Education Department Moves To Break Up Accreditor Power With New Proposed Rule

The U.S. Department of Education released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on August 19, 2026 that would rewrite the rules governing how college accreditors are recognized. Accreditors are the private organizations that decide which schools can access federal student aid.The proposal has a 30-day comment window, half the 60 days the Department often allows, which puts the deadline around late September. If you’ve followed how Education Department rulemaking works, you’ll notice the compressed timeline as a signal the Department wants this finished fast.The urgency is because this rule is one of the last regulatory puzzle pieces designed to reign in college costs. Accreditors act as gatekeepers to more than $100 billion a year in Pell Grants and federal student loans. Under Secretary Nicholas Kent framed the proposal as a correction for a system that has “contributed to inflated tuition, administrative bloat, and ideology-driven mandates on college campuses.”