U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

**PUBLIC REGIONAL HEARING ON**

**NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING**

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

9:00 a.m. -- 4:00 p.m.

1990 K Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C.

**P R O C E E D I N G S**

**MR. BERGERON:** Good morning. I\'m hoping this microphone\'s working.
I\'ll just bring it closer\--as though anybody has trouble hearing me.
Good morning. I\'m David Bergeron, I\'m Director of Policy and Budget
Development here in the Office of Postsecondary Education.

With me this morning, we have a number of people from the Department
staff who will be sitting at this table throughout the day, but right
now I have Dan Madzelan, who is the Director of Forecasting and Policy
Analysis here in the Office of Postsecondary Education, and Ron Sann,
who is an attorney in our Office of General Counsel. Also sitting here
up at the front is Vince Sampson, who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Policy, Planning, and Innovation. And before we go any further, I\'m
going to turn the microphone over to Vince and let him say a few words.

**MR. SAMPSON:** I\'ll say very few words.

First of all, thank you, everyone, for coming today. It\'s nice to see a
packed house. There\'s still some seats up front, for those hanging
around in the back. As you all well know, it\'s important that we have a
robust record as we go through this process. You know, we\'re looking at
a reauthorization for the first time in a number of years, with a lot of
new issues and items for the Department to consider and implement in the
years ahead.

So, we\'ve done a number of field hearings, as it were, and we have a
couple more to go, but this one is obviously important because we get to
hear from a lot of representatives that we might not be able to hear
from out in the field. So, we\'re looking forward to taking your
comments, and then we\'ll look forward to the next step of interacting
with you guys as we move forward.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you, Vince. Let me give you a little bit of
background. This is our fourth\--actually\--fifth hearing that we\'re
conducting. We have been in-­around the country, as Vince said. We\'ve
been to California and Charlotte. We\'ve been in Rhode Island and one
in\--and had a hearing in Texas. So, we\'ve been hearing from folks.
They\'ve been well-attended, although not nearly as well-attended as
this hearing is.

We appreciated the testimony that we\'ve received when we\'ve been out
in the field. As Vince said, this is an important start to our process,
taking and hearing what people\'s concerns are as they look at the
Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, in thinking about the issues
that we\'ll need to be regulating around. To help people find
information, we\'ve created a Web site that is easier to find than most
of ours at the Department, because it\'s at
[www.ed.gov/heoa](http://www.ed.gov/heoa). For people who know our Web
site, it\'s pretty unusual for us to get a site that\'s easy to find.
So, we would encourage you to check that Web site often. We have posted
the record from the hearing in Texas, and we\'ll be posting the
transcripts for each of these hearings as they are completed and
reviewed by the Department staff. And so, look for those on our Web
site. Once we complete this hearing process, we\'ll be publishing a
Notice that will identify the committees and areas of interest that
those committees will be addressing, and soliciting participation in
negotiating committees.

That\'s a little different than the way we have done this in the past,
in the sense that, when we\'ve done this before, we\'ve done a Notice
that covered all of this, you know, initial activity. But we thought,
given the range of issues, it\'s probably a good idea for us to wait and
see what the public comment was before we developed the committee
structure. So, look for that Notice in coming weeks. With that, I\'ll
see if Danny or Ron have anything they\'d like to add before we get
going.

**MR. MADZELAN:** I just want to welcome you as well this morning, and
thanks for coming out and helping us figure out what we\'re going to
need to do over the next year or two in our regulatory process.

As David mentioned, we will be providing further information in a few
weeks around a negotiating agenda and timelines and those kinds of
things. When we last had one of our mega rulemaking activities coming
out of the \'98 amendments, you\'ll probably recall we kind of divided
our work up into some things that needed to be done immediately, which
we did in 1999, and then some other items that could wait a year or so
for regulating. And so, we followed up with subsequent activity. You
know, that\'s, again, a part of what we\'re hoping to accomplish with
these series of hearings, is to hear from you folks out in the field to
help us figure out how we stage the work that we need to get done to
implement this reauthorization. Thanks.

**MR. BERGERON:** And before we get started, I guess just a couple
logistical things. If you need to use the restroom, just go out through
the doors\--the door to your right, and then it\'s just around the
corner, and there are signs that lead you to where the restrooms are,
and then come back through the glass doors that are on your left. And
the other thing is, if you do leave the building and need to come back
in, the guard-­now that you\'re all here, the guard should be able to let
you up after lunch. We will make sure that there are people downstairs
to help you get back up here again. They changed our security
arrangements at the last minute on us. And so, it has complicated our
lives a little bit today. But\--so, bear with us. If you encounter any
issues, just grab one of the staffs. There are a bunch of them in the
room right now, and most of them are standing up. So, if you have
questions, just grab them. Ron, you got anything?

**MR. SANN:** Only hello and welcome. Thank you.

**MR. BERGERON:** With that, we\'ll hear from our first witness. If you
could come to the microphone. The first person coming up and speaking to
us is Heather Jarvis. Hi. Yes, please state your name and the
organization you are with. Thank you.

**MS. JARVIS:** Good morning. My name is Heather Jarvis. I\'m with Equal
Justice Works. I\'m an attorney representing Equal Justice Works on
staff there. Can you hear me now?

Equal Justice Works has dedicated 20 years to promoting public interest
law, and to assisting law graduates who choose to do public interest
work. We have joined with other public interest law leaders to support
the enactment of Section 431, the loan repayment for civil legal
assistance attorneys, and we have collaborated with law schools
throughout the country to establish loan repayment assistance programs.
We have assisted statewide programs, employer-based programs, and we
really are national experts in the design and implementation of loan
repayment assistance programs. And we have analyzed Section 431, and
have a couple of suggestions to make in that regard. We\'ve identified
five specific areas that we find appropriate for regulation. The first
is loan priority, the second are terms of repayment, the third,
application priority, the fourth, double benefits, and the fifth,
definition of statutory terms. So, we ask that the Department of
Education designate these subjects for negotiated rulemaking.
Specifically loan priority in Section 428(l) states that the Secretary
shall carry out a program of assuming the obligation to repay a student
loan by direct payments on behalf of a borrower to the holder of such
loans, but the statute does not provide rules establishing a loan
priority, and eligible civil legal assistance attorneys are likely to
have many eligible student loans.

So, rules establishing an order of priority for repayment of those loans
should be included on the agenda of a negotiated rulemaking committee.
The committee can consider whether to prioritize Direct Loans, FFEL
Loans, Grad PLUS Loans, higher interest rate loans, or the like. We also
ask that a committee consider repayment terms. In Section 428(l), as
well, the statute indicates that if an attorney quits or is fired for
misconduct before they complete their service obligation, that borrower
will repay the amount of benefits that they have received. Rules
establishing the terms of that repayment will need to be determined.

Thirdly, application priority. The statute itself sets out priority
rules for selecting borrowers to receive benefits, but regulations
implementing those borrower priority rules are needed. Negotiated
rulemakers could determine additional priority rules as well for
applications in the event that appropriations remain after initial
distribution of benefits to priority borrowers. We also ask that a
committee consider the double benefits provision of Section 428(l) which
establishes an ineligibility for double benefits provision, stating that
no borrower may, for the same service, receive a reduction of loan
obligations under this Section and Section 428(k) or 455(m), being the
new loan forgiveness program for servicing areas of national need and
the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, public service loan
forgiveness.

Now, rules establishing the appropriate application of this Section will
be needed, and the committee can consider how to apply this provision in
light of the loan and borrower priority rules, and the interaction
between this provision and the College Cost Reduction and Access Act.
And finally, there are some definitions that I believe will be needed.
There are several statutory terms, including full-time,
continually-licensed, involuntarily-separated, and contrary to the
public interest that we believe ought to be the subject of rulemaking
and definition. Equal Justice Works and I are happy to offer advice,
propose draft regulations, and to support the Department\'s effort to
address these issues. And so, I thank you and I\'d be happy to answer
questions if you have any of those.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you.

