FAQ for Professional Licensure Program Leaders & Staff

New Rules

On October 31, 2023, the U.S. Department of Education announced a number of new rules that became effective July 1, 2024. Among them was a requirement that Professional Licensure Programs only enroll students from states in which the Professional Licensure Program “satisfies the … educational requirements for professional licensure” (34 CFR §668.14(b)(32)(ii) [effective July 1, 2024]). The goal was to ensure “that a student who enrolls in the program, and seeks employment in that State after completing the program, qualifies to take any licensure or certification exam that is needed for the student to practice or find employment in an occupation that the program prepares students to enter.”

New Academic Procedures

Two new Academic Procedures outline how Charlotte will comply with the new professional licensure regulations. Faculty and staff who work with Professional Licensure Programs as well as leaders in their departments and colleges will want to be familiar with both.

• UNC Charlotte Academic Procedure: Programs for Licensed Professions defines “Professional Licensure Programs;” explains how they are differentiated from other academic programs; describes conditions under which students are eligible to enroll in them; lists the disclosures the University must make about them to the general public, prospective students, and current students; and outlines how they are to determine whether they satisfy states’ licensure requirements and where this information should be stored.
• UNC Charlotte Academic Procedure: Student Learning & Professional Licensure Locations posits the “Future Professional Licensure Location” or “PL address” as a way for the University to record the state in which a student in a Professional Licensure Program intends to seek licensure/employment upon graduation and to determine the student’s eligibility to enroll in the program. This procedure details how and when a student’s Future Professional Licensure Location is initially set and how the student can change it through a procedure known as “attestation.”

New Resources

There’s a lot to digest in the two new Academic Procedures. This FAQ was created for those who just need an overview or some specific details to do their jobs. A similar FAQ specifically for academic advisors has been added to the Advisor Toolkit. Finally, an FAQ for Students shares just what they need to know to navigate the topic of licensure in general and the procedures and personnel surrounding Professional Licensure Programs at UNC Charlotte in particular. Please help us get this information out to those who need it by sharing these links!

Use the Professional Licensure Lookup Tool to view the entire 250+ program list. Review UNC Charlotte Academic Procedure: Programs for Licensed Professions to read the definition and learn how they were identified.

You can find this information in at least two places. The Professional Licensure Lookup Tool is probably the easiest for faculty and staff to use. The Inventory of Professional Licensure Programs is available for general public access.

See the Procedure for Determining the Status of a Professional Licensure Program section of UNC Charlotte Academic Procedure: Programs for Licensed Professions.

Report any regulatory changes that affect your program’s status in any state to your college’s Representative on the Out-of-State Academic Activity Coordinating Council immediately so that the Professional Licensure Datastore can be updated and students can be notified. Federal regulations give programs just 14 days to disclose changes to program students.

No. A student’s eligibility to be enrolled in a Professional Licensure Program is set at the “Time of Initial Enrollment.” Changes that occur after that time do not affect the student’s ability to continue in the program. However, federal regulations require that a student be notified within 14 days once a program discovers that it no longer meets the requirements for licensure in the student’s PL state. All changes to a program’s status in any state should be reported to your college’s Representative on the Out-of-State Academic Activity Coordinating Council as soon as possible.

You need to know three data points to determine a student’s eligibility to enroll:

1. Name of the Professional Licensure Program.
2. Student’s Future Professional Licensure Location. Also known as a “PL address,” you can look it up in Banner. (See this FAQ for how to.)
3. Professional Licensure Program’s status in the student’s Future Professional Licensure Location. The easiest way to look this up is with the Professional Licensure Lookup Tool. Just enter the program name and the state and receive a straightforward answer.

The determination of eligibility to enroll is only made when a student enters a Professional Licensure Program. That entry point, however, differs among programs; and, for some programs, there are multiple means of entry.

• Licensure Program Admit occurs when admission to the University and the Professional Licensure Program happens simultaneously.
• Licensure Program Readmit occurs when a student who was already in a Professional Licensure Program becomes inactive for a period of time and then applies for readmission to both the University and the Professional Licensure Program.
• Upper Division Program Admit occurs when a student is admitted to the University in a pre-licensure program or other non-licensure program and then must submit a secondary application to the program/department–usually after a certain number of courses are taken, credits are earned, or semesters pass–in order to be allowed to enter the full-fledged Professional Licensure Program.
• In still more situations, students enter the Professional Licensure Program through a run-of-the mill curricular change process: a change of major, the addition of a minor, the adding of a new concentration.

