BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1835
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Date of Hearing: April 19, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONS
Rudy Salas, Chair
AB 1835
(Holden) - As Amended April 6, 2016
NOTE: This bill is double-referred, having been previously heard
by the Assembly Committee on Higher Education on April 5, 2016
and approved on a 13-0 vote.
SUBJECT: California Private Postsecondary Education Act of
2009: minimum operating standards: exemptions.
SUMMARY: Exempts institutions who are approved by the Bureau of
Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE), and who grant doctoral
degrees in psychoanalysis, from accreditation by an accrediting
agency recognized by the United States Department of Education
(USDE).
EXISTING LAW:
1)Establishes the BPPE with the Department of Consumer Affairs
(DCA) to oversee and regulate private postsecondary
educational institutions. (Education Code (EDC) Section
94800, et seq.)
2)Defines "accredited" to mean an institution that is accredited
by an accrediting agency recognized by the USDE. (EDC Section
94813)
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3)Defines an "accrediting agency" as an agency recognized by the
USDE. (EDC Section 94814).
4)Defines "approval to operate" or "approval" to mean the
authorization to offer to the public and to provide
postsecondary educational programs, as well as the written
document issued to an institution signifying its approval to
operate. (EDC Section 94817)
5)Requires the BPPE to adopt by regulation minimum operating
standards for an institution to ensure that the program can
achieve its objective; the facilities and instructional
equipment and material are sufficient to enable the program;
the administrators and faculty are qualified; the institution
maintain written and relevant standards for student
admissions, as well as maintains a withdrawal policy and
provides refunds; gives students a document signifying the
degree or diploma awarded; maintains records and standard
transcripts; and, is accredited by an accrediting agency or is
in the process of accreditation (EDC Section 94885)
6)Requires an unaccredited institution that is approved by the
BPPE, prior to January 1, 2015, to operate and offer degree
programs to submit an accreditation plan to the BPPE, to
obtain pre-accreditation by July 1, 2017, to obtain
accreditation by July 1, 2020, and to comply with various
student disclosure and visiting committee review requirements.
(EDC Section 94885.1)
7)Provides that an institution that has not been accredited by
an accrediting agency that seeks to offer one or more degree
programs must submit an accreditation plan to the BPPE
including documentation the BPPE deems necessary to determine
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potential for accreditation, as specified. (EDC Section
94885.5)
8)Provides for specified exemptions from the Private
Postsecondary Education Act of 2009 (Act) for specific types
of institutions, including, but not limited to, those where
oversight is already provided by other entities; among those
exemptions is an institution owned, controlled, and operated
and maintained by a religious organization lawfully operating
as a nonprofit religious corporation, as specified, whose
degrees granted must reflect the nature of the degree title.
(EDC Section 94874).
9)Provides that institutions deemed equivalent by the Medical
Board of California (MBC) who have completed clinical training
in psychoanalysis may engage in psychoanalysis as an adjunct
to teaching, training, or research and hold themselves out to
the public as psychoanalysts; students in those institutes may
engage in psychoanalysis under supervision, if the students
and graduates do not hold themselves out to the public by any
title or description of services incorporating the words
"psychological," "psychologist," "psychology,"
"psychometrists," "psychometrics," or "psychometry," or state
or imply that they are licensed to practice psychology;
requires theses students and graduates to register with the
MBC and present evidence of student or graduate status;
provides that the MBC may suspend or revoke the exemption of
those persons for unprofessional conduct, as defined.
(Business and Professions Code Section 2529)
THIS BILL:
1)Exempts institutions that grant doctoral degrees in
psychoanalysis from the provision of the Act that require
accreditation requirements if the institution satisfies all
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the following requirements:
a) The institution's students hold master's or doctoral
degrees before enrolling in the institution;
b) All of the institution's students, except as specified,
hold a professional license to practice psychotherapy that
remains valid throughout enrollment at the institution and
carry current malpractice insurance in their respective
fields;
c) The institution does not accept federal student aid;
d) The institution is a nonprofit entity; and,
e) The institution is accredited by the Accreditation
Council for Psychoanalytic Education (ACPE), or has
submitted a self-study to the ACPE, on or before July 1,
2017.
2)Provides that the exemption in number one above sunsets on
January 1, 2021 unless extended.
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown. This bill is keyed fiscal by the
Legislative Counsel.
