Good evening All,

I work for a nonprofit higher-ed accrediting body in Northern Virginia
outside Washington, D.C. As one can imagine, we receive--and generate--a
lot of records for schools we accredit. The federal government has decreed
that we keep ALL records associated with accreditation "forever." This was
published in the federal register under 34 CFR Part 602. The link I used to
reference this was:
https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/hea08/34cfr602.pdf.
Anyone with experience in records retention--especially writing retention
schedules--knows "forever" is persona non-grata as "PERMANENT" is the
accurate one. "Permanent" records are few and far between in most
organizations, so I have a hard time believing this would be the case for
us.

So, my question is this: does anyone with experience in the higher-ed
space--especially accreditation--have insights into what this rule is
supposed to mean in a practical sense? Is the government referring to
"forever" as 20 years, 30 years, 50 years? I'm trying to write a retention
schedule for these records based on (customarily) vague information.

Feel free to reply to me offlist! Thank you!!

Respectfully,

Daniel J. "Dan" Hoare, MLIS
Alexandria, Virginia

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