College Enrollment Calls and Texts: TCPA Risk for Schools

A call or text urging someone to enroll can be telemarketing under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, because tuition buys a service. That covers trade schools and, with some breaks, nonprofit universities. The FCC’s 2016 school ruling never covered recruiting, and since June 20 district courts hearing TCPA suits generally aren’t bound by the FCC’s interpretations of the statute. A school facing an enrollment-texting claim still has real defenses, mostly in its inquiry records and opt-out logs.

Why do enrollment calls and texts draw TCPA claims?

In my view, mostly because enrollment marketing leans on borrowed leads. Some numbers come from education lead-generation sites that match visitors with programs and pass each lead to several schools, and outside call centers or program managers may do the calling. Every handoff can lose a consent record. Insurance agencies face a similar chain of lead sites and transfer call centers, covered in our post on insurance telemarketing and the TCPA.

In August 2019, the FTC announced that the operator of Colorado Technical University and American InterContinental University would pay $30 million to settle charges about its lead generators. According to the FTC’s announcement, the agency charged that the company and its lead generators “illegally called consumers registered on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry,” and its consumer protection director said, “You can’t skirt the law by outsourcing illegal conduct to your service providers.” That charge arose under the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, not the TCPA, and the case was resolved by a settlement. But the TCPA’s Do Not Call claim also reaches calls made “by or on behalf of the same entity” in violation of the rules, under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5), so private plaintiffs make the same vendor argument. Whether a vendor’s calls count as the school’s is fact-specific. The FCC said as much in its 2016 school ruling about whether a messaging platform or the school makes a call, and the vendor contract is where that defense gets built.

Is a recruiting call to a prospective student telemarketing?

Often. The FCC’s rules define telemarketing as a call or message made “for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services,” under 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(f)(13). Tuition pays for a service, so a text pushing someone to apply can fit. Texts about an application the student already started have a fair argument that they’re informational.

The statute’s definition of “telephone solicitation” excludes a call or message “by a tax exempt nonprofit organization” in 47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(4), and the FCC’s § 64.1200(f)(15) excludes calls “By or on behalf of a tax-exempt nonprofit organization.” The Do Not Call Registry rule (the federal list of numbers whose owners don’t want sales calls) and the 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. quiet-hours rule apply only to telephone solicitations to residential subscribers, so a tax-exempt college’s own recruiting calls fall outside them. In my view, a public university that’s tax-exempt as a government body, not as a charity, has a less settled claim to it. Our nonprofit and political calls post covers vendors calling for a nonprofit.

The carve-out leaves the cell-phone rule alone. Section 227(b)(1)(A) covers any call made with an autodialer or a prerecorded or artificial voice, “other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party,” per 47 U.S.C. § 227. A nonprofit does get a break there: for marketing robocalls, the FCC accepts “the prior express consent of the called party when the call is made by or on behalf of a tax-exempt nonprofit organization,” under § 64.1200(a)(2), instead of the signed written consent its rule asks of a for-profit school. And the internal do-not-call rule in § 64.1200(d) uses the word telemarketing, not telephone solicitation, so I wouldn’t let a nonprofit admissions office stop keeping an opt-out list.

What did the FCC’s 2016 Blackboard ruling let schools send?

It covered messages to students and families who gave the school their number, not recruiting. The ruling is the FCC’s Blackboard and Edison declaratory ruling, FCC 16-88, 31 FCC Rcd 9054, adopted July 8 and released August 4, 2016.

The FCC confirmed that school alerts to student family wireless phones about weather closures, threats, health risks, and unexcused absences fit the emergency-purposes exception, defined as “calls made necessary in any situation affecting the health and safety of consumers” in § 64.1200(f)(4). But the ruling also said, “We decline to extend the TCPA’s emergency-purpose exception to all robocalls made by school callers.” Our post on the emergency purposes exception walks through which alerts qualify.

The consent piece matters more for colleges. The FCC wrote in FCC 16-88 that “when a parent/guardian or student provides only their wireless number as a contact to a school, the scope of consent includes communications from the school closely related to the educational mission of the school or to official school activities absent instructions to the contrary from the party who provides the phone number.”

