Background
Florida sued the Secretary of Education challenging the constitutionality of the Higher Education Act’s requirement that colleges and universities be accredited by a recognized private accreditor to qualify for federal Title IV student financial aid (Pell Grants, Direct Loans, and similar programs totaling billions of dollars annually). Accreditors are private, voluntary organizations historically funded by member institutions—a system in place since at least the 1952 GI Bill.
Florida’s challenge arose from its frustrations with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACS), which had threatened to revoke accreditation based on concerns about state officials’ involvement in university governance decisions. In 2019, the Department of Education amended regulations to allow institutions to switch accreditors outside their geographic region. Florida then legislated that its public colleges and universities could switch to an accreditor approved by the Florida Board of Governors.
Florida brought four constitutional claims: (1) the accreditation requirement improperly delegates government power to private entities under the nondelegation doctrine; (2) accreditors must be appointed as federal officers under the Appointments Clause; (3) the requirement is an unascertainable, and thus unconstitutional, condition on federal funds under the Spending Clause; and (4) violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (later abandoned). The district court granted the Department’s motion to dismiss.
The Court’s Holding
The Eleventh Circuit affirmed dismissal on all claims. The court held that private accreditors do not exercise government authority and therefore the government’s reliance on accreditation neither violates the nondelegation doctrine nor triggers the Appointments Clause. Accreditors’ power to accredit comes from voluntary institutional membership, not federal delegation. Though accreditation affects eligibility for federal funds, accreditors make private decisions to accredit while the government retains ultimate authority to fund or defund institutions. The court noted accreditors’ standards apply only to member institutions (not generally), they perform no classic government functions like rulemaking, adjudication, or discovery enforcement, and they preexisted the Higher Education Act, so they do not occupy an office “established by Law.”
On the Spending Clause claim, the court held that the accreditation requirement is ascertainable. Congress need not prospectively resolve every ambiguity in how conditions apply; it must only make the condition itself—here, accreditation by a recognized accreditor—explicitly obvious. Accreditation is a well-understood system over a century old, institutions know whether they are accredited, and the condition does not encumber a state’s entire budget. The court distinguished Morrisey’s holding that an American Rescue Plan offset provision was unascertainably vague because it lacked a baseline, employed infinitely expansive “directly or indirectly” language, and was a novel restriction on state-wide revenue.
Key Takeaways
- Private accreditors do not exercise government authority: their accreditation decisions are private functions grounded in institutional membership, not federal delegation.
- Congress may condition federal funds on private certification when a reasonable connection exists between the private entity’s decision and the government’s determination.
- Ascertainability under the Spending Clause requires only that the condition itself be unambiguous; Congress need not resolve every application or ambiguity in advance.
- A funding condition need not be novel or specifically enacted to be ascertainable; well-established systems like accreditation satisfy the requirement.
Why It Matters
This decision validates over seven decades of federal reliance on private accreditors as gatekeepers for Title IV eligibility, affecting billions in annual student aid. By rejecting Florida’s nondelegation and Appointments Clause theories, the court preserves Congress’s broad discretion to delegate fact-finding or quality assessment to private organizations as a condition of federal funding. The ruling also clarifies that the Spending Clause’s ascertainability requirement does not demand legislative precision in every application—only transparency in the condition itself.
The decision has broader implications beyond higher education: it permits federal agencies to condition benefits on private standards, licensing, or certifications across professional licensure, healthcare accreditation, and other fields. However, Florida retains non-constitutional avenues to challenge accreditors, such as seeking regulatory change, persuading Congress to reform the accreditation framework, or negotiating with accreditors directly. The ruling also leaves open whether accreditors might be subject to administrative law constraints or other statutory obligations, even if they are not government actors.