**MS. JARVIS:** Thank you.

**MR. BERGERON:** I appreciate it, Heather. Susan Saxton is next. Again,
if you could tell us for the record who\--state your name and the
organization you represent. Thank you, Susan.

**DR. SAXTON:** Good morning. Is everything okay? Hi, my name is Dr.
Susan Saxton. I\'m the Chief Academic Officer for Laureate Higher
Education Group.

Laureate Education has several accredited institutions in the United
States, including Weldon University, Kendall College in Chicago, and the
New School of Architecture and Design in San Diego. Weldon offers
graduate degrees at the master\'s and doctoral levels in a variety of
academic disciplines with the non-tradition adult learner who is working
full-time or otherwise has not had the opportunity to pursue higher
education in the campus-based traditional setting. Kendall College
offers degrees in business, hospitality, the culinary arts, and early
childhood education. The New School of Architecture and Design offers
bachelor\'s and master\'s degrees in architecture.

With a portfolio of diverse institutions, Laureate has experience with
regional, national, and specialized accreditation. I appreciate the
opportunity to share our thoughts with you on a number of issues, which
we believe the Department should consider during the negotiated
rulemaking process. As an overarching issue for consideration, my
comments are focused on the need to better incorporate the interests of
the non-traditional adult learner into the federal education policy.

Thus I speak today on specific concepts of innovation and teaching and
learning, simplification of the Title IV administration, institutional
disclosure, and accreditation with the broad recommendation, with
changes in these policies\--must take into consideration the needs of
the non-traditional adult student. Laureate supports the Higher
Education Opportunity Act\'s efforts to combat diploma mills. We
consider these efforts critical for preventing fraud against students,
and essential for maintaining the quality of distance education. We must
prevent bad actors and illegitimate institutions from impacting success
in this area, and we welcome the opportunity to work with the Department
to accomplish this goal.

Laureate is proud of Weldon University\'s reputation and accomplishments
in providing access to quality education for non-traditional students
exclusively for distance learning. Distance learning is a proven way in
which to provide access to quality education for many learners who
otherwise would not be able to enroll in a campus-based program.
Laureate, through Weldon, has been at the forefront of distance
education, and has extensive experience in encouraging innovation while
ensuring continued quality and a positive student experience. We also
support the HEOA\'s provisions requiring Accreditors to maintain
standards and train their site evaluators that have distance education.
These changes recognize that distance education has become an accepted
format for delivering educational programs, and that the accrediting
agencies play an important role in ensuring quality in distance
education as they do with all institutions and programs.

To review institutions that offer distance education consistently, it is
important that all recognized accrediting agencies be knowledgeable
about how distance education programs operate and how they differ from
programs offered by other formats. In addition, we applaud the
Department for working with Congress to revise the definition of
distance education to distinguish correspondence programs and other
forms of distance education delivery.

Our institutions also take very seriously the responsibility to ensure
that students enrolled in our programs are students participating in and
completing our programs. For example, Weldon has a number of methods it
uses to ensure continual contact between its students and professors,
and we\'d be happy to share these experiences in detail with the
Department. The conference report does not mandate that institutions use
or Accreditors require a specific type of process. Rather, it indicates
that mechanisms such as passwords or identification numbers are
currently sufficient for student verification. We consider it important
that the Act\'s language regarding verification processes continues to
provide institutions the flexibility to determine what type of process
should be adopted.

Adjusting Title IV programs to better meet the needs of all learners,
including the non­traditional adult learner, is of great importance to
Laureate. We applaud the increases to the Pell Program\'s funding
levels, and the expansion to a year-round Pell, because it recognizes
the important role year-long funding plays in allowing particularly
non-traditional FFEL students to continue and complete their educational
programs.

We also appreciate the other changes to the Title IV programs that allow
institutions to increase access to higher education for non­traditional
learners. Finally, we applaud all efforts, including the Secretary\'s
recently announced plan to streamline the FAFSA application and the
associated approval process so that students may more quickly understand
the funding for which they are eligible. Such understanding often has a
direct bearing on their educational choices. In this area, we would
welcome the opportunity to assist the Department in improving its
processes and systems.

Laureate supports the general concept that institutions have a
responsibility to disclose more information on student achievement to
students, perspective students, and the public in order to improve
institutional accountability and to help students make more informed
decisions about their education. Such disclosures are particularly
important for students who enter or return to higher education later in
life to improve their career prospects. For this reason, we generally
support the Act\'s requirement, for example, the data related to
graduation, completion, and retention rates be disclosed. We believe it
is important, however, that such information be disclosed in a manner
that is useful to the public. Thus, it is critical that the Department
carefully consider the definition of the terms \"retention rate,\"
\"graduation rate,\" and \"placement rate,\" recognizing that varying
types of institutions might define such terms differently.

Laureate believes accreditation should continue to play an important
role in ensuring exceptional quality of educational programs, both those
offered on the ground and those offered through distance education. In
general, we support the new accreditation provisions of the Act. We
believe those provisions generally respect the important independent
relationship between an accreditor and an institution, for recognizing
the need of federal policy agencies to ensure some consistency regarding
processes and operations in accreditation. We commend the Act\'s
recognition that different types of institutions measure student
achievement in different ways unique to the distinct roles of that
institution. As a general principal, we believe that measures must be
linked to specific learning outcomes, and that each academic program
should embody a set of student learning outcomes specific to defined and
appropriate program goals.

Laureate supports the concept that each accreditor will look at each
institution and its unique program goals in assessing the institution
against its standards on student achievement. Laureate supports
continuous interaction and frequent communication with Accreditors which
enhances the relationship between our institutions and the quality
assurance agencies.

The amendments to Section 102 regarding the expansion of the definition
of proprietary institution of higher education to include liberal arts
programs are complex. For example, they do not define what it means to
have provided a liberal arts program by January 1, 2009. Further, the
conference report indicates that, \"The conferees understand that some
programs offered by an institution make the definition of a program that
leads to gainful employment in a recognized occupation and a liberal
arts program.\" The conferees do not intend the terms \"gainful
employment in a recognized occupation,\" and \"liberal arts\" to be
mutually exclusive. Given that this provision takes effect on January 1,
2009, we believe it is important for the Department to act quickly to
provide institutions guidance on the implementation of this statutory
definition.

In conclusion, Laureate asks the Department to consider when making any
changes to its regulations how the federal government and the higher
education community might do a better job serving the needs of a growing
cohort of non­traditional adult learners who are purposefully seeking
professional growth and lifelong learning opportunities. We believe that
the public at large will benefit from the disclosure of data related to
student outcomes, continued support of the development of innovative
methods of teaching and learning, policy reforms and streamlining of
procedures relating to the financial aid system. Laureate looks forward
to working with the Department on these issues as it proceeds with the
negotiated rulemaking process. Thank you.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you, Susan. As you can see, we\'re trying to
make a few adjustments so that it\'s a little easier for people to hear.
Our next speaker is Mary Dorrell.

**MS. DORRELL:** Good morning. First of all, I want to thank you for the
opportunity to be here today and share my thoughts and recommendations.
The work of these public hearings is the first important step in
identifying issues and address\--soliciting our input. My name is Mary
Dorrell. I\'ve Vice President of Student Finance for Career Education
Corporation.

I\'ve been in student finance for 28 years at a community college, a
public university, and proprietary institutions. Career Education
Corporation is the largest on-ground provider of private, for-profit,
postsecondary education. The colleges, schools, and universities that
are a part of Career Education Corporation offer higher education to
more than 90,000 students in a variety of career-oriented disciplines.
The 75 ground campuses offer doctoral, masters, bachelors, associate
degrees, as well as diploma and certificate programs. Today, I would
like to address some of our 90-10 concerns.

