The Trump administration has finished rewriting the rules for who decides whether a college is good enough to receive federal student aid, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) says Black students will feel it first.
The Education Department published its final accreditation rule at the end of October, and it takes effect July 1, 2027. Accreditors, the private bodies whose approval unlocks federal aid, may no longer enforce what the administration calls “illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements.” They must also check whether colleges protect “intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas amongst faculty.” The department says accreditors do not need formal policies on these topics, but must “consider relevant institutional policies and practices in the context of its existing standards.”
The department received more than 7,000 public comments urging substantive changes, according to Inside Higher Ed. It made “no substantive changes” to the draft it released in August.
What the LDF says is at stake
The LDF, which opposed the draft in August, argues the rule hits Black students in two ways. It says the rule would create barriers for colleges that run support services for Black students and other students of color. It also says weaker standards would leave Black borrowers more exposed to predatory programs, because the rule lowers the requirements for new accreditors and makes it easier for inexperienced ones to gain access to federal aid.
“The Administration is seeking to turn accreditation into another tool that it can use to punish institutions and organizations with which it disagrees,” said Ray Li, the LDF’s policy counsel.
The rule also lets colleges switch accreditors far more easily, including colleges whose accreditor recently disciplined them.
Nicholas Kent, the department’s top higher education official, defends the change: “For too long, accreditors have effectively served as a cartel to protect their interests, rather than the educational value that institutions of higher education are expected to deliver for students.”
The Council for Higher Education Accreditation, which represents the field, said “many of the central concerns raised by CHEA and the higher education community remain largely unresolved.” Mike Gavin of the Alliance for Higher Education warned the administration would “weaponize” the rule to control what colleges teach.
Kent’s cartel complaint is not baseless, and accreditors have their critics on the left too. But the answer to a closed club is not to hand its keys to an administration that wants accreditors policing diversity programs while it lowers the bar for new accreditors. If the LDF is right, the students who lose are the ones those programs were built for.
Colleges have until July 1, 2027, to adjust. Expect the first fights over what counts as an “illegal” requirement long before then.
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