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House passes bill to tighten oversight of proprietary post‑secondary schools
Summary
The Utah House passed HB 132 to tighten registration and oversight of proprietary (for‑profit) post‑secondary schools, creating registration requirements, a ‘‘ability to benefit’’ standard for students, and new authority for the Board of Regents to contact accrediting agencies; sponsors said the bill targets diploma‑mill abuses.
The Utah House on the floor advanced legislation aimed at curbing so‑called “diploma mills,” approving House Bill 132 as amended after a lengthy presentation and questions from members. Sponsor Representative Proxman framed the measure as a response to national reporting and local incidents and said it gives the Board of Regents and the commissioner of higher education new tools to police marginal proprietary institutions.
“The bill establishes a certificate of registration…and requires a good faith determination that the student has the ability to benefit from the program,” Representative Proxman said, describing the measure’s central safeguards. He told colleagues that the bill also lets the Board of Regents contact national accrediting agencies about programs that raise concerns, which the transcript records as giving “the board the authority to do that.”
Supporters told lawmakers the measure targets schemes that recruit vulnerable people to enroll, obtain government‑backed student loans, and educate students in programs that do not prepare them for promised jobs. The sponsor pointed to national coverage and an ABC Primetime segment and said Utah has seen local examples, including institutions that continued recruiting even while under federal legal challenge.
HB 132 would require a significant in‑state presence as a condition of registration, bar registration of programs that award credentials not actually earned, and give the Board of Regents explicit authority to seek information from accrediting bodies. The sponsor said the bill had the support of the Board of Regents and the commissioner of higher education and that it passed unanimously out of the Education Committee.
Representative Holser and others pressed for more explicit deadlines and for clearer statutory guidance about the rules the Board would adopt under the bill. The sponsor answered that administrative rules would set timeframes and that those rules would apply equally to existing and new institutions; he said he would be open to an amendment if members wished to add an explicit deadline.
The House approved the bill as amended and referred it to the Senate for further action; the transcript reports the passage vote in the House but contains a garbled numeric tally in the floor text.