I\'d like to start with additional unsubsidized Stafford. The law
provides that, for loans disbursed from July 1, 2008 to June 30 of 2011
an institution can treat as non-Title IV revenue the amount of Federal
Stafford disbursed that exceeds the limits that existed prior to the
enactment of ECASLA, Public Law 110-227. Our concern is that, because
these loans are divided into multiple disbursements, it is unclear how
the institution will attribute the additional loan amounts, particularly
when some disbursements will cross over into the next award year. We
suggest that the most appropriate method for determining the amount to
attribute to the additional loan amount would be to relate the
disbursements of subsidized Stafford, unsubsidized Stafford, and
additional unsubsidized Stafford to each payment period in proportion to
the total amount of the Stafford that was awarded for the loan period.

Schools should not be required to go back after the close of a year and
reattribute the loan back to the regular Stafford if the student
subsequently drops out and does not receive the remaining disbursements.
Similarly, when a student drops out and the funds are subject to R2TIV,
the amount of the Stafford repaid should be proportionately attributed
to the additional and the regular Stafford loans for the purposes of
90-10 calculations.

**MR. BERGERON:** Can you move the microphone a little closer.

**MS. DORRELL:** A little closer? Okay.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you.

**MS. DORRELL:** I want to also talk about institutional loans.

The HEOA provides addition flexibility to institutions to allow them to
count net present value of institutional loans on an accrual basis
toward the 90-10 compliance. As a result of the tighter credit markets,
many students who previously were able to obtain private loans are
unable to obtain them now. Institutions are working with lenders to
originate loans to their students despite the current markets. Schools
then purchase these loans from the lender at a principal plus interest,
and assume all responsibility for the debt at the point of purchase.

Although the loans are not made by a proprietary institution of higher
education, the proprietary institution assumes all responsibility for
the loan, including collections and default risk. If the institution did
not purchase the loans, these third-party loans would clearly be
included as cash received for the 90-10 purposes. However, with the
purchase of these loans, it\'s not clear that these loans can be counted
as cash received. With the purchase of these loans, they are similar to
loans made by the institution. Therefore, to ensure that these loans are
clearly defined in 90-10 purposes, we request that loans originated by a
third party lender for the students at an institution but purchased in
full by the institution be treated the same as institutional loans made
by the institution as they relate to the 90-10 calculation. In addition,
as part of paying institutional charges, many institutions allow
students to use installment payment plans or retail installment
contracts. While such payment plans do not include the issuance of funds
at intervals related to the institution\'s enrollment periods, they
include contracts that are legally enforceable, and subject to regular
loan repayments and collections. For that reason, we believe such
installment payment plans meet the standard of an institutional loan.
Therefore, we request that such institutional payment plans be clearly
defined as institutional loans as they relate to the 90-10 calculations.
And finally, the law also requires that loans subject to regular
repayment and collections­-our institutions allow students to defer
payment on certain loans while they\'re enrolled. We wish to ensure that
a definition of institutional loans includes loans that incorporate a
deferment of payment while the students are in school and during a
reasonable grace period after they leave, as we believe that these are
also in the best interests of the students. And thank you.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Well, I think I can assure that David is not fed up
with the\--

\[Laughter.\]

**MR. MADZELAN:** \--not frustrated at all, but we are joined, now, up
here by Kay Gilcher of our staff. Kay, say hello.

**MS. GILCHER:** Hello.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Our next speaker is Ken Salomon. Welcome, Ken.

**MR. SALOMON:** Thank you. Good morning. I\'m Ken Salomon, and I\'m
here on behalf of ACUTA, the Association for Information Communications
Technology Professionals in Higher Education.

ACUTA asks that the Department develop through the negotiated rulemaking
process the regulations to implement the HEOA\'s technology provisions,
specifically the Emergency Notification System, or ENS, requirements and
the Student Safety and Campus Emergency Management Grant Program
regulations, the peer-to-peer, or P2P, file sharing requirements, and
the distance learner verification requirement. ACUTA also requests that
the Department select one of its members as a higher ed negotiator on
the negotiated rulemaking panel dealing with the ENS and Emergency
Notification Grant Program and include ACUTA members as technical
experts and advisors to the P2P and verification negotiated rulemaking
panel or panels. ACUTA believes that the face-to-face, give-and-take of
negotiated rulemaking is the best way to develop effective ENS, P2P, and
verification rules, because the difficult regulatory, legal, and policy
challenges in developing these regulations are exacerbated by the fact
that there is complex and rapidly evolving and changing technologies
that underlie each of these issues.

Because ACUTA represents nearly 2,000 professionals at 800 colleges and
universities in all 50 states, ranging from the smallest to the
Nation\'s largest higher ed institutions, it is superbly qualified to
participate in developing these technology rules through negotiated
rulemaking. ACUTA restricts institutional membership to the full-time
employee of an accredited institution, having primary responsibility for
the control or direction of campus communication technologies services
and budgets, and for campus voice, video, and data communications
networks. ACUTA members have a deep expertise in all the key issues and
technologies associated with the three HEOA technology provisions.
They\'re responsible for designing, managing, and operating
telecommunications and data infrastructure on campuses that will be an
essential component of the three technology provisions, and they fully
understand the capabilities and the limitations of infrastructure and
the upgrades that will be necessary to affect the technological
solutions.

They are responsible for evaluating, selecting, implementing, testing
and managing ENS on campuses of all sizes. They have experience and
knowledge both in how these systems work and their limitations,
knowledge which will be invaluable to the Department in developing
practical and effective ENS rules.

As the only campus managers that work with many telecommunications
carriers on a daily basis, ACUTA members understand the limitations of
the public switch network, the impact of the capabilities of
telecommunications infrastructure in their community, and the importance
of redundant systems to minimize the risk of failure. ACUTA members know
from real world campus experience in testing and using ENS for alerts
that multiple notification methods are essential, something mentioned by
the conference committee.

They also know that the best ENS system is only as effective as the
telecommunications infrastructure that it runs on, an important
consideration for the Emergency Notification Grant Program, and that the
text, voice, and e-mail systems currently available depend heavily on
factors such as opt-in rates, available bandwidth, and wireless coverage
across the campus, all of which are affected by community-wide
emergencies and by natural disasters.

ACUTA members can bring to the Department the real-world experience
necessary to the development of truly effective ENS rules, policies, and
procedures, one of the charges that you are given under this Section of
the HEOA. They also understand development and management of network and
data security policies and technologies, and their expertise in
authentication and other aspects of security qualify them to advise the
Department on the P2P and verification panels. ACUTA members are
familiar with the technological authentication measures through their
provision of the network on which campus learning management systems
operate and through the operation of campus-wide network security and
authentication systems and procedures. They can provide the panel with
essential input about what technological options are now available to
colleges, what is feasible within those systems, and what may be on the
horizon.

In conclusion, ACUTA appreciates this opportunity to state our
recommendations that the Department employ negotiated rulemaking to
develop the regulations implementing the HEOA\'s complex and important
technology provisions, that an ACUTA representative be selected as a
higher education negotiator on the ENS panel, and that ACUTA members be
included as technical experts and advisors on the P2P and distance
learner verification reasons-­panel. For the reasons I\'ve stated above,
ACUTA believes that it is particularly well-qualified to be an important
and valuable ENS negotiator, but should the Department determine
otherwise, it requests inclusion as a technical expert or advisor to
that panel. Thank you.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Thank you, Ken. Marie Bennett.

**MS. BENNETT:** Good morning.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Marie, make sure the microphone is close.

**MS. BENNETT:** Are we close enough? We\'re good?

**MR. MADZELAN:** Thank you.

**MS. BENNETT:** Okay. Good morning. I\'m Marie Bennett. I\'m submitting
testimony on behalf of Marilyn Cargill, President of the National
Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs, NASSGAP, and its
members. I will read portions of the testimony and provide a complete
written copy.

