CHEA’s latest policy brief highlights how the federal accountability rewrite is landing at the executive level for accreditation stakeholders. CHEA notes that institutions must navigate reporting elections between the new earnings framework (including STATS or GE/FVT reporting by October 1, 2026) and the older Gainful Employment regime, with consequences for programs that fail earnings tests in both 2027 and 2028. The brief also underscores the department’s continuing work on accreditors, including graduate earnings data integration and professional degree guidance after court rulings, while implementation timelines and department capacity remain in flux. For compliance leaders, the net effect is a sharper set of deliverables tied to outcomes reporting beginning in 2026 and running through the 2027–2028 award-year calculations.