Compliance Alert – September 2026

Final Rules

Proposed Rules

Notices

Items of Interest

  • Bipartisan group of senators introduces bill to ban legacy admissions Similar proposals have kicked around for years in Congress, but they’ve yet to become law despite sharpened public scrutiny of the practice.
  • The Heritage Foundation releases sweeping model bill to overhaul higher ed The extensive legislative proposal seeks to require colleges to maintain institutional neutrality and ban scholarships that give advantages to applicants based on race.
  • Alum launches as college-town hospitality concept, debuting in Alabama The move intends to bring luxury condo-hotels and year-round programming near campuses as hospitality players move in on college markets.
  • Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) completed a scientific assessment, which identified a set of consensus vaccines that are consistently recommended in all peer countries and found that the United States currently recommends more childhood vaccines than any peer nation, including more than twice as many vaccine doses as some European nations (scientific assessment).
  • Dual Enrollment In a dual-enrollment program, a student is enrolled in both high school and a postsecondary institution, receiving high school credit for successfully completing college coursework. FERPA provides the right to parents and eligible students to inspect and review the student’s education records, but accessing education records for dually enrolled students can be complicated.
  • Some colleges begin accepting tuition payments via Venmo The peer-to-peer payment method and its PayPal parent have forged new ties with higher education institutions, the company said last week.
  • Education Department proposes accreditation overhaul The rule would ease the way for new accreditors to form and give agencies significant new duties, including overseeing intellectual diversity policies.
  • Cassidy Eyes Final Push to Pass College Transparency Act For nearly a decade, Sen. Bill Cassidy has sought to advance legislation that would collect more information about how college students fare after they graduate. And though the effort to turn this bill into a law has consistently been an uphill climb, the senator hasn’t backed down from the fight.
  • AI Detectors Are Out, New Assessments Are In A growing number of universities have prohibited AI detectors, arguing they are ‘unreliable’ indicators of cheating. But where does that leave faculty, who know all too well that cheating is rampant in the age of AI?

Policy Updates