COMMENTS:
Purpose. This bill exempts from institutions who are approved
by the BPPE and who grant doctoral degrees in psychoanalysis
from accreditation by an accrediting agency recognized by the
USDE. This bill is sponsored by The Institute of Contemporary
Psychoanalysis . According to the author, "[This bill] provides
graduate programs in psychoanalysis an exemption to the [Act] as
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there is currently no national accrediting body for the
psychoanalyst field. The original author of SB 1247, Ted Lieu,
has written a letter to clarify that the intent of his
legislation never meant to affect small not-for-profit
institutions offering extensive education in the discipline of
psychoanalysis."
Background. The BPPE is responsible for oversight of private
postsecondary educational institutions operating with a physical
presence in California. After numerous legislative attempts to
remedy the laws and structure governing regulation of private
postsecondary institutions, AB 48 (Portantino), Chapter 310,
Statutes of 2009, made many substantive changes that created a
new, solid foundation for oversight and gave the new BPPE an
array of enforcement tools to ensure schools comply with the
law.
The Act requires all unaccredited colleges in California to be
approved by BPPE, and all nationally accredited colleges to
comply with numerous student protections. The Act requires
disclosure of critical information to students such as program
outlines, graduation and job placement rates, and license
examination information, and ensures colleges justify those
figures. AB 48 contained numerous exemptions to state-level
oversight, the most notable of which is an exemption from BPPE
authority and regulation under the Act granted to for-profit and
nonprofit regionally accredited institutions. Students
attending institutions that are accredited by a regional
accrediting agency other than the Western Association of Schools
and Colleges (WASC), which is one of the six regional
accrediting bodies recognized by the USDE, are currently
eligible for very limited tuition recovery assistance in the
event of a school closure, but are not eligible for any other
consumer protections provided under the Act.
Requiring Accreditation. The BPPE noted in its response to the
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2013 Sunset Review Background Paper prepared by the Senate
Committee on Business, Professions and Economic Development
staff that "requiring accreditation would provide a much higher
level of consumer protection to students in the state and ensure
that California students would have the option of applying for
federal financial aid. Additionally, by requiring accreditation
for approval to operate in California, the state will save money
by not forcing the [BPPE] to act in the place of an accrediting
body for unaccredited institutions."
At the time of the 2013 Sunset Review Hearings, the BPPE
highlighted that California is one of few states to continue to
allow unaccredited degree granting programs, with approximately
140 approved institutions offering unaccredited degrees. The
BPPE noted that it was working to evaluate the approvals granted
to unaccredited schools offering degrees and that the end result
of the BPPE's analysis often leads to denial upon renewal or
approval revocation. The BPPE stated in 2014 that "requiring
accreditation for approval to operate would allow the BPPE to
focus on its mandate of consumer protection, while relying on
academic experts approved by USDE to evaluate academic
programs."
In response to these concerns, and as a means of better serving
students while aiming to decrease the BPPE's significant
workload associated with reviewing unaccredited degree granting
institutions, SB 1247 (Lieu), Chapter 840, Statutes of 2014
amended the Act to require that all degree granting programs be
accredited, unless they meet at least one of the specified
exemptions in the EDC.
According to a letter to the BPPE from former Senator, and now
Congressman, Ted Lieu, who authored SB 1247, "the purpose and
design [of SB 1247] was never intended to apply to an
institution such as the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis
(ICP)." The letter goes on to say "ICP's standards for training
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far exceed the usual organizations accredited by the BPPE. ? In
contrast [to conventional educational settings], ICP's admission
requirements differ markedly - it requires proof of a terminal
degree in the particular setting (e.g. Ph.D., Psy.D, MFT, LCSW,
MD), including official school transcripts, and licensure prior
to admission, something that distinguishes programs at ICP from
many other degree granting institutions."
Psychoanalytic studies. According to the ACPE, "psychoanalysis
is a specific form of individual psychotherapy that aims to
bring unconscious mental elements and processes into awareness
in order to expand an individual's self-understanding, enhance
adaptation in multiple spheres of functioning, alleviate
symptoms of mental disorders and facilitate character change and
emotional growth."
According to the author, "Beginning in the 1990s, the field of
psychoanalysis began to develop within the mental health
community. Several non-profit educational institutions were
established to provide medical professional post-graduate,
continuing education training in the emerging field. Because of
the relatively small nature of the training programs and their
status as providers of continuing education, there is no
national accreditation body for these programs."
In 1991, both the BPPE and the MBC approved psychoanalysis
training programs as valid postsecondary, graduate training
programs for licensed professionals in mental health services.
According to the author, these accreditations have never been
contested and remained valid until the 2014 reforms enacted by
SB 1247.
