move would give a free pass to colleges that were facing challenges well before the pandemic began.”

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