Western Association of Schools and Colleges

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chair of the House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training, has introduced a bill (H.R.

On May 5, 2011, Ralph Wolff gave the keynote address at the annual meeting of the Hawaii Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.  A copy of the powerpoint slides from his presentation - "The World of WASC and Accreditation - Now and for 2012-2020" is available here below. 

On April 26, 2011, WASC joined more than 60 other organizations as a signatory on two letters from the American Council of Education to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate education committees. 

In these letters, ACE requested "assistance in blocking two regulations issued as part of the Department of Education’s Oct. 29, 2010, final program integrity rule: (1) the regulation creating a federal definition of credit hour in Section 600.2; and (2) the state authorization and related distance education requirements in Section 600.9."

The Department of Education issued a new Dear Colleague letter on April 20 which gives institutions until July 1, 2014 to come into compliance with the State Authorization regulations for distance education programs, "so long as the institution is making good faith efforts to identify and obtain necessary State authorizations before that date."  The letter then gives examples of what would be considered acceptable evidence of "good faith effort."

On April 18, Ralph Wolff, President of WASC, hosted a webinar presentation on the new federal regulations on the credit hour and state authorization.  A recording of this webinar is available at:  https://cc.readytalk.com/play?id=dfyuco. Handouts distributed prior to the webinar may be downloaded by clicking on the links below:

A copy of President Wolff's letter to the WASC region regarding the GAO report and Senate hearings on fraud and abuse within the for-profit higher education sector (Aug. 16, 2010) may be downloaded from the link here below.

WASC's Response to the Dept. of Education Notice of Proposed Rule Making (Aug. 2, 2010) is available at the link below.

The American Council on Education community letter regarding the Department of Education's Proposed Rule Making (Aug. 2, 2010) may be downloaded here below.