1) May 17 [press release] Today, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) released proposed regulations to establish the strongest set of safeguards ever to protect students from unaffordable debt or insufficient earnings from career training programs, along with new measures to increase transparency across all postsecondary programs. The proposal would create the strongest-ever Gainful Employment (GE) rule, which would terminate access to Federal financial aid for career training programs that routinely leave graduates with unaffordable debt burdens or with earnings that are no higher than workers without any education beyond high school. The proposed GE rule is estimated to protect more than 700,000 students annually who would otherwise enroll in one of nearly 1,800 low-performing programs, because access to postsecondary programs that produce poor outcomes is not really access at all. These accountability measures will not only better protect students enrolled in low-financial-value programs, but will also encourage improvements across all of higher education.
The proposed regulations would also bring increased transparency to the true costs and financial outcomes of nearly all undergraduate and graduate degree programs. This includes disclosures of what students and families are likely to pay out-of-pocket for a given program and a requirement that students acknowledge this information before receiving federal financial aid to attend programs that consistently leave participants with high debt burdens. . . .
Press release:
https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/department-education-releases-proposed-rules-accountability-certificate-and-profit-programs-and-transparency-unaffordable-student-debt
2) FRN May 19 -- The Secretary is proposing new regulations to promote transparency, competence, stability, and effective outcomes for students in the provision of postsecondary education. Using the terminology of past regulatory proposals, these regulations seek to make improvements in the areas of gainful employment (GE); financial value transparency; financial responsibility; administrative capability; certification procedures; and Ability to Benefit (ATB). We must receive your comments by June 20, 2023.
The financial assistance students receive under the title IV, HEA programs for postsecondary education and training represent a significant annual expenditure by the Federal government. When used effectively, Federal aid for postsecondary education and training is a powerful tool for promoting social and economic mobility. However, many programs fail to effectively enhance students' skills or increase their earnings, leaving them no better off than if they had never pursued a postsecondary credential and with debt they cannot afford.
The Department is also aware of a significant number of instances where institutions shut down with no warning and is concerned about the impact of such events for students. . . . These closures often come at a significant cost to taxpayers. Students who were enrolled at or close to the time of closure and did not graduate from the shuttered institution may receive a discharge of their Federal student loans. The cost of such discharges is rarely fully reimbursed because once the institution closes there are often few assets to use for repaying Federal liabilities. . . . While these closures may have occurred without notice for the students, they were often preceded by months if not years of warning signs. Unfortunately, existing regulations do not provide the Department the necessary authority to rely on those indicators of risk to take action and unfortunately, despite observing these signs, the Department has lacked authority under existing regulations to take action based on those indicators of risk in order to secure financial protection before the institution runs out of money and closes.
The Department's inability to act also has implications for students. Students whose colleges close tend to have high default rates and are highly unlikely to continue their educational journeys elsewhere. Those who enrolled well before the point of closure may have been misled into taking on loans through admissions and recruitment efforts based on misrepresentations about the ability of attendees to obtain employment or transfer credit. Acting more swiftly in the future to obtain financial protection would help either deter risky institutional behavior or ensure the Department has more funds in place to offset the cost to taxpayers of closed schools or borrower defense discharges.
There are also institutions that operate title IV, HEA programs without the administrative capability necessary to successfully serve students, for example, where institutions that lack the resources needed to deliver on promises made about career services and externships or where institutions employ principals, affiliates, or other individuals who exercise substantial control over an institution who have a record of misusing title IV, HEA aid funds. A lack of administrative capability can also result in insufficient institutional controls over verifying students' high school diplomas, which are a key criterion for title IV, HEA eligibility.
Furthermore, there have been instances where institutions have exhibited material problems yet remained fully certified to participate in the Federal student aid programs. This full certification status can limit the ability of the Department to remedy problems identified through monitoring until it is potentially too late to improve institutional behavior or prevent a school closure that ends up wasting taxpayer resources in the form of loan discharges, as well as the lost time, resources, and foregone opportunities of students.
