D. Resources, Planning, and Institutional Effectiveness

  1. The institution is able to meet its current financial obligations.
  2. The institution has a prepared budget for the current year and the capacity to compare it with budgets and actual results of previous years.
  3. The institution has future financial projections addressing its long-term financial sustainability.
  4. The institution maintains effective systems for collecting, analyzing, and using institutional information.
  5. The institution undergoes an external audit by a certified public accountant or a public audit agency that reports financial statements on the institution separately from any other related entity or parent corporation. For private institutions the audit is annual; for public institutions it is at least every two years.2
  6. The institution’s administrative structure includes a chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and chief academic officer (titles may vary) with appropriate credentials and experience and sufficient focus on the institution to ensure appropriate leadership and oversight. (An institution may outsource its financial functions but must have the capacity to assure the effectiveness of that arrangement.)
  7. The institution’s planning activities demonstrate careful and detailed consideration of student needs (including but not limited to the preservation of student records) and protocols to be followed in the event an orderly institutional closure becomes necessary.

*Institutions under federal control are exempted provided that they have other reliable information to document the institution’s fiscal resources and management.