Professional licensure compliance has quietly become one of the most complex, time-intensive, and high-risk responsibilities in higher education, and a new national survey finally provides data to support what compliance teams have long known.
The 2025 SAN Professional Licensure Survey Report* confirms what we at HELP have long understood: managing licensure compliance today requires far more than knowing the rules. It demands sustained research, careful interpretation, cross-campus coordination, thorough documentation, and ongoing risk management across dozens of jurisdictions and professions.
What emerges is a clear picture of a system under strain and a growing need for better infrastructure, not just more effort.
This is why the experts at HELP created The Bookmark: to help institutions manage licensure compliance with clarity, consistency, and confidence.
Complexity Isn’t the Exception. It’s the Job.
Unlike other compliance areas, professional licensure has multiple authorities with oversight, inconsistent terminology across jurisdictions, and compliance requirements that do not align with the actual licensing processes.
Institutions are expected to track and interpret requirements across more than 50 jurisdictions, multiple licensing boards, and a wide range of regulated programs, including nursing, teacher education, mental health, accounting, and engineering.
As the SAN survey report documents, institutions must make independent, risk-based determinations about whether their programs meet state licensure requirements, often without seeking confirmation from state boards themselves.
This is not a failure of institutional diligence; it’s a structural reality of the current regulatory landscape.
This is precisely where The Bookmark adds value. When regulations are unclear or ambiguous, HELP’s experts don’t stop at surface-level guidance; they proactively engage with regulatory and licensing boards, monitor clarifications, and incorporate that insight into clear, standardized, program-level information institutions can actually use. Instead of piecing together dozens of sources, compliance teams start from a trusted, expert-informed foundation.
“Only a Few Hours” Adds Up Fast
One of the most persistent misconceptions about licensure compliance is that it’s a marginal task. The data says otherwise, and it aligns squarely with what HELP’s experts have long observed.
According to the SAN survey findings:
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More than 85% of institutions report a moderate or significant increase in workload
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Most institutions added 1–10 hours per week
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A meaningful subset experienced increases of 16–21+ hours per week, particularly during implementation and review cycles
Importantly, the report underscores that even small weekly increases can be destabilizing, especially when this work is layered onto already full roles or handled by a single staff member.
The Bookmark helps reclaim that time by eliminating repetitive, manual research and reducing the need to re-verify the same information across programs, states, and cycles. What once took hours of staff time now takes less time, is more predictable, and is easier to maintain.
Cost Shows Up Even When Budgets Don’t Change
Despite widespread workload increases, only 22% of institutions hired additional staff, according to the SAN report. For most, the work simply expanded without new resources.
That cost shows up in less visible, but very real, ways:
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Heavy reliance on spreadsheets, emails, and manual tracking
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Duplicative research across programs and departments
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Burnout risk for staff carrying high-stakes compliance decisions
One of the most notable hidden costs is enrollment restrictions. In fact, the report found that 32% of institutions have restricted enrollment in at least one state or program due to licensure compliance challenges. Over 50% of respondents who reported restricting enrollments cited “difficulty in obtaining clear or updated information from state licensing boards” as the primary reason.
HELP reduces these hidden costs. By providing continuously updated, verified licensure information, The Bookmark enables institutions to invest in infrastructure rather than additional staff, reducing risk without expanding teams or limiting student access.
Institutions Are Making High-Risk Decisions Without Clear Signals
One of the most striking findings in the SAN survey is how institutions are forced to make decisions in the absence of authoritative confirmation.
Only 6% of institutions rely primarily on confirmation from state licensing boards when determining whether a program meets state licensure requirements. Most rely on internal interpretation, or a mix of interpretation and publicly available information. This reflects the reality that most state licensing boards will not evaluate out-of-state programs.
That reality creates:
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Inconsistent decision-making
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Elevated institutional anxiety
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Different outcomes based on capacity and risk tolerance, not clarity
The Bookmark doesn’t remove institutional responsibility, but it strengthens it. HELP provides a documented, expert-reviewed foundation that institutions can rely on to make more confident, more defensible determinations, even in a risk-based regulatory environment.
What This Means for the Sector and A Needed Resource
The 2025 SAN Professional Licensure Survey Report makes one thing clear: professional licensure compliance is no longer a peripheral responsibility. It is an enterprise-level function with real consequences for institutions, students, and workforce pipelines.
Institutions don’t need more spreadsheets. They don’t need more one-off research.
They need trusted, structured, continuously updated licensure intelligence that supports accurate disclosures, defensible decisions, and sustainable workflows.
That’s exactly what HELP delivers through The Bookmark, a compliance-ready resource designed to meet institutions where they are, whether they have sophisticated automation powering parts of this compliance or still managing much of this work manually.
As regulations continue to evolve, institutions that succeed won’t be the ones working harder in isolation. They’ll be the ones investing in systems that bring clarity, confidence, and compliance together.
Because licensure compliance isn’t going away, and neither is the need to do it well.
Through The Bookmark, the experts at HELP, help ensure higher education institutions have the information and confidence they need to navigate licensure compliance with clarity and consistency.
*Cheverton, S., and Kerensky, K. (January 2026). Between the Lines, Behind the Work: Survey Findings on the True Scope of Licensure Compliance. State Authorization Network (SAN), a network of the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET)
How HELP Can Help
The challenges highlighted in the SAN survey reflect a broader reality: licensure compliance has become an enterprise-level responsibility, often managed without clear signals or sufficient infrastructure.
HELP supports institutions by providing a more reliable foundation for this work. Through The Bookmark, colleges and universities gain access to continuously updated, expert-reviewed licensure research across states, territories, and regulated programs, all in one centralized platform.
Instead of relying on fragmented sources or repeated manual research, compliance teams can make more consistent, defensible decisions, support accurate disclosures, and reduce both risk and workload without expanding staff or limiting enrollment.
HELP doesn’t replace institutional judgment. It strengthens it, providing clarity, consistency, and confidence in an increasingly complex regulatory environment.
Schedule a demo today or send us an email at thebookmark@higheredlicensurepros.com to explore how HELP can support your compliance, advising, and risk-management efforts with clarity and confidence.
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