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During the Trump 2.0 Administration, the federal moves mostly targeting elite universities dominate the news cycles, but increasingly state level actions will help define future higher education moves, particularly relating to finances.
Republicans Drive OPM Crackdown . . . Say What?
Two weeks ago I described House Bill 96 in Ohio, noting that it combines OPM oversight with third party servicer (TPS) expansion to a new level.
It is clear that Ohio got burned by Eastern Gateway Community College scandal where they contracted with a questionable OPM and offered a legally-dubious free tuition program. After peaking with 30,000+ students, EGCC collapsed and then closed. To be fair, this is an example of quickly-scaling online programs needing oversight.
However, the HB 96 proposed legislation takes a TPS-style give me all your contracts and I approve everything approach that characterized so much of the Biden Admin ED efforts. If the language had stated “OPM with authority over …”, that would be one thing. But the language says OPM with “input on or authority over”. This essentially states that the chancellor controls everything, and requires pre-approval for everything, related to OPMs.
This rule encompasses all institution types authorized in Ohio (not just public schools as in the Minnesota OPM-restricting law) and all OPM business models (there is nothing restricting these rules to tuition revenue-sharing).
Well, the update is that House Bill 96 passed the Ohio house on April 9th and is now being taken up by the Ohio senate, with the OPM section in tact.
What you probably didn’t expect is that this bill is exclusively driven by Republicans. All 60 Yeas were Republican, and 34 out of 39 Nays were Democrat.
