Thanks to a hastily adopted stop-gap measure signed into law on Thursday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, some 400,000 students attending proprietary colleges in California will again be afforded some level of promise that the degrees and credits they earn will be recognized outside the state.

The new law creates a temporary process for the colleges to be regulated by the state. Their former regulatory body, the Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education, went out of business on June 30, after lawmakers failed to renew it because they couldn’t agree on how much authority a reorganized bureau should have.

As reported today by The Sacramento Bee, the new law allows the state’s Department of Consumer Affairs to enter into voluntary agreements in which for-profit teaching institutions pledge to abide by state rules so the colleges can remain in good standing through January 31, 2008.

College regulators in other states had urged California to adopt such a measure, noting that colleges in other jurisdictions often require that a college be state-approved before they will consider accepting its credits. —Goldie Blumenstyk