Report on Institutional Eligibility.

The federal government has traditionally relied on a variety of private accrediting bodies and state chartering and licensing authorities for determining eligibility and exercising direct supervision and consumer protection in education. As Federal financial assistance directly to students has expanded (3 million students received $6.4 million in 1974), the diffuse and uneven system of approval and control of educational insitutions, programs, and student financial aid by "voluntary" agencies has become confused and overburdened. As an aid to legislators, the Eligibility Task Force of the Postsecondary Education Convening Authority synthesized numerous recent studies and dialogues in the field of eligibility and accreditation. This was done to define key terms, sort out the interests of the various parties involved, delineate the current issues, offer conceptual models of alternative eligibility systems, and summarize some proposed solutions, including revisions based on the present system, which places heavy reliance for determining institutional eligibility on private accrediting associations. This also includes plans to separate eligibility judgments from accreditation. Appendices to this summary of the Task Force findings include principal participants in the present eligibility system, a review of statistics pertaining to the Guaranteed Student Loan Program (GSLB) and the Basic Opportunity Grant Program (BOGS), and a list of issues discussed at the U.S. Office of Education National Invitational Conference on Institutional Eligibility. (JT)