To address these concerns, the Department convened a negotiated rulemaking committee, the Institutional and Programmatic Eligibility Committee (Committee), that met between January 18, 2022, and March 18, 2022, to consider proposed regulations for the Federal Student Aid programs authorized under title IV of the HEA (title IV, HEA programs) (see the section under Negotiated Rulemaking for more information on the negotiated rulemaking process). The Committee operated by consensus, defined as no dissent by any member at the time of a consensus check. Consensus checks were taken by issue, and the Committee reached consensus on the topic of ATB.
These proposed regulations address five topics: financial value transparency and GE, financial responsibility, administrative capability, certification procedures, and ATB.
Proposed regulations for financial value transparency would address concerns about the rising cost of postsecondary education and training and increased student borrowing by establishing an accountability and transparency framework to encourage eligible postsecondary programs to produce acceptable debt and earnings outcomes, apprise current and prospective students of those outcomes, and provide better information about program price. . . .
The proposed financial responsibility regulations establish additional factors that will be viewed by the Department as indicators of an institution's lack of financial responsibility. When one of the factors occurs, the Department may seek financial protection from the institution, most commonly through a letter of credit. The indicators of a lack of financial responsibility proposed in this NPRM are events that put an institution at a higher risk of financial instability and sudden closure. . . .
The events linked to the proposed financial triggers are often observed in institutions facing possible or probable closure due to financial instability. By allowing the Department to take certain actions in response to specified financial triggers, the proposed regulations provide the Department with tools to minimize the impact of an institution's financial decline or sudden closure. The additional financial protections established in these regulations are critical to offset potential losses sustained by taxpayers when an institution closes and better ensure the Department may take actions in advance of a potential closure to better protect taxpayers against the financial costs resulting from an institutional closure. . . .
We propose several additional standards in the administrative capability regulations at § 668.16 to ensure that institutions can appropriately administer the title IV, HEA programs. While current administrative capability regulations include a host of requirements, the Department proposes to address additional concerns which could indicate severe or systemic administrative problems that negatively impact student outcomes and are not currently reflected in those regulations. The Department already requires institutions to provide adequate financial aid counseling to students, for instance. However, many institutions provide financial aid information to students that is confusing and misleading. The information that institutions provide often lacks accurate information about the total cost of attendance, and groups all types of aid together instead of clearly separating grants, loans, and work study aid. The proposed administrative capability regulations would address these issues by specifying required elements to be included in financial aid communications.
We also propose to add an additional requirement for institutions to provide adequate career services to help their students find jobs, particularly where the institution offers career-specific programs and makes commitments about job assistance. Adequate services would be evaluated based on the number of students enrolled in GE programs at the school, the number and distribution of career services staff, the career services the institution promised to its students, and the presence of partnerships between institutions and recruiters who regularly hire graduates. We believe this requirement would help ensure that institutions provide adequate career services to students. The proposed revisions and additions to § 668.16 address these and other concerns that are not reflected in current regulations.
The proposed certification procedures regulations would create a more rigorous process for certifying institutions for initial and ongoing participation in the title IV, HEA programs and better protect students and taxpayers through a program participation agreement (PPA). The proposed revisions to § 668.2, 668.13, and 668.14 aim to protect the integrity of the title IV, HEA programs and to protect students from predatory or abusive behaviors. For example, in § 668.14(e) we propose requiring institutions that are provisionally certified and that we determine to be at risk of closure to submit an acceptable teach-out plan or agreement to the Department, the State, and the institution's recognized accrediting agency. This would ensure that the institution has an acceptable plan in place that allows students to continue their education in the event the institution closes.
Finally, the Department proposes revisions to current regulations for ATB. These proposed changes to § 668.156 would clarify the requirements for the approval of a State process. The State process is one of the three ATB alternatives (see the Background section for a detailed explanation) that an individual who is not a high school graduate could fulfill to receive title IV, HEA, Federal student aid for enrollment in an eligible career pathway program. The proposed changes to § 668.157 add documentation requirements for eligible career pathway programs.
FRN:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-09647 [212 pages]
