BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 834
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 834 (Williams)
As Amended May 12, 2014
2/3 vote. Urgency
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|ASSEMBLY: | |(May 24, 2013) |SENATE: |34-0 |(June 19, |
| | | | | |2014) |
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(vote not relevant)
Original Committee Reference: NAT. RES.
SUMMARY : Authorizes a law school accredited by the American Bar
Association, and owned by an institution operating under the
Bureau of Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) within the
Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA), to satisfy the disclosure
requirements of the School Performance Fact Sheet (SPFS) through
alternative means.
The Senate amendments delete the Assembly version of this bill,
and instead:
1)Authorize a law school to satisfy the SPFS disclosure through
alternative means if the law school meets all of the following
requirements:
a) Accredited by the Council of the Section of Legal
Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar
Association (ABA);
b) Owned by an institution authorized to operate by the
BPPE;
c) Reports graduate salary information and other
information to the National Association for Law Placement
(NALP); and,
d) Approved to operate by the BPPE.
2)Require disclosures per the alternative SPFS to students
pursuant to all of the following:
a) The law school must comply with disclosure requirements
of Standard 509 of the ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure
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for Approval of Law Schools;
b) The law school must provide completion rates, placement
rates, bar passage rates, and salary and wage information
of graduates to prospective students prior to enrollment
through the law school application process administered by
the Law School Admission Council (LSAC);
c) The law school must provide to prospective students any
additional information required to be reported on the SPFS
that is not reported pursuant to the aforementioned,
including, but not limited to, the most recent three-year
cohort default rate (disaggregated) reported by the United
States Department of Education (USDE) for the law school
and the percentage of enrolled students receiving federal
student loans; and
d) The law school must provide the information to
prospective students by clearly posting the information in
a conspicuous location on the law school's Internet Web
site; and must annually provide the information to the
BPPE.
EXISTING LAW requires institutions approved by the BPPE to
provide prospective students a SPFS that contains specified
information, including: completion rates; placement rates;
license examination passage rates; salary and wage information;
a description of how this information is calculated; a statement
as to where a reader can obtain a list of employment positions
and salary sources; specified statements; and, if the
institution participates in federal financial aid programs, the
institutions cohort default rate and percentage of enrolled
students receiving federal loans.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill would have expanded the
California Energy Commission's administrative civil penalty
enforcement authority to include energy efficiency and water
efficiency standards for buildings.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.
COMMENTS : The USDE requirement that an institution have "state
authorization" in order to be eligible for Title IV federal
student financial aid is prompting at least one law school in
California, currently exempt from BPPE approval, to seek BPPE
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approval to maintain Title IV eligibility. As a result, that
school will be subject to the SPFS requirements. The SPFS was
designed to ensure that prospective students could make informed
decisions when enrolling in an institution; by requiring every
BPPE-approved institution to provide similarly calculated data
in an established format, students would be able to make
apples-to-apples comparisons of educational program outcomes.
This bill is designed to address an unanticipated problem for
Western State College of Law at Argosy University, owned by the
Education Management Corporation (EDMC), and ensure that
students attending this institution do not receive duplicative
and potentially conflicting data regarding enrollment and
outcomes, simply because the institution is no longer exempt
like all other law schools. According to the author, the SPFS
requirements would require different calculations than those
established by the ABA and NALP and would ultimately provide
less data to students than they are already provided through the
LSAC application process.
Under ABA Standard 509, ABA accredited law schools are required
to provide detailed student enrollment and graduate outcome
information to prospective students and to the general public.
Law schools also report employment and salary outcomes for
graduates to NALP. Prospective students access this data
through the law school application process administered by the
LSAC. Through the LSAC Web site, students are provided a single
point of entry to access this data in order to make comparative
analysis of the law schools to which they are considering
applying. According to the author, if Western State College of
Law becomes the only law school to seek BPPE approval, the
school would be the only law school providing students with a
Fact Sheet, potentially undermining a primary purpose of the
SPFS which is to allow students to make apples-to-apples
comparisons of institutional outcomes prior to enrollment.
Analysis Prepared by : Laura Metune / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960
FN: 0004054
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