Data
BPPE enforcement in numbers
Every public citation order on the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education’s disciplinary actions page, parsed and aggregated: 2234 unique citations and $19.6M in administrative fines, 2012 through 2026.
Data through June 4, 2026. Aggregates only - no school-level data is published here.
What gets fined
The code sections cited most often across the 2234 citation orders, with the median fine for orders citing each. Three patterns drive the chart. The substantive records and reporting sections carry $5000-class medians: the Annual Report (CEC 94934 and 5 CCR 74110), records maintenance and student files (5 CCR 71930 and 71920), and Performance Fact Sheet data (5 CCR 74112).
The fee and STRF sections look frequent but cheap: STRF purpose (CEC 94923), late payment of Bureau fees (CEC 94931), and the fee schedule (CEC 94930.5) appear mostly as riders in sweep citations, with medians of $50 to $75. STRF remittance itself (5 CCR 76130) sits between, at a median of $1000.
The expensive tail is adjacent to unlicensed operation: operating without approval (CEC 94886), the exempt-institution categories (CEC 94874), and closure obligations (CEC 94926) all carry $25000 medians.
One honest caveat: some sections rank highly because citations cite the Bureau’s authority alongside the violation - compliance inspections (CEC 94932.5) is the inspection-authority section, not something a school does wrong. For how inspections and citations actually unfold, see the guide to BPPE inspections and citations.
Number of citation orders citing each section, of 2234 total. Each section is tallied at most once per citation.
Citations by year
Enforcement is lumpy year to year but the trend is up - and 2026 is a partial year, with data through June 4, 2026.
The gold column (2026) is a partial year.
How big the fines are
The $5000 to $10000 band is the standard records and reporting fine - the single largest group, with 761 citations. The $25000 and up tail (243 citations) is mostly unlicensed operation, which runs under a different fine regime.
Number of citation orders in each fine band, by the total assessed per order.
Notices and citations are different worlds
From our companion analysis of the public notice-to-comply record - 585 notices to comply from the Bureau’s compliance-inspection results page - the picture inverts. Catalog content appears in 77 percent of notices but only about 2 percent of citations; website findings appear in 75 percent of notices against about 2 percent of citations. Inspectors write up documents that get fixed in the 30 day window; the fined world is records and reporting. For what separates a notice from a citation, see the guide to BPPE inspections and citations.
Methodology
We parsed every citation PDF linked from the Bureau’s public Disciplinary Actions page and deduplicated by citation number. Citations without a parseable citation number or date were excluded. Aggregates are computed over 2234 unique orders dated 2012 to 2026 (partial). Fine figures are the total assessed per order. Section counts tally each code section at most once per citation and exclude the procedural fine-schedule sections (CEC 94936 and 5 CCR 75020 through 75050) cited in nearly every order. Generated June 11, 2026.
We publish aggregates only. Nothing here identifies an institution.
The patterns above are why our compliance guides focus on the Annual Report, the Fact Sheet, STRF, student records, and the inspection process - the areas the fines actually land on.
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