Then, in a footnote on an issue not squarely before it, the same ruling warned that “reports of schools using platforms to call about ballot issues or marketing of any kind raise serious TCPA concerns.” Blackboard is about students and families already connected to a school. It doesn’t turn a lead-generation number into a school contact number.

Where does a current-student text cross into marketing?

It crosses when the message is selling something new instead of running the program the student already joined.

Registration deadlines, missing financial aid documents, and class cancellations sit close to the educational mission Blackboard described. A text pitching a graduate program to a graduating senior is different. A plaintiff will call that an offer to buy a service, and the consent a student gave by listing a contact number may not reach it. In my view, mixed messages carry the most risk, because the sales pitch at the end of a reminder is what a plaintiff will quote.

The practical fix is structural. Run recruiting and student-services messages from separate sending programs whose opt-out lists talk to each other, and write the enrollment consent form to name each category of message the school plans to send. In the 2016 ruling, the FCC said “we encourage schools to disclose the full range of all potential calls and messages” when asking for consent.

Can a school rely on consent from an education lead site?

Yes, if the form names your school and, for a for-profit school’s autodialed or prerecorded marketing, meets the FCC’s signed-writing and disclosure rule. The Eleventh Circuit struck down the FCC’s 2023 rule limiting written consent to one seller at a time in Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC on January 24, 2025, holding that the FCC “exceeded its statutory authority” and stating: “One-to-one consent is not required.” The court vacated both the one-seller limit and a companion requirement that calls be “logically and topically associated” with the interaction that prompted consent. Both still appear in the eCFR’s version of § 64.1200(f)(9) as this post goes up, but neither ever took effect.

The IMC court said a consumer gives prior express consent by stating, “clearly and unmistakably,” a willingness to receive the calls. The FCC’s separate rule still calls for a signed written agreement with specific disclosures before a for-profit school sends autodialed or prerecorded marketing, and following it is the safe course. IMC described that rule as the FCC’s interpretation, so after McLaughlin a defendant can argue the statute asks only for consent. That argument is untested, though, because § 227(b)(3) lets plaintiffs sue on the FCC’s regulations themselves. When a plaintiff denies asking to hear from your school, the defense is the form as it looked that day, with the school’s name, the number entered, and the time stamp. Our post on proving consent at summary judgment covers that evidence.

An inquiry or application made to the school itself, through a voluntary two-way exchange, creates an established business relationship “on the basis of the subscriber’s inquiry or application regarding products or services offered by the entity within the three months immediately preceding the date of the call,” under § 64.1200(f)(5). That takes the school’s calls outside the Registry and quiet-hours rules for three months, unless the person asks not to be called. A form submitted to a third-party lead site may not qualify. And the relationship never supplies consent for autodialed or prerecorded calls to a cell phone.

How do the April 2025 opt-out rules change admissions texting?

They make every reply a potential revocation. Since April 11, 2025, the FCC’s codified rule says a person may revoke consent “using any reasonable method to clearly express a desire not to receive further calls or text messages from the caller or sender,” under § 64.1200(a)(10). Replies such as stop or unsubscribe count automatically, along with five other listed words. A reply in other words counts if a reasonable person would read it as a stop request. And the school must honor it “within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days from receipt of such request.”

Admissions texting draws plenty of replies that aren’t STOP, like an applicant saying they enrolled elsewhere or a stranger saying it’s a wrong number. Some may be read as revocations, and a school that keeps sending automated texts after one risks a claim. A wrong-number reply raises a consent question. The safe harbor in § 64.1200(m) helps with earlier texts only if the school checked the FCC’s reassigned-numbers database and it wrongly reported no reassignment, and it doesn’t cover texts after the reply.

The FCC’s order also says a revocation reaches all of a caller’s robocalls and robotexts that require consent, including unrelated informational ones. The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau delayed that piece until April 11, 2026 in DA 25-312, waiving the rule “to the extent the rule requires callers to treat a request to revoke consent made by a called party in response to one type of message as applicable to all future robocalls and robotexts from that caller on unrelated matters.” Once it applies, a student who replies STOP to a text marketing a new program could cut off automated registration and billing texts too. One confirmation text with no marketing is allowed, ideally within five minutes. If the person had agreed to several kinds of texts, it can ask which ones they meant to stop, and absent an answer, all of them stop.