NASSGAP represents agencies in the 50 states that operate state aid
programs, including the Federal LEAP and SLEAP programs. In 2006-2007,
our member states provided \$9.3 billion in state student financial aid.
On behalf of NASSGAP, I thank you for this opportunity to provide this
input. The first topic I want to discuss-­regarding financial aid
application simplification.

A few years ago, my colleague, Dennis Obergell, identified five
principle points to consider in such deliberations. States use the FAFSA
as the primary application for state need-based grants. State financial
resources are finite, but the population of needy students is growing.
And with regard to that, that growth requires increased diligence on the
part of states to make sure that the most needy students do not lose
financial aid at the expense of simplifying a form. There is a delicate
balance between reducing complexity and sacrificing good stewardship of
public funding. And five, if questions important to state grant agencies
are eliminated from the FAFSA, then states will have no choice but to
create additional forms for students to complete in order to capture the
missing data. States have been agents for change and have contributed
significantly to the simplification milestones that have occurred over
the years. NASSGAP conducted the research which led to the
identification of common state questions that could be retained in the
FAFSA, and that number of questions today is ten. We believe the Act
provides abundant opportunity to achieve a more accessible and
successful application system. Some of the opportunities that we\'ve
identified include the design of the form and all of its versions should
be a matter that engages all the partners who use the FAFSA form.

Agreement about which questions are state questions that are protected
under the language of the HEOA must be achieved in an open and
accountable fashion. The development of the process which will allow
individuals to file an application prior to January 1, the use of prior
prior-year data from the IRS as the base data for calculating the EFC,
use of other income and asset data that cannot be derived from the IRS
data, any studies, pilots, demonstration projects, and the assessment of
their impact on the ability of states and institutions to award aid, the
inclusion of state and institutional aid on the federal model financial
aid form. A second matter of great importance to our members, of course,
is the language in the law that authorizes the Leveraging Educational
Assistance Partnership Act, and replaces the SLEAP with a new Grants for
Access and Persistence Program. Because GAP contains so many new
requirements, the law allows up to a two-year transition period, during
which time states can continue to apply for SLEAP funding. It is unclear
how the state allotments will be determined for GAP, especially during
the two-year transition period from the special LEAP Program.

There is a provision in GAP that a state receiving an award cannot
receive an allotment less than a previous year; however, if a state
continues to use special SLEAP during the transition period, will the
same initial allocation formula as used in Special LEAP apply to GAP?
Beyond the transition period, the basis for the Department to make
initial GAP state allotments is unspecified. Further the continuation
and transition language timeline needs clarification as it provides for
a two-year period that begins on the date of the enactment of the HEOA,
during which the Secretary will continue to award SLEAP, given that the
\'08-\'09 LEAP and SLEAP award years were made-­those awards to the
states were made in June 2008 and the bill was signed
October\--August\--I\'m sorry­-August 14, 2008. The statutory language
appears to result in Special LEAP awards continuing through 2010-2011 at
the states\' option.

We also request that the Department permit the use of the Fed Forecaster
as an acceptable method of providing an early estimate of federal aid as
required in GAP. The student eligibility determinants in GAP include
measures not now reflected in the FAFSA. For example, has the student
participated in an early information or mentoring program? It appears,
then, that an additional question will be needed on the FAFSA to capture
this data.

Per the Act, states are to provide notification to eligible students who
receive LEAP Program grants\--that they are receiving Leveraging
Educational Assistance Partnership Grants funded by the federal
government, the state, and, where applicable, other contributing
partners. To implement the literal provision will require most states to
develop and administer two separate student grant award systems to
accommodate separate notifications: one for students with LEAP GAP that
includes federal funding, and one for students with only state funds in
their awards. This could, in effect, impair access. NASSGAP recommends
that in regulation the Department allow states to provide notification
to eligible students that such grants \"may be funded by the Federal
Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership Program, matching state
funds, and other funds.\"

Third, regarding the Gear Up Program, there is a provision for the
Secretary to increase the grant duration from six years to seven years
in the case of an eligible entity that applies for a grant for seven
years.

Our question for you to consider is, will Ed allow a seventh year of
grant payment for current grant awardees if their grant application and
subsequent annual performance reports indicate that they plan to
continue to monitor Gear Up students and provide services in the
students\' college freshman year, and perhaps beyond. NASSGAP is also
concerned by provisions that require the state and partnership grant
recipients to provide a personalized 21st century scholar certificate to
all students served by the program. NASSGAP urges the Department to find
ways to streamline these requirements.

Finally, in Title II, as we understand Sections 205 and 207, some or all
state funding received under the HEOA could be lost if certain state
teacher assessment and state report card provisions are not met. We
request that the Department\'s regulations reflect what we believe is
the intent of those Sections, that only funding awarded to states under
Title would be in jeopardy should a state be unable to comply with the
reporting requirement.

I thank you for the opportunity to provide our statement, and NASSGAP
looks forward to working with the Department on the implementation of
the HEOA.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Thank you, Marie.

**MS. BENNETT:** Thank you.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Next is Tony Birda \[sic.\]. Good morning.

**MR. BIEDA:** Good morning, members of the Panel. I appreciate the
opportunity to come and talk to you today. My name is Anthony Bieda, and
I am Director of Regulatory Affairs for ACICS, which is the Accrediting
Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. We\'re one of the largest
national accrediting agencies, based here in Washington, D.C. We
represent and accredit about 700 institutions in 46 states and 9 foreign
countries, representing a combined aggregate enrollment in excess of
550,000 students that are pursuing academic programs in professional,
occupational, and technical fields, up through and including the
master\'s degree program.

I have presented you a copy of a letter from our board, weighing in on
some of the issues surrounding the Higher Education Opportunity Act. I
will not spend any time reading it, but I do want to highlight with my
verbal comments the thrust of that letter. One of the key issues that
our institutions face, and more importantly the students they endeavor
to serve continue to face, is the ability to transfer academic
credit\--if they so choose to transfer their studies\--from one of our
credited institutions to another institution that is also eligible for
Title IV federal student financial aid. And in the Higher Education Act,
that is recognized\--it is acknowledged. I think the Congress has done a
good job in once again giving some profile to that issue and recognizing
that it is persistent and has not gone away. We encountered the same
dimensions in our dealings with our students and running interference on
their behalf with institutions and with state regulators, in particular.

So, the three elements that are mentioned in the letter as it pertains
to this reauthorization of the Higher Ed Act is, number one, a laudatory
comment dealing with the need to gather more information, more study,
more research. There is an abundance of information out there, an
abundance of studies that have been done about access to transfer of
credit, but yet the ability of that information to really guide
effective policy both at a federal and state level is still a little
suspect, and we believe there is good intent and therefore good need for
implementing the Higher Education Act to seek more information on a more
objective basis that gets at best practices, what is working, what
isn\'t, and how that can be replicated across a broader spectrum.

Secondly, I think in terms of the requirements of the Accreditors that
is contained in the language of the Higher Education Act, we believe
Congress did a good job in providing the sideboards and the parameters
for the participation by Accreditors in making sure that schools have,
in fact, transparency and disclosure of information about transfer of
credit, and that that is verified through the regulation of the
Accreditors. We believe that the language in the Act provides good
parameters, and would recommend that the\--in promulgating rules, the
Department doesn\'t need to go above and beyond that.

And then, third, the gist of the letter focuses on the ongoing inability
for students who initiate their studies at nationally-accredited schools
if and when they choose to transfer that credit, the first and, in some
cases, the most persistent barrier they will encounter when they go to
that regionally accredited school and ask for transfer is, in fact, the
notion that, on the basis of institutional accreditation, the discussion
cannot even occur, let alone an effective evaluation of which of those
credits should be eligible for transfer and which ones should not. Now,
you all know, and certainly Congress knows that on more than one
occasion, and not just from the Department but from other key
institutions that play in this issue, that it has been stated that
source of accreditation is not to be the sole basis for denying transfer
of credit, let alone to be denying a thoughtful review of the potential
for some academic credit to transfer, and yet that issue persists. So,
that\'s only a tiny portion of the overall issue for transfer of credit,
but it is the portion of the issue that, as a national accreditor and as
representing those students, we continue to encounter on a recurring
basis.