SB 1247 required institutions to seek accreditation from a
USDE-recognized accrediting agency, or if no programmatic
accreditation is available, to seek regional accreditation by
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the WASC Senior College and University Commission, which is a
lengthy and costly process that exceeds the resources of these
small, non-profit psychoanalysis programs. This bill, instead,
requires institutions to seek accreditation from ACPE by July 1,
2017. It should be noted that ACPE is not a USDE recognized
accrediting agency, nor is it clear if ACPE is seeking
recognition by the USDE. If these psychoanalytic programs are
not exempted as a result of this bill, or ACPE does not obtain
USDE recognition by the sunset date implemented by this bill,
the psychoanalytic programs will have to close.
BPPE Sunset Review. The issue of unaccredited degree granting
programs is raised in the BPPE 2015 Sunset Review Report,
prepared by the Senate Committee on Business, Professions and
Economic Development and the Assembly Committee on Business and
Professions (Committees). The report notes that many
unaccredited degree-granting institutions have contacted the
Committees, citing opposition to the requirement to obtain
accreditation. The author may wish to raise this issue through
the 2016 Sunset Review process.
Current Related Legislation. SB 1192 (Hill) of the current
legislative session addresses several issues, including the
effects of SB 1247 on institutions under the jurisdiction of the
BPPE, raised during the sunset hearing for BPPE on March 28,
2016. NOTE: This bill is pending in the Senate Committee on
Education.
Prior Related Legislation. SB 1247 (Lieu), Chapter 840, Statutes
of 2014 amended the Act by requiring accreditation for
degree-granting institutions and changing statutory eligibility
requirements for the Student Tuition Recovery Fund (Fund), among
other things.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT:
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The Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis writes in support,
"Without [this bill], ICP would be unable to confer the degree
of Doctor of Psychoanalysis, which we have been doing at the
behest of the California Department of Education in the course
of their site visit at our inception in 1991. Our candidates
are requires, in order to graduate, to write a thesis that makes
a significant contribution to the field of psychoanalysis.
These articles are often published in national and international
journals. They benefit the patient population and the
professional sphere through adding to the body of knowledge
about the human mind and in the ways in which it can be
traumatized and then treated successfully."
The Psychoanalytic Center of California writes in support,
"[This bill] address the [BPPE]'s decision to broadly apply
regulatory and target institutions outside the scope of the 2014
reforms to the [Act] by providing a narrow exception for
graduate institutions that exclusively provide education to
licensed professionals, already holding a masters or doctoral
degree, and that accept no federal student aid. This narrowly
crafted measure provides these institutions the flexibility to
develop curriculum while protecting younger students from costly
diploma mills."
The Newport Center for Psychoanalytic Studies (NPI) writes in
support, "Institutions like NPI face a fundamentally impossible
task in obtaining [USDE] sanctioned accreditation, despite the
unquestioned legitimacy of the education we provide. All of our
candidate students are already licensed practitioners, and the
do not have a vocational outcome. Because NPI offers graduate
degrees at the doctoral level, they are also beyond the scope of
the national accreditors. The regional accreditors also do not
offer a practically available route to accreditations. Tiny
non-profit institutions like NPI cannot afford or implement the
large, expensive bureaucratic structures and processes required
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to prosecute let alone obtain regional accreditation.
Additionally, our student cohorts are too small for regional
accreditation consideration."
The Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies
(LAISPS) writes in support, "[As the BPPE] adopted regulations
to implement the 2014 reforms, the [BPPE] has broadly applied
[SB 1247] to specialized graduate programs for professionals,
requiring these programs to undergo the expensive and lengthy
accreditation required for large undergraduate research
universities. ? Although LAISPS has already applied for and
received an Exemption from the BPPE, we strongly support [this
bill]."
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION:
None on file.
IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES:
The process of obtaining accreditation from the ACPE may require
more time than the six months this bill allocates. The author
should amend the bill to allow these psychoanalysis programs
more time to become accredited.
AMENDMENTS:
To address the implementation consideration above, the author
should amend the bill as follows:
(5) The institution has obtained accreditation from,
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or has submitted a self-study application to, the
Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education
on or before July 1, 2017. 2018.
REGISTERED SUPPORT:
Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis (sponsor)
Psychoanalytic Center of California
The Newport Center for Psychoanalytic Studies
The Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies
REGISTERED OPPOSITION:
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:Gabby Nepomuceno / B. & P. / (916) 319-3301
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