The first two types of program entry are intimately related to the University’s admission system, Slate, so the question of eligibility to enroll is automatically addressed in the admitting/readmitting process. Upper division admission and other curricular changes, on the other hand, occur after a student has already been admitted to the University and has probably already been taking classes. In these situations, processes vary by college, department, and/or program; and there is no opportunity to automate. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the college/department/program to ensure that, each time a student changes, enters, or changes into one of its Professional Licensure Programs through a non-Slate or otherwise uncentralized curricular change process, the student’s eligibility to enroll in that new program has been confirmed. This includes situations when students change from a pre-program for which they were deemed eligible to the full-fledged Professional Licensure Program related to it and when students add a concentration to a Professional Licensure Program for which they were previously eligible. For these processes, the administrative unit(s) determining eligibility should retain the evidence this check was made.

The short answer to this question differs slightly by circumstance but is required by federal regulations and University Academic Procedure:

• “<PROGRAM NAME> does not meet the educational requirements for licensure in <STUDENT’S STATE>.”

OR

• “UNC Charlotte has not determined whether <PROGRAM NAME> meets the educational requirements for licensure in <STUDENT’S STATE>.”

In either instance, the outcome is the same: the student cannot enroll in the Professional Licensure Program.

The longer answer conveys the same facts but is tempered with compassion. It explains that the inability to enroll is actually a consumer protection mechanism intended to safeguard the student’s time and money. No one wants to complete a degree only to find that it did not adequately prepare the learner in the way it was expected to. This longer answer is better because it also assists students in considering options, helps them find a way forward, and leaves them with a more positive impression of Niner Nation than would have otherwise been possible.

The following is not an exhaustive list.

1. Consider a similar program that satisfies licensure requirements in the student’s Future Professional Licensure Location. Some concentrations differ by only a few courses, but that could make the difference. University faculty and staff can look up the list of programs that meet licensure requirements in each state with the Professional Licensure Lookup Tool.
2. Confirm the state listed as the student’s Future Professional Licensure Location (aka PL address) is, in fact, where the student plans to seek licensure and employment after graduation. Although University employees should never encourage students to use the attestation process to circumvent program eligibility rules, they can offer support to persons who have never really thought about the options that will be open to them upon degree completion. The list of states in which Professional Licensure Programs do satisfy licensure requirements can be found using the Professional Licensure Lookup Tool.
3. Help the student think through the kinds of programs that will meet their needs, then suggest alternative programs, especially those offered by UNC System schools.

Future Professional Licensure Location is one of many address types stored in Banner. It records the State in which a student who is in a Professional Licensure Program is expected to seek licensure and practice their profession. The University uses this address type for two purposes:

• Determine students’ eligibility to initially enroll in Professional Licensure Programs and
• Inform students about changes to educational requirements for licensure that could adversely affect their ability to be licensed and/or employed in their chosen profession in the state they intend to practice.

Sometimes referred to as a student’s “PL address,” this address type is abbreviated as “Future Prof Licensure Loc” in Banner due to character constraints.

It depends. For students applying for admission to the University and a Professional Licensure Program at the same time, the PL address will be determined as part of the application process, stored temporarily in Slate, and pushed to Banner along with the applicant’s other data. For students who have already been admitted to the University and are already taking classes (i.e., “continuing” students), the PL state can be set or changed using the Attestation process.

The Attestation Process is the way students in or wanting to be in Professional Licensure Programs update their Future Professional Licensure Location (or PL Address for short) in University records. It takes two forms: (1) attestation as part of admission or readmission and (2) attestation by currently enrolled students. The former is built into the admissions application process. The latter requires the student to send an email from their charlotte.edu email address to the Registrar’s Office at ImageNowREG@charlotte.edu. The Attestation web page has all the details.

1. Login to Banner.
2. Navigate to the SPAIDEN form.
3. Enter the student’s ID (800 number) and click “Go.”
4. Click on the Address tab. Here you will find every address associated with the student. Use the forward and back arrow buttons at the bottom of the window to navigate through them, looking for the address with “PL” in the Address Type field, “1” as the Sequence Number, and the To Date box empty. The student’s Future Professional Licensure Location can be found in the State or Province field.