So, with that, I\'ll conclude my remarks and entertain if you have any
questions.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Thank you, Tony, and I apologize for butchering your
last name. I have trouble reading.

**MR. BIEDA:** That\'s okay.

**MR. MADZELAN:** So, if we mispronounce anyone\'s name, please correct
us, for the record. Thank you. Mark Luker.

**MR. LUKER:** Good morning. I\'m Mark Luker, Vice President of
EDUCAUSE. EDUCAUSE is the leading nonprofit association representing
higher education technology leaders and professionals. Our membership
includes over 2,200 campuses, ranging from community colleges to large
research universities to supercomputer centers and to statewide systems.
On behalf of our members, we urge the Department of Education to direct
special care to rules written for the enforcement of Section 493 of the
Higher Education Opportunity Act. In particular, we refer to the
requirement for all institutions to, (a), develop plans, including the
use of technology-based deterrents for combating copyright infringement
on campus networks and, (b), to offer alternatives to unauthorized
content distribution.

The details of these rules can have a significant impact on the ability
of our members to continue operating campus networks with cost
effectiveness, efficiency, openness, security, stability, and innovation
that are essential to research and instruction. They can also have
significant negative impact on the cost of higher education. With
respect to (a), we ask the Department to follow the guidance of the
conference report accompanying the legislation, which correctly observes
that the technologies move quickly from the drawing board to
obsolescence, and concludes, \"The conferees intend for each institution
to retain the authority to determine what its particular plans for
compliance with this Section will be.\" Provision of appropriate network
technology is one of the great challenges on today\'s college and
university campuses, and only the most flexible interpretation of
Section 493 will enable our campuses to maintain the level of excellence
needed in this increasingly competitive world. Regarding (b), offering
alternatives to unauthorized content distribution, the Department should
be aware that many campuses have provided alternatives, and the market
is currently thriving with several established models for the legitimate
distribution of digital entertainment, with new ones constantly
emerging.

This market growth and development is appropriately occurring without
the direct participation by higher education institutions. We\'re
committed to supporting the expansion of this active commercial market
without using tuition dollars for subsidy, and without interference and
compliance with the relevant provision of Section 493. For many years,
EDUCAUSE community members and staff have been directly and intensively
engaged with the entertainment industry with technology vendors with a
wide range of on- and off-campus experts in an attempt to find mutually
acceptable approaches to the problem of Internet-based copyright
infringement.

As the Department works to develop the rules required in enforcing
Section 493 of HEOA, EDUCAUSE asks to be included in your deliberations,
and to nominate or participate on any related negotiated rulemaking
panel. Thank you.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Thank you, Mark. Gwen Dunsy \[sic.\].

**MS. DUNGY:** Good morning. And I want to correct my name: It\'s Dungy.
Okay. I am Executive Director of NASPA, the Professional Association for
Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. The focus of our
work is the overall wellbeing of students on a safe and secure
environment for learning. Student affairs administrators have followed
the education\--Higher Education Reauthorization process, and we are
pleased with the many components that serve students in higher education
well. We appreciate the opportunity to make comment today to call
attention to three areas of concern.

One area of concern is the interpretation of the immediate notification
of critical incidents in Title IV, Section 485. We believe that it is
vital that campuses have flexibility to critically analyze and respond
to campus emergencies using their best professional judgment in regard
to timeliness and notifying the campus community. Any additional
definitions or unnecessary regulatory controls could seriously
compromise the campus\' ability to contain an emergency. A timely
response for one circumstance on one campus is unique to that campus,
and each incident must be judged on its unique circumstances.

Secondly, the Higher Education Opportunity Act requires colleges and
universities to develop policies related to missing students. This
provision is problematic as it is truly impossible to track which
students are away from campus more than 24 hours. The law would put
expectations on colleges that could not be met, and it raises
expectations of parents and campus personnel\--that campus personnel can
actually monitor the comings and goings of students. Colleges already
collect emergency contact information, and they already have in place
policies and procedures for handling Missing Person Reports through
campus or community law enforcement. As negotiators begin to consider
possible rules and regulations as they relate to missing persons, NASPA
recommends that negotiators keep in mind that campuses are diverse in
type and number of students enrolled, and that policies should be
allowed to vary based on individual institutional characteristics. Also
within Section 485 are the new campus fire safety reporting
requirements. In 1998, campuses across the country began to meet the
challenge of complying with the Clery Act reporting requirements. It was
not until several years later that intensive training and publication of
the Handbook for Campus Crime Reporting was completed. As negotiators
begin to develop regulations, it is important that rules are drafted in
such a way that campus administrators are able to comply within a
reasonable timeframe, and that any training and publications are
distributed as soon as possible.

And as I close, I\'d like to bring your attention to student affairs
administrators and educators as a valuable resource\--from financial aid
and textbooks to peer-to-peer file sharing, from financial literacy to
alcohol and drug violations. All of these have an impact on the
education environment and students\' ability to succeed. As partners in
educating students, student affairs professionals take a large share of
the responsibility for students\' complete college experience. As such,
they have knowledge pertinent to future discussions by the rulemaking
panels. Therefore, I believe it is in the best interest of students and
the Department of Education to include student affairs professionals on
any negotiated rulemaking panels under consideration. Student affairs
professionals understand the challenges ahead of us as a Nation in
regard to access, affordability, and accountability, because our work
allows us the view of the personal lives of students in ways others on
campus may not have. We bring less known but critical information to the
deliberations. Our education and support roles with students have no
boundaries. We are educators who work with the whole student: their
learning and their welfare.

Thank you for the opportunity to make a comment.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Thank you, Gwen. Our next speaker is Jonathan Kassa.

**MR. KASSA:** Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity. As the
Nation\'s leading non-profit advocacy organization for safer colleges
and universities, Security on Campus is pleased to have this opportunity
to offer comment on behalf of students and their families, specifically,
as it relates to negotiated rulemaking process to implement the
provisions of the Higher Education Opportunity Act. Several important
campus safety-related measures were enacted as part HEOA that warrant
consideration and attention by a separate negotiated rulemaking
committee, specifically Section 488 of HEOA, amended the campus security
disclosure provisions of the Jean Clery Act to, among other things, add
a statement of emergency response and warning policy to annual security
reports produced by institutions of higher education.

Section 488(g) established new disclosure requirements in the Higher Ed
Act of 1965 for campus fire safety, missing residential students, and
about the loss and restoration of eligibility for student aid in the
event of a conviction for a drug violation. Additionally, Section 493
added a new element to the program participation agreements entered into
by institutions requiring disclosure of the outcome of disciplinary
results in cases of alleged violent crimes to the victims of those
crimes.

And paneling a separate negotiated rulemaking committee to address these
five campus security-related disclosure provisions will help ensure that
the expertise of those most familiar with these issues can be brought to
bear on these issues in a tightly focused setting.

We would recommend that the panel include representatives of campus
public safety professionals, fire safety experts, emergency response
experts, and campus safety advocates. In enacting these provisions, the
Congress as well as the President who signed them into law recognized
that a safe learning environment is essential and must be a top
priority. Without it, the taxpayer investment in higher education is
significantly undermined and the Nation is robbed of the eventual
productivity of those students whose lives are either needlessly lost or
adversely impacted by crime, fires, or other emergencies on campus.
Making implementation of these provisions ought to be a priority as
well. Thank you again for the opportunity to offer this comment, in
advance, for the U.S. Department of Education\'s thoughtful
consideration of our recommendations. Please don\'t hesitate to call on
Security on Campus if we can be of any assistance to you in this
process.

