Private postsecondary education: School Performance Fact Sheets.

Existing law, the California Private Postsecondary Education Act of 2009, provides, among other things, for regulatory oversight of private postsecondary schools in the state. The act is enforced by the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education within the Department of Consumer Affairs. The act exempts specified institutions, including certain law schools, from all, or a portion, of its provisions. The act requires an institution to provide a prospective student prior to enrollment with a School Performance Fact Sheet, which is required to contain specified information relating to the educational program. The act requires an institution that maintains an Internet Web site to provide, on that Internet Web site, specified information, including a School Performance Fact Sheet for each educational program offered by the institution. The act authorizes an institution exempt from all or part of the act pursuant to specified provisions to apply to the bureau for an approval to operate subject to the act, as specified. The act requires these institutions to provide to prospective students the School Performance Fact Sheet, to file that fact sheet with the bureau, and to post it on the institution's Internet Web site no later than the first August 1 after the institution is approved to operate and no later than August 1 of each year thereafter. This bill would provide a law school otherwise exempt from the act that applies to the bureau for an approval to operate subject to the act and that meets other specified criteria with an alternate way to satisfy the requirements of the act regarding a School Performance Fact Sheet. Specifically, by complying with a specified standard of the American Bar Association relating to the disclosure of consumer information, by providing completion rates of students and 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, and by providing to prospective students, at a minimum on its Internet Web site, any additional information required to be reported on a School Performance Fact Sheet, such a law school would satisfy those requirements. The bill would require such a law school to annually provide the information to the bureau and would require the bureau to include the information on its Internet Web site. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.