California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education


The California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education is a unit of the California Department of Consumer Affairs charged with regulation of private postsecondary educational institutions operating in the state of California.
The BPPE is not an accrediting agency. Its primary purpose is to prevent fraudulent diploma mills. Institutions that are approved to operate in California by the Bureau still need to separately obtain educational accreditation from national or regional accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education for its students to qualify for federal financial aid, such as Pell Grants.

Purpose

The primary mission is to protect students against fraud and misrepresentation, to establish minimum standards for financial and ethical business practices, and to enforce minimum standards for instructional quality for students.
California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education is not an accreditor, but rather approves post-secondary schools to operate in the state that meet "minimum standards established by the Bureau for integrity, financial stability, and educational quality." It conducts announced and unannounced compliance inspections, and investigates complaints about fraud.

History

Private colleges were previously regulated very loosely by the California Department of Education, and in the 1980s, the state was considered the "diploma mill capital of the world". Reforms, including the Maxine Waters School Reform and Student Protection Act were implemented during the late 1980s and 1990s. These laws created the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education. The laws authorizing these reforms expired without immediate replacement, and from the start of 2007 until the end of 2009, California did not have any agency regulating private schools.
The Private Postsecondary Education Act of 2009, which was signed into law on October 11, 2009, created the BPPE as part of the Department of Consumer Affairs to regulate private postsecondary educational institutions operating in California. The BPPE began operation on January 1, 2010.