Thank you.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Thank you.

**MS. GILCHER:** Okay, we\'re going to do a little switch, here. Mike
McComis.

**MR. McCOMIS:** Good morning. My name is Michale McComis and I\'m the
Associate Executive Director with the Accrediting Commission of Career
Schools and Colleges of Technology, and I welcome the opportunity to
speak to you today on issues related to accreditation in the proposed
negotiated rulemaking.

ACCSCT is a national accrediting agency that\'s been recognized by the
Department of Education since 1967, and most recently re-recognized in
2005. We accredit close to 800 institutions that serve about 220,000
students annually, both degree-granting and nondegree­granting
institutions that are predominately organized to educate students for
occupational trade and technical careers. We believe that it is
important that the Department follow Congress\' intent to improve
access, accountability, and transparency in higher education, while
preserving the unique relationship that accrediting agencies have with
the institution they accredit, to include the peer review process, which
is a critical component to that relationship. Today, I\'d like to
provide some thoughts on areas that the Department may wish to explore
during its negotiated rulemaking process, including making accreditation
more transparent and encouraging quality and innovation, supporting the
mobility of our students, student achievement, and ensuring institutions
receive due process.

First, with respect to transparency and accreditation, we believe that
increasing the public\'s understanding on the accreditation process is
an important component to the effectiveness of that process. We publish
notices of our accreditation decisions on our Web site, and notify
interested parties such as the Department of Education in accordance
with the previous statutory and regulatory requirements. Thus, we
support the provisions in the HEOA that require disclosure of increased
information about accreditation including public disclosure of certain
accreditation actions. With respect to innovation, ACCSCT is committed
to innovation in education. We have separate and highly articulated
standards on distance education, and we were the first agency to have
distance education explicitly included within our scope of recognition.
We therefore are pleased to see that the Act included definition of
distance education, and support the Act\'s acknowledgment that agencies
need to have separate standards applicable to distance education, and
that site evaluators are knowledgeable about distance education.

Congress included a provision requiring Accreditors to ensure that
institutions have processes in place to establish that the students
taking their courses are the ones who enrolled and will receive the
credit. ACCSCT encourages the Department to rely on legislative intent
to guide its regulatory interpretation. The conference report defers to
Accreditors and institutions to determine what technologies and
processes are appropriate, and we note that passwords and identification
numbers are currently sufficient. With respect to transfer of credit and
the mobility of students, as the Department knows, ACCSCT has regularly
argued in support of a federal policy that supports more flexible and
less arbitrary transfer of credit policies.

In fairness to students, many of whom are Title IV recipients, transfer
of credit decisions should be based on course equivalency and competency
of students attending legitimate accredited institutions, rather than
based solely on the source of accreditation of the sending institution.
This concept is supported by the Council on Higher Education
Accreditation, CHEA, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars
and Admissions Officers, or AACRAO, and the Council of Regional
Accrediting Commissions, or C-RAC.

Although that particular policy was not included in the HEOA, we do
applaud the Act\'s inclusion of Title IV provisions that will increase
the disclosure and student knowledge of institutional transfer of credit
policies; we support that.

ACCSCT believes that this transparency is a very important step forward,
and we\'ve already promulgated such standards for our accredited
institutions. We encourage the Department to continue to urge
institutions to more actively consider course equivalency and student
competency in their transfer of credit evaluations and decisions. With
respect to due process, ACCSCT has comprehensive decision making and
appeals processes. Institutions subject to adverse actions are provided
numerous opportunities to address the agency\'s concerns in writing and
in face-to-face settings.

Under HEOA, an institution will be afforded an additional opportunity at
appeal to provide new information related to its financial condition, if
the financial condition was a reason or a condition for the agency\'s
adverse action. This new requirement, however, still provides
Accreditors with flexibility to determine their own processes, and the
Department should continue to be deferential to Accreditors\' processes
as long as the standards and practice comply with the Act\'s
requirements. Of paramount importance, of course, is that any regulation
should preserve the Accreditors\' ability to take swift action when
necessary to protect students attending a distressed institution.

Although outside the scope of the negotiated rulemaking process, I\'d
like to take a moment briefly to address the issue of student
achievement. ACCSCT believes that the HEOA preserves the ability of
agencies to set standards of student achievement with which their
accredited institutions must comply. We have had quantitative standards
in place for over a decade that require our institutions to demonstrate
acceptable rates of graduation and employment on an annual basis. In
addition, ACCSCT has in place standards requiring institutions to focus
on continual improvement in these areas. We believe that this type of
review of our institutions\--student achievement outcomes is essential
to ensuring quality, and we are heartened that nothing in the HEO
changes an accreditor\'s ability to maintain these standards or to
require compliance with them as a condition of accreditation.

In conclusion, I would just like to emphasize that accreditation plays
an important role in ensuring institutional quality, and I hope that the
Department will continue to rely on accreditation as a method by which
to increase transparency, enhance innovation, ensure student access and
achievement, and maintain due process for institutions. Given the
critical role that accreditation plays in the number of amendments to
the accreditation provisions in the Higher Education Act, I would urge
the Department to establish a separate negotiated rulemaking committee
on accreditation, and to populate that committee with experienced,
knowledgeable people on the issues relevant to accreditation. I look
forward to the opportunity to work with the Department in this regard,
and\--as negotiated rulemaking discussions on accreditation move
forward. Thank you.

**MS. GILCHER:** Thank you, Mike. And I\'d like to have my colleague
introduce himself.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Brian Kerrigan. Thank you.

**MS. GILCHER:** I just want to ensure that you have enough federal ears
to hear you well. Okay. Next is Emily Singer.

**MS. SINGER:** Good morning. I apologize. I got pushed up on the
schedule a little bit and wasn\'t prepared right away. So, I apologize
for taking a minute to get up here. My name is Emily Singer. I am the
Director of Disability Support Services at the Catholic University of
America. I am also a Board member of the Association of Higher Education
and Disability, and here representing that organization. Thank you for
allowing me the opportunity to speak with you today. First, let me say
that AHEAD fully supports the Higher Education Opportunity
Reauthorization Act, which we believe will support the efforts of
institutions of higher education and our core constituency to improve
transition support and instructional services-­services and instruction
for all students with disabilities.

While 77 percent of students with disabilities hope to go to college,
only 31 percent of students with disabilities actually attend. We are
hopeful that these new regulations will increase the opportunity for all
students with disabilities and thereby make higher education a reality
for all. AHEAD is a professional membership organization of individuals
involved in the development of policy and in the provision of quality
services to meet the needs of persons with disabilities involved in all
areas of higher education.

At this time, we boast more than 2,500 members throughout the United
States and other countries. AHEAD is fortunate to have formal
partnerships with 30 regional affiliates and numerous other professional
organizations working to advance equality in higher education for people
with disabilities.

AHEAD dynamically addresses current and emerging issues with respect to
disability education and accessibility to achieve universal access. As
such, it is actively involved in all facets of promoting full and equal
participation by individuals with disabilities in higher education, and
supporting the systems, institutions, professions, and professionals who
attend to the fulfillment of this important mission. There are five key
provisions that we want to emphasize today which impact higher education
and disability. The first is preparing general education teachers to
more effectively educate students with disabilities, Title II, Part B,
Subpart 3, Section 251. AHEAD supports a structured multi-sensory
approach as outlined by the national regional panel, which highlights
the five pillars of literacy that are critical to essential reading
skills. As a part of this, AHEAD supports the use of research-based
methodologies in determining the best approaches to instruction in
reading and mathematics.

The education of teachers takes place within higher education. Our
approach towards disability and accommodation form the foundation for
the expertise of the future teachers and employers of \"your peers.\"
Because of the influence of climate and the importance of modeling best
practices, AHEAD supports model demonstration projects, Title VIII, Part
D, Section 760 to 765, to provide technical assistance or professional
development for faculty, staff, and administrators in institutions of
higher education in order to provide students with disabilities a
quality education at all levels.

