Provisional to full accreditation timeline

[petomed]

If a school was given provisional status when in-taking their first class of students in 2016, when is the earliest month and year which they can acquire full accreditation? I ask from the standpoint of students being able to acquire federal loans.

In this example, would incoming students of 2020 and beyond be able to acquire federal loans?

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[wysdoc]

If a school was given provisional status when in-taking their first class of students in 2016, when is the earliest month and year which they can acquire full accreditation? I ask from the standpoint of students being able to acquire federal loans.

In this example, would incoming students of 2020 and beyond be able to acquire federal loans?

Most schools are already allowed to offer their students federal loans while in the accreditation pipeline.
The 3 stages of accreditation are preliminary, then provisional (usually 2 years after the school enrolls its first cohort) and then full accreditation which can happen only as the first class graduates (4 years).

 

[Med Ed]

If a school was given provisional status when in-taking their first class of students in 2016, when is the earliest month and year which they can acquire full accreditation? I ask from the standpoint of students being able to acquire federal loans.

In this example, would incoming students of 2020 and beyond be able to acquire federal loans?

Agree with @wysdoc that access to federal loans is not dependent on accreditation. Well, other than preliminary accreditation, which you need to be open in the first place.

In order to become part of the federal loan system, an institution must operate an educational program for some minimum period (I believe it's 2 years) and then complete the requisite application. Once approved, the institution is now inside the system, and new programs that emerge in subsequent years have "built in'' access to federal loans.

For example, if a company starts a new pharmacy school from scratch, its students would not be immediately eligible for federal loans. After operating for the minimum period of time, the company could obtain access to the federal loan system. Later on, if the company then started a medical school, those students would have access fo federal loans right from the beginning.

The expected timeline for a new school is 2 years between preliminary and provisional accreditation, and 2 years between provisional and full. But plenty of schools take longer.