Can a school still rely on Blackboard after McLaughlin?

It can cite it, but it can’t treat it as binding anymore, unless its circuit’s own precedent adopted the FCC’s reading. In McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., decided June 20, 2025, the Supreme Court held that district courts in TCPA enforcement suits, private ones included, aren’t bound by FCC interpretations and should read the statute “under ordinary principles of statutory interpretation, affording appropriate respect to the agency’s interpretation.” Blackboard is the FCC’s reading of prior express consent and emergency purposes, so a plaintiff can now ask a court to read those phrases more narrowly.

That shouldn’t frighten schools much. Blackboard’s consent holding rests on an idea the FCC has applied since 1992, that a person who knowingly gives a number invites calls to it, later narrowed to matters closely related to why the number was given. And in IMC the Eleventh Circuit read the consent phrase by its common law meaning, not the FCC’s. A school can defend informational texts on the statute’s words. Still, I’d get express consent at enrollment naming those categories, so the defense doesn’t rest on a ruling a court may now second-guess.

Exposure and defenses for enrollment messaging

When a demand letter reaches the admissions office

1. Freeze everything tied to the number, from the admissions CRM entry and platform logs to the inquiry or enrollment form that supplied it.
2. Export the opt-out trail with dates, showing each reply the number sent and when suppression took effect.
3. Locate the Registry scrub files and download dates for each campaign, or the tax-exempt records if the school relied on that carve-out.
4. Collect the lead-vendor and call-center contracts, a capture of the lead form as it appeared, and any scripts or prerecorded audio.
5. Bring in a lawyer before anyone in admissions answers the letter or reaches out to the claimant, and before anyone offers a tuition credit or payment.

The firm’s TCPA defense lawyers page summarizes how claims involving admissions texts sent to prospective students are defended.

Questions colleges and trade schools ask about TCPA exposure

Does a prospective student’s inquiry let us call a number on the Do Not Call Registry?

For three months, usually yes, if the inquiry came to your school directly and not through a lead site. It creates an established business relationship for that period, which takes the call outside the Registry and quiet-hours rules, and enrollment extends it to 18 months. It doesn’t help with autodialed or prerecorded calls to a cell phone, which still need consent, and a stop request ends it.

Can a nonprofit university ignore the Do Not Call Registry?

For its own recruiting calls, largely yes, if it’s a tax-exempt nonprofit, because the statute excludes calls by one from the definition of telephone solicitation. Autodialed or prerecorded calls and texts to cell phones still need consent. And I’d keep an internal opt-out list, because the internal do-not-call rule speaks of telemarketing.

Is a prerecorded voicemail from admissions a robocall?

Yes. The TCPA’s cell-phone rule covers calls using an artificial or prerecorded voice whether or not an autodialer placed them, so a prerecorded message left on a prospective student’s mobile phone needs consent unless it’s an emergency message. For a for-profit school’s marketing message, the FCC’s rule calls for signed written consent. The Supreme Court’s narrow autodialer definition in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid doesn’t help here.

If your school is facing a TCPA claim

If your college or school has been sued or received a demand letter over enrollment calls or texts, the inquiry records and the opt-out history behind each number usually decide where the case goes. Rosenberger + Kawabata represents businesses defending TCPA lawsuits and class actions through its business litigation practice, including claims involving admissions texts sent to prospective students. Contact Rosenberger + Kawabata online for a free and confidential consultation, or call (310) 894-6921.

Sources

The statute is 47 U.S.C. § 227. The FCC’s rules are at 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200, as published in the eCFR on August 7, 2025. The FCC orders are the Blackboard and Edison declaratory ruling, FCC 16-88, 31 FCC Rcd 9054 (2016), the revocation order, FCC 24-24 (2024), and the Bureau’s DA 25-312 (Apr. 7, 2025). The FTC’s 2019 announcement is at ftc.gov.

The court decisions are McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., No. 23-1226 (U.S. June 20, 2025), Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC, No. 24-10277 (11th Cir. Jan. 24, 2025), and Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 592 U.S. 395 (2021).

This post is general information about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and related laws as of August 7, 2025. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Courts and the FCC change the rules in this area often, and the outcome of any claim depends on its facts. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.