We also encourage the investigation of models whereby teacher
preparation programs can more effectively model and assist in the
accelerated training of those teachers who are recruited from model
national service programs, such as Teach for America, who often come to
teaching without any academic teacher preparation foundation. And our
second provision is advisory commission on accessibility and instruction
materials in postsecondary education for students with disabilities,
Title VII, Part D, Subpart 3, Sections 771-772. AHEAD fully supports all
efforts to make instruction materials in a timely and usable format
accessible to all students with disabilities. This is particularly
important to those students with print disabilities, as was outlined in
the Wall Street Journal article from September 17, 2008, which
chronicled the increasing number of students with learning disabilities
entering postsecondary education and their needs for varying levels of
alternatives to print.

AHEAD and its members have been important leaders in the creation,
development, and expansion of services to fill a void in alternatives to
print, such as Bookshare.org, and has encouraged recordings for the
blind and dyslexic\--efforts to provide their materials in a digital
format.

AHEAD member institutions have an obligation to ensure
non-discrimination of all persons with disabilities in accordance with
the language of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Therefore, we feel that the current
definition as listed within the Higher Education Textbook Act of 2007
referring to print disability would exclude or not sufficiently
encompass all people with disabilities who would participate in or
benefit from the use of books in electronic format. The definition needs
to be revised to be based not on an outdated NLS definition, but on a
definition that reflects today\'s scientific realities. As our campuses
are beginning to deal with issues confronting returning servicemen and
women, the need to be broader in our ability to understand and address
disability-related impacts to reading and other academic tasks is
essential.

AHEAD believes that an advisory commission will be able to examine a
broad spectrum of materials, and needs to encourage the common
approaches and flexibility in format that will allow students to move
between and within our educational systems. AHEAD looks forward to
participating, consulting, and assisting in all such efforts. Third, the
e-text clearinghouse model demonstration programs to support improved
access to postsecondary instructional materials for students with print
disabilities, Title VII, Part D, Subpart 3, Sections 773 to 775.

Through its e-text initiative, a collaborative project involving its
members, the students and institutions they serve, publishers and
numerous organizations, AHEAD has developed an understanding of
stakeholder positions and current capacities. AHEAD supports the idea of
a national clearinghouse for accessibility texts, seeing it as a
necessary and efficient first step in the seamless provision of
accessible digital text directly to students with print impairments.

AHEAD fully supports the goal and intention of this legislation to
improve timely, usable access to printed instructional materials for
people with disabilities. AHEAD absolutely realizes that, while this
current Section is not the final answer to issues of text accessibility,
it clearly provides for our critical first step in attacking a
significant barrier to equality for people with disabilities in higher
education, including many with learning disabilities, physical mobility,
related disabilities, and blindness and visual impairments. As higher
education seeks to most fully include persons with disabilities,
legislation supporting that movement is tremendously important and we
applaud the committee\'s efforts in assisting to build systems that can
lead to systemic change that will ultimately benefit the hundreds of
thousands of people with a varying array of disabilities seeking to have
full and equal access to the benefit of higher education.

Data collection, Title IX, Part C, Section 1116. Colleges will be asked
to report \"percentage of undergraduate students enrolled at the
institution who are formally registered with the office of disability
services of the institution or the equivalent office as students with
disabilities.\" The collection of data on students with disabilities has
been inconsistent over time and across institutions. The lack of
consistent data has hindered the evaluation of our progress toward
inclusion or our identification of best practices, and our ability to
predict future resource needs. AHEAD sees this simple headcount of
students with disabilities seeking services or accommodations as an
opportunity to develop an infrastructure for the collection of more
meaningful data and the development of reliable models for service
delivery and resource planning.

We are pleased to see the addition of this provision, because students
with disabilities, like all other minority populations on campuses,
deserve to be included and counted. Currently, there is no defined
system or methodology in place to count college students with
disabilities. Determining how this task will be accomplished is
critical. Some of the questions that need to be considered when looking
at this provision are: Are we going to count students with disabilities
like we do other minorities, or only those students who request
accommodations with the institution\'s disability office? If so, how do
we ensure that we include students with disabilities who do not register
for disability services, for example, the student who uses a wheelchair
but is completely independent because the campus is accessible?

Question number two: How do we ensure that students who receive
financial assistance through agencies such as vocational rehabilitation
and use services with disabilities offices are not counted more than
once?

Third, considering that not every disability fits neatly into a specific
category, what will the tracking methodology be?

Fourth, in the end, what will the purpose of this data for the
individual institutions as well as the government\--are those schools
with small enrollments of students with disabilities going to find
themselves at greater risk of discrimination complaints? Are they going
to get more funding to serve students? We are pleased to see the
addition of this provision, because students with disabilities, like all
other minority populations on campus, deserve to be included and
counted. However, as indicated above, AHEAD feels that further
clarification is necessary in order for the data collection to be
effective and meaningful.

AHEAD would be happy to participate, consult, and assist in this
discussion. We also would like to encourage all considerations in all
provisions of the Act to consider the impact to students with
disabilities.

Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you today and to share
the views of the Association of Higher Education Disability. We will be
submitting written comments, as well, prior to the submission deadline
today.

**MS. GILCHER:** Thank you, Emily. Next is Russell Kitchner.

**MR. KITCHNER:** Good morning. I\'m Russell Kitchner. I work with the
American Public University System in Charleston, West Virginia, and I
appreciate the opportunity to speak this morning if only to take my mind
off the woeful state of my 401k.

I\'d like to speak specifically to Title IV, Part H, Section 495, which
is associated with the recognition of accrediting agencies or
associations, and specifically Section 496, which states the agency or
association requires an institution that offers distance education or
correspondence education to have processes through which the institution
establishes that the student who registers in a distance education or
correspondence education course or program is the same student who
participates in and completes the program and receives the academic
credit. At its core, this legislative provision appropriately addresses
the issues of academic quality, accountability, and consumer protection.
However, it goes beyond those values, appropriately so, in the sense
that it represents an important mandate for ethical conduct and program
integrity on the part of both learners and those who serve them.

Unfortunately, the scope of this legislation is restricted to but one
segment of the education industry, and traditional classroom-based
instruction is no longer immune to those same concerns of identity
verification and academic integrity on which this rule is based.
Furthermore, the number of traditional land-based institutions that are
now offering coursework via distance education is increasingly
exponentially, but the technology necessary to accommodate their
responsibilities consistent with this rule has not kept pace with that
growth. Consequently, I would ask that the agenda of any negotiating
committee that is established to address HEOA provisions related to
recognition of accrediting agencies and associations include
consideration of appropriate regulations to implement the above
referenced HEOA provision that reflect the complex and far-reaching
scope of the underlying questions surrounding the integrity of learning
in the face of current and emerging technologies.

Furthermore, I would ask that input be sought from various institutions,
including colleges and universities that are land-based, those that
combine traditional educational modes of learning, and those that offer
strictly distance education or correspondence forms of learning.

Given the complexity of the issues inherent to these regulations, it is
imperative that colleges and universities and the professionals who
serve them that have the practical experience in these areas be included
in the substantive rulemaking discussions. Representation on the
negotiated rulemaking committees from this diverse pool of educational
professionals would certainly enhance the prospects for fulfilling the
intended purposes for which this legislative provision was enacted.

I sincerely appreciate your willingness to consider the perspectives of
a broad spectrum of the higher education community. The great of
majority of those with experience in and a commitment to advancing
educational opportunities utilizing emerging technologies are equally
committed to maintaining standards of academic integrity in the course
of advancing that objective. Please note that my professional colleagues
and I welcome the prospect of assisting the Department in that regard.
Thank you very much.

