(1) The commission shall establish and administer a statewide, fee-supported financial program through which funds will be available to complete the training of a student who enrolls in a nonpublic school that terminates a program or ceases operation before the student has completed his or her program of study. The financial program is named the Student Protection Fund.

(2) The commission is authorized to assess a fee from the schools within its jurisdiction for such purpose. The commission shall assess a licensed school an additional fee for its eligibility for the Student Protection Fund.

(3) If a licensed school terminates a program before all students complete it, the commission shall also assess that school a fee adequate to pay the full cost to the Student Protection Fund of completing the training of students.

(4) The fund shall consist entirely of fees assessed to licensed schools and shall not be funded under any circumstances by public funds, nor shall the commission make payments or be obligated to make payments in excess of the assessments actually received from licensed schools and deposited in the Institutional Assessment Trust Fund to the credit of the Student Protection Fund.

(5) At each commission meeting, the commission shall consider the need for and shall make required assessments, shall review the collection status of unpaid assessments and take all necessary steps to collect them, and shall review all moneys in the fund and expenses incurred since the last reporting period. This review must include administrative expenses, moneys received, and payments made to students or to lending institutions.

(6) Staff of the commission must immediately inform the commission upon learning of the closing of a licensed school or the termination of a program that could expose the fund to liability.

(7) The Student Protection Fund must be actuarially sound, periodically audited by the Auditor General in connection with his or her audit of the Department of Education, and reviewed to determine if additional fees must be charged to schools eligible to participate in the fund.

History.—s. 260, ch. 2002-387.