New Guidance Released for Colleges and Third-Party Servicers
Katherine Knott
January 16, 2025
Colleges are responsible for any “false, misleading, or inaccurate information” that their contractors provide to students, the Education Department said Wednesday.
The department has sought for nearly two years to increase its oversight of the outside contractors that colleges and universities use to help run online programs and to bring more transparency to the sector. Of particular concern to the department and consumer protection advocates is that the companies, known as online program managers, run online classes on behalf of a university. Critics say that setup misleads students into thinking they are taking a class with the college as opposed to an outside company.
The guidance document known as a Dear Colleague letter outlines three statements that would violate federal rules that prohibit a college from misrepresenting to students the nature of its education programs, the cost or the employability of graduates. The cited examples include identifying an employee of the OPM as a university employee and presenting an OPM recruiter as an academic adviser.
