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Enrolment Contracts

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To conduct our research on restrictive provisions that colleges impose on students, we needed to collect copies of the contracts that students sign when they enroll at a college. Very quickly our research hit a snag. If we could find an enrollment contract used by an institution, then we could, from that document, make a determination about the use of the four types of restrictive provisions. The problem was that at most traditional nonprofit and public institutions, college representatives had no idea what we meant when we asked for their “enrollment contract” or their “enrollment agreement.” While all of the for-profit institutions in our sample used enrollment contracts, none of the public institutions did. (Ten of the thirty-four nonprofit …show more content…

The original impetus seems to have been consumer protection. We found a number of states that require private postsecondary schools to provide students with a contract that indicates the name and duration of the educational program the student is signing up for, the costs, and the refund policy. Several states include an additional disclosure informing the student that the program does not guarantee employment. Some include a cancellation process for students who change their mind, such as Texas (three days) and California (seven days). The Illinois contract prohibits students from being charged for, or being required to commit to, more than one term at a time. In addition, most or all of the agencies that accredit, primarily, for-profit institutions (the “national” accreditors) require colleges to use enrollment contracts, with consumer protection as the purported …show more content…

Department of Education should prohibit the use of pre-dispute arbitration requirements and class action bans in enrolling students in institutions that receive federal aid. The U.S. Department of Education has the authority to take action and should do so without delay.13 Accrediting agencies should consider restrictive clauses in enrollment contracts to be indicators that an institution lacks the integrity to qualify as an accredited institution. State agencies that collect schools’ enrollment contracts should make those contracts publicly available electronically so that they can be used by law enforcement to identify potentially predatory schools, and to can be analyzed by consumer protection experts. When students choose a college, they have every reason to believe that the college is on their side, leading them to academic success and a bright future. A college that takes advantage of students at that optimistic moment, requiring them to sign away their rights, does not deserve taxpayer support. Appendix:

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