There's a lot that is being discussed at the 2019 NACAC National Conference. Of course at the top of mind for many in our profession is the continued fallout from the Varsity Blues admissions bribery scandal, as well as the impending court decision regarding affirmative action and Harvard University. But an issue that might have slipped past you is the antitrust lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice against NACAC.
As many as 215 voting delegates from NACAC's 23 affiliates now have an important decision before them. Saturday they will vote on whether to remove several sections from the association's Code of Ethics and Professional Practices. Those sections restrict colleges from offering incentives for early-decision applicants, prevent them from recruiting first-year undergraduates who have committed to another college and limit how they recruit transfer students.
NACAC members who don't comply with the code can face penalties including loss of membership or being unable to participate in college fairs. NACAC currently has in place a moratorium on enforcing the code, however.
Removing the sections from the code of ethics is a step toward NACAC signing a consent decree in order to resolve a two-year Department of Justice antitrust investigation. Saturday's vote is generally expected to endorse the provisions' removal and make other changes so that NACAC leaders will be able to negotiate a consent decree, despite some members' reservations and plans to protest.
NACAC leaders have pushed to reach a consent decree rather than fight antitrust charges in court because of the high cost of litigation, the time it would take to fight charges, the possibility of affiliates or member institutions being ensnared in a continuing investigation and the possibility that an extended investigation would harm the association's reputation.
In short, the federal government is arguing that some of NACAC's rules that prohibit colleges from giving incentives to students at different times throughout the admissions process, and forbid colleges and universities from "poaching" students who have committed to attend other institutions hurt students by limiting their choices.
Is having choices bad? Not at all. Does the notion of having to recruit and yield students up to the first day of classes each fall sound terrifying to admissions professionals? You betcha.
I'm not attending NACAC this year (a couple of my current Penn State colleagues are), but I kind of wish that I was there to get the temperature of what is going on in the profession. This has been a strange/interesting/shocking year for those of us in the field. It'll be interesting to see where things go from here...
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