Will U.S. education official’s resignation affect Bethel U. review?

kanter
Kanter (ed.gov)

This morning, I read with interest this Huffington Post article that U.S. Education Undersecretary Martha Kanter plans to resign, and will leave sometime this fall.

Just last month she met with Bethel University officials as well as Democratic U.S. Rep Betty McCollum of Minnesota to try to discuss Bethel's complaints over the accuracy of the Department of Education's financial assessment system of colleges.

(In May, the department told Bethel it had flunked federal financial standards for the 2012 fiscal year -- something the university disputes. It says the feds have their calculations all wrong, and Bethel isn't alone.)

I hadn't heard of any resolution, so I emailed Bethel spokeswoman Suzanne McInroy.

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She replied:

We don't have much new to say. We were unaware of Undersecretary Kanter's planned departure and are not sure how it might impact a [Department of Education] decision. We continue to work with Rep. McCollum, who visited our campus just last week while she was home on recess.

Update: McInroy emailed me this when I asked her what the new deadline was for submitting a letter of credit:

The requirement to submit a letter of credit was extended until August 16, 2013, or 10 days following a decision on the our appeal, whichever is later.  The department continues to actively evaluate our appeal and has asked for additional information from Bethel since our meeting in Washington. We are still optimistic to get things resolved.

I'll keep you posted.