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The Biden administration appears set to release new guidance on third-party contractors in higher ed, just a few months before leaving office.
The move would supersede a 2011 Dear Colleague letter that has governed federal oversight of companies that offer a package of services such as marketing, recruitment, course materials and curriculum development.
Putting forward the bundled services guidance would land one more blow to online program managers and recruiters after a year of mounting regulatory headwinds and declining interest from institutions. And it could signal a return to the Biden administration’s broader plan to regulate OPMs, which the department put on ice when it withdrew guidance expanding the definition of third-party servicers after facing backlash for its broad scope.
In a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, Republican chair of the House education committee, excoriated the Biden administration for its “last ditch efforts” to push through guidance she said would “disrupt current educational delivery” and leave institutions scrambling to comply.
“Eliminating or revising the guidance now would obliterate a decades old, foundational principle of public-private ed tech partnerships that has worked,” she wrote. “Such a change would ignore hundreds of comments that you received in March 2023 from colleges and students testifying to the benefit received from services provided by third-party online program managers.”
