The Education Department will drop its controversial requirement that colleges and universities verify that students receiving federal financial aid have registered for the draft, according to a recently released publication listing proposed federal regulations for the year.
To be eligible for the federal aid, students are still required by law to register. But the extremely high student compliance rate during the law’s first two years--more than 95 percent--eliminated the need, a department spokesman said, for the verification requirement, which was to go into effect this fall.
Postsecondary institutions had strongly opposed the measure, citing the heavy administrative burden it imposed and the inappropriateness of a “policing” role for college financial-aid offices.
Announcement of the retraction was contained in the volume “Regulatory Program of the United States Government, April 1, 1985-March 31, 1986.” The government-wide listing, compiled by the Office of Management and Budget following an executive order last January, includes the planned regulatory efforts of all federal agencies.
In the O.M.B. regulatory document, the department also announced it would complete regulations for the Bilingual Education Act of 1984 and would review the paperwork burden generated by regulations for the Women’s Educational Equity Program and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
The latter, also known as the Buckley Amendment, guarantees students the right to review school records pertaining to them.
