There has never been an easy year to run a Title IV institution. But the school leaders I spent time with at this year’s Career Education Convention in Cleveland are carrying more at once than I can remember — regulatory change, artificial intelligence, enrollment pressure, and the everyday work of running a school, all at the same time. That was the real story of the week, and it is worth reflecting on now that the dust from July 1 has begun to settle. 

I have been attending this convention annually for over twenty years and it is one of my favorites. The convention is one of the few places our sector comes together in full, and the range of what was on the program this year was a fair reflection of everything a career school is being asked to manage. 

Regulation is the loudest pressure, but far from the only one 

Understandably, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was on everyone’s mind. Most of its provisions took effect July 1, one week after we left Cleveland, and several of the rules that will govern how institutions comply were still unsettled during the convention. There were sessions on planning for the Department’s coming earnings accountability rule, on Workforce Pell, on accreditation reform and the negotiated rulemaking reshaping how accreditors are recognized, on challenging a cohort default rate, and on navigating Title IV risk in a shifting federal landscape — along with audit updates directly from the Department’s Office of Inspector General. Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent took the main stage, and many attendees came specifically to hear him. 

What I noticed was less about any single rule than about how the room was carrying all of it. Experienced operators are no longer waiting for the regulatory picture to resolve before they act. They are modeling their exposure across the likely outcomes, making the decisions that hold up regardless of how the open questions land, and keeping the rest under regular review. After enough regulatory cycles, you learn that this is the work — not a season that ends, but a discipline you maintain. 

Artificial intelligence has arrived on every front 

If regulation was the loudest theme, artificial intelligence was the most pervasive. It appeared across the program in ways that made clear it is no longer a future consideration. There were sessions on AI in the classroom and academic integrity, on whether institutions can trust AI in student decisions, on responsible use of the technology, on being found in an AI-driven search environment, and on what happens when a chatbot becomes a prospective student’s first point of contact with a school. 

The through-line is a hard one for most institutions. They are being asked to manage AI defensively and adopt it offensively at the same time — to protect the integrity of their programs while using the same technology to reach and enroll students. Few schools are staffed to do both comfortably, and that tension came up in conversation as often as anything happening in Washington. 

Enrollment and student outcomes remain the business 

For all the attention on policy and technology, the program kept returning to what has always defined our sector: enrolling the right students and helping them reach a good job. There were workshops on advancing the admissions profession, sessions on what adult learners actually want, on modernizing curriculum, and on designing institutional aid that supports completion. CECU also ran a workshop on advocacy — a reminder that the case for career education still has to be made, and that it is made most convincingly by the people doing the work every day. 

This is the part about this our sector that outsiders tend to miss. The compliance and financial machinery exists to serve an outcome: a graduate who is prepared and employable. The institutions that keep that outcome at the center are, in my experience, the ones that manage everything else with the most composure. 

What we contributed, and the value of being together 

We did not come to Cleveland only to observe. On Monday, Mike Wherry presented on planning and executing complex transactions — from acquisitions to public-private partnerships — with David Mohr and Jonathan Tarnow. The next morning, I moderated a session on best practices for a successful audit, alongside Parker Charlton and Callie Clark from our team and two of our clients, Tracey Abell of American College of Healthcare Sciences and Ryan Snyder of Education Evolve. 

We ask clients to present with us on purpose. Hearing an institution describe, in its own words, what makes an audit go well carries more weight than anything we can say ourselves — and it reflects how we believe the experience should feel. A well-run audit should leave you with confidence that you are in compliance, not anxiety about what might be found. 

Some of the most valuable time, as always, was spent away from the sessions, connecting with colleagues throughout the space. This includes leaders of schools, both clients and non-clients, along with other vendors and attorneys. CECU hosted an amazing  reception inside the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (as someone from Pittsburgh, I was conflicted by how cool I thought it was). Evenings like those are where relationships are built and where people speak candidly about what they are facing. I left these conversations reminded of why we choose to serve the higher education sector and no other. 

Keeping up shouldn’t feel this hard 

If there is one conclusion I took home, it is that the challenge facing career schools today is not any single rule or trend. It is the sheer number of demands competing for a leadership team’s attention, and the way compliance — OB3 in particular right now — can consume far more of that attention than it should. 

A week of conversations in Cleveland made something else clear. New regulation rarely arrives clean. It comes with nuance and ambiguity, and its meaning keeps shifting as guidance, litigation, lawmaking fill in the gaps. School leaders are expected to make confident decisions on that unsettled ground while also running admissions, instruction, enrollment, and everything else on their plate. That is an enormous amount to ask of any one team, and it is exactly where we see institutions needing help most — not simply knowing that a rule has changed, but understanding what it actually means for their programs and what to do about it. 

We came home with a real sense of obligation about the role we play. When we get the interpretation right, a school can act with confidence instead of anxiety. When we translate a dense provision into a clear next step, a leadership team gets its attention back. That is the work we take on for our clients — carrying the compliance and financial load, from audits and OB3 modeling to 90/10 and Composite Score work and transaction diligence — so your attention can go where only you can spend it: on your students, your programs, and your people. Keeping up with Title IV shouldn’t feel as hard as it often does, and with the right partner handling that piece year-round, it doesn’t have to. 

If OB3 is taking up more of your plate than it should, that is a reasonable place to start. Our OB3 Readiness Assessment is free and takes only a few minutes, and it will give you a clear read on where your institution stands across the provisions now in effect — so you can get that piece under control and turn back to everything else you came to CECU thinking about. 

Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date, or schedule a consultation with our experts to model your impacts, develop strategies, and implement solutions. 

Dave McClintock, CPA is Managing Director of McClintock & Associates and serves on the board of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU).