In December, 2019, people in the college admission profession learned that a lawsuit brought by the Justice Department against The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) had been settled, effectively pulling the rug out from under the association’s Statement of Principles of Good Practice, or SPGP as it was known among thousands of people in the profession.

NACAC has been—and still is—the de facto locus of guidelines, ethics, and appropriate practice for admission staff, high school counselors, and independent educational consultants who believe that college admission holds a special place on the continuum of “job” and “higher calling.”  Our purpose, we’ve always believed, allows us to put the needs of our institutions on equal footing with the students we serve, notwithstanding the cynics who think the job is just “sales” for those on the college side, or “matching-making” for those who work in high schools or independent roles.

The Justice Department saw it differently, suggesting that many components of the SPGP were anti-competitive.  And when the US Government takes on a relatively small, not-for-profit membership organization, you can usually predict who’s going to win.

There are actually some things in the old SPGP that are now codified in federal law: For instance, the provision that prohibits admission staff members from getting paid commissions for enrollment numbers goes back as far as anyone can see in our profession.  There have been dozens of judgements against colleges for that exact practice, although from the government standpoint, it’s less about ethics, and more about the proper use of tax-payer-funded financial aid.

The agreement with the Justice Department required NACAC to remove several membership requirements, including: 

• The prohibition against special incentives for Early Decision applications,
• The restriction on colleges recruiting students who had paid an admission deposit at other colleges, and,
• The ban on colleges from recruiting students enrolled in other colleges.

At the time the decision was announced, colleges were already well into the admission cycle for Fall, 2020 with large numbers of admissions decisions already out and many more to come.  Everything, it seemed, was set for 2020, but people shared concerns about how this decision would create “The Wild West” for admission in 2021 and beyond.  There was great concern that students, many of whom had been through a stressful time just getting to May 1 (the traditional decision deadline) would now get more pressure to change their minds; there was considerable concern that May 1 deadline—once considered the most sacrosanct of principles—would someone slowly be chipped away in an increasingly hyper-competitive market situation.  Angst about what might be was considerably stronger than angst about what was.

About that same time, some scientists were aware of a new respiratory virus starting to spread in China, but the news media in the US wouldn’t report on it for several weeks.  We had no idea, of course, that COVID-19 would change everything about admission and about college enrollment for the next 18 months, although I suggested, naively, of course, that COVID could mean the end of the SAT.

I think of that time when COVID brought us together.  We at Oregon State were the first university at the time to extend our deposit deadline to June 1, and we later followed others in extending to September 1, and then said, “all bets are off on everything” when it became clear the year would be fully remote.  Colleagues at other universities did the same, mostly, and there was a strong sense that—despite the Justice Department—colleges could still work together in the best interest of students.

In the intervening years, we’ve seen some cracks in the solidarity that held us together, mostly when colleges that ended up short on May 1 would aggressively recruit students who had already withdrawn their application, hoping to lure them back with substantial financial aid packages.  For the most part, though, disruption has been minor.

And then came FAFSA, the government debacle that has done more to upend admission this year than a deadly, global, quickly spreading virus did.

When it became clear that the Department of Education had so royally screwed up the “FAFSA simplification process” (that sound you hear is George Orwell having a good belly laugh and nodding intently), we again were—reluctantly this time, I must admit—among the first dozen universities to move our deadline back to June 1.  At the time, this seemed like an obvious solution, and one our profession had dealt with just four years ago: Many of the students we serve would be unable to make an informed decision about the future by May 1, given that all estimates had aid offers going out in very late April to early May.

And we’re in this for the students, right? Right?

Not so fast.  I fielded concerns from colleagues who said they were sticking to May 1, for a variety of reasons, including convenience (schedules are set for Orientation!), budgets (making this one of the times you can use the term “begging the question” without being corrected by the pedantic among us), or even, “we have a waitlist to deal with.”

It was no accident, I thought, that some of the places who were the most adamant about this were the places that might be referred to as elite, if not on the national stage and in the New York Times, then at least within their category.  It was no accident, I thought, that some of the places who were most adamant about this had generally lower percentages of students on Pell, or any financial aid at all.  It was no accident, I thought, that some of the places who were adamant about this seemed unaware that families where parents had no social security numbers couldn’t complete the FAFSA at all, or that students couldn’t make corrections until late April.

It was no accident, I thought, that the Wild West might finally be arriving: A scenario where that finely honed balance between concern for our paycheck and concern for the students was starting to shift visibly, if even slightly.  It was exactly what the Justice Department and the rest of the administration wanted in the years between 2017 and 2021.

No one outside the Justice Department knows what put the NACAC SPGP or its newer revised code of ethics on their radar, but I once hypothesized that some libertarian lawyer there got pissed off when the high school counselor told him that his daughter couldn’t apply to other colleges after her ED admit to one of the highly rejectives, because of our code of ethics.

There were good reasons for those codified, ethical guidelines, some of which I have always thought went too far.  Admittedly, there were good reasons to increase competition, even if it did come at a time when colleges are struggling to balance changes in the market.

I am worried that this year, those institutions at the top of the food chain will be emboldened by the fact that their numbers looked just fine on May 1.  Meanwhile, the majority of institutions, who, like the “rabble” in It’s a Wonderful Life, “do most of the working and paying and living and dying” in higher education, are trying to solve an equation with more variables than we’re used to:

• What percentage of students who have not filled out the FAFSA will eventually do so, and if they do, will it be too late for even pushed-back deadlines, or state aid cut offs?
• How many students who had their hand forced by a May 1 deadline have multiple deposits active, or even more to come?
• What will the effect of campus unrest be on the minds of students, families, and counselors?
• What if we were wrong about everything, and now don’t have enough room in the residence halls this fall?
• What was already going to happen even if everything went smoothly? Some sectors have been doing well, while others have been floundering, with many institutions who were propped up by COVID money now coming to the end of their rope.  What box are we in?

All of these things are moving and affecting each other in ways we can sense, but cannot yet measure or understand. 

And there is a very real possibility that things will get worse in the coming years.  After over 40 years in this profession, and with the reality of retirement looming out there, I’m also aware that everything is always changing.  You can never step foot in the same river twice, Heraclitus tells us, in part because stepping in the river changes it.

I’m concerned that after years of us stepping foot in the same river, it’s going to change so quickly and so dramatically that it will sweep some good people away.  And that, DOJ, will be bad for everyone.