**MS. GILCHER:** Thank you, Russell. We\'re going to take a ten-minute
break now. I would like\--because we\'re moving a little bit faster than
anticipated, if you are scheduled to testify early in the afternoon,
would you talk with people at the table if you\'re able to do it at the
end of this morning rather than early afternoon, so we can accommodate
additional people on the schedule in the afternoon. Thank you. Yes,
we\'ll begin with Elaine Neely when we return.

**\[Recess.\]**

**MS. GILCHER:** Okay. Elaine\--Elaine Neely, that is.

**MS. NEELY:** Good morning. I am Elaine Neely, the Senior Vice
President of Regulatory Affairs for Kaplan Higher Education. Kaplan
Higher Education is the largest division of Kaplan, Inc., a subsidiary
of the Washington Post Company.

The Higher Education division serves 85,000 students at more than 70
on-ground campuses and online through Kaplan University, which includes
the Nation\'s only completely online law school. Our students range from
individuals enrolled in diploma allied health programs, to classroom
teachers pursuing master\'s degrees, and business professionals seeking
MBAs and law degrees. Most of our students are women, and many are
single working parents. What they all have in common is a need for
education and training that will help them advance economically and that
is provided with the scheduling flexibility and personal attention they
require. We commend the U.S. Department of Education for moving swiftly
to implement the HEOA. We are encouraged that you are soliciting public
input regarding implementation issues, and that you will have the
framework ready for the incoming administration, including plans for
negotiated rulemaking beginning early next year. Kaplan Higher Education
would like to raise three specific areas which we believe need expedited
attention so that our schools may serve students better.

The first area we would like to highlight is the provision in Title I of
the Act which allows regionally-accredited for-profit institutions to
offer programs that lead to a baccalaureate degree in liberal arts,
provided those programs are in place by January 1, 2009. There is also a
related provision that has the effect of delaying Title IV eligibility
for students enrolled in such programs until July 1, 2010. We would, of
course, have preferred a provision that would have allowed more time for
relevant programs to be phased in, and that would have made Title IV
eligibility simultaneously with the program\'s effective date. We also
realize that you have to implement the law as written, and would
appreciate any additional guidance you could provide in advance of the
January program deadline. The second area we\'d like to raise for
expedited attention deals with the changes in 90­

10\. We are pleased that the law now provides some additional
flexibility, and would like to thank the department for its support for
those changes. Temporary 90-10 provisions dealing with institutional
loans and loan limit increases for unsubsidized Stafford loans became
effective July 1st. Kaplan, like other companies in the sector, has
moved to implement these changes into our operations, but the provisions
are subject to negotiated rulemaking. We would urge that, if at all
possible, expedited attention be paid to these provisions so that we do
not learn a year from now that the provisions we have put into place
need to be changed.

The third area we would believe needs expedited attention is private
loans. In particular, the changes to the Truth in Lending Act on which
the Federal Reserve Board of Governors is to regulate. We anticipate
that the Department will be consulted in that process, since you have
the expertise in dealing with postsecondary institutions.

Again, we would urge regulations sooner rather than later, and broad
consultation in that process. We appreciate the opportunity to submit
comments today, and look forward to additional opportunities to provide
input as you implement the Higher Education Opportunity Act. Thank you.

**MS. GILCHER:** Thank you, Elaine. Next is Mark Pelesh.

**MR. PELESH:** Good morning. My name is Mark Pelesh. I am Executive
Vice President of Corinthian Colleges. We have 93 campuses and 70,000
students in the United States, with our Everest and WyoTech divisions.
There are two issues that I would like to highlight this morning in
regards to the forthcoming negotiated rulemaking: the first is 90­10, and
the second is cohort default rates.

Let me begin with 90-10. First, I\'d like to talk about some
propositions that we think ought to guide the development of regulations
in regard to 90-10. Congress expressly wanted to provide for-profit
institutions flexibility to comply with 90-10 because of problems in the
credit markets and substantial increases in federal aid. It retained the
90-10 rule so that institutions would have \"skin in the game,\" as some
members of Congress put it, but its aim was not to maximize the adverse
impact of the rule. On the contrary, it recognized that the rule\'s
impact should be ameliorated because of the disappearance in GAP
financing for many low-income students, significant increases in loan
limits and Pell Grants which would make 90-10 compliance difficult if
not impossible, and undue restrictions in the application of the rule
that are unrelated to the purpose of identifying legitimate
institutions.

Secondly\--second proposition in addition flexibility in regard to
90-10\--is that, in contrast to previous versions of the HEA, Congress
has addressed implementation of the 90-10 rule in detail. A number of
statutory provisions plainly represent policy conclusions different from
those in the Department\'s regulations. So, what are the implications,
then, of those propositions for the development of regulations? Well,
first, the Department should follow the statute closely and eliminate or
modify those regulations in conflict with the statute. This would
include the treatment of institutional loans through July of 2012,
counting non-Title IV revenue as part of the 90-10 ratio, and also
revenue from Section 529 accounts.

In regard to institutional loans, the statute specifies the use of
accrual accounting in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting
Principles, or GAAP. We believe that the Department should leave the
accounting treatment of institutional loans to independent CPAs with
expertise in these concepts who will audit institutions\' financial
statements. One subject, though, that we do believe requires regulatory
elaboration is the treatment of tuition discounts. Congress explicitly
provided that they can be treated as institutional revenue in the same
way as scholarships, but by their very nature, discounts cannot come
from an outside source or be disbursed from a restricted account. Bona
fide discounts based on scholarship-type criteria should be counted as
institutional aid and non-Title IV revenue, in our view. The reasons for
that: Tuition discounts do represent institutions having \"skin in the
game,\" the concept that I mentioned at the outset. And throughout
reauthorization, members of Congress called for increased institutional
aid by for-profit institutions. Genuine tuition discounts represent the
most feasible and direct way to accomplish this goal.

Let me turn to cohort default rates. The HEOA contains a package of
statutory changes to the cohort default rate regime that will require
changes to the Department\'s regulations. The statute changes how cohort
default rates are to be calculated by extending the period of
measurement, and it couples this change with a transitional regime so
that institutions will have an adequate opportunity to accommodate the
new method of calculation.

Overall, we believe the statutory changes shift the emphasis away from
the use of cohort default rates as immediate indicators of institutional
quality and integrity, and as the basis for punitive measures if default
rate thresholds are exceeded. Going forward, we believe the HEOA places
more emphasis on longer-term measurement of default rates, which
necessarily will reflect less on an institution\'s responsibility for
those rates and on default prevention. So, we would urge the Department
to focus especially on the provisions in the statute requiring default
prevention taskforces, reports to and technical assistance from the
Department, and the earlier two-year appeal that the statute now
provides. These provisions call for more of a partnership between
institutions and the Department. We think it\'s important that the
interaction between the institution\'s default prevention taskforces and
the Department not simply be a paper-shuffling exercise, but a way to
establish whether an institution is truly responsible for default rates
exceeding the thresholds, or whether its default rates are actually a
reflection of the economic circumstances of the student population it
serves. This would provide a more rigorous way to establish other
exceptional mitigating circumstances that would make ineligibility based
on default rates inequitable, as the statute continues to provide.

I appreciate very much the chance to present these remarks to you, and I
have copies of my remarks that I\'d be happy to supply you with.

**MS. GILCHER:** Okay. Thank you, Mark. You can leave those copies
either here or with the people at the desk in the entryway. Next is
Harris Miller.

**MR. MILLER:** Good morning. I\'m Harris Miller, President of the
Career Colleges Association. I am pleased to address this Department of
Education regional field hearing.

We commend the Department and Secretary Spellings for her leadership and
vision in ensuring that the Higher Education Opportunity Act
Reauthorization yields meaningful and workable reforms to higher
education in this country. We\'ve waited a long time, and we\'re very
excited about the improvements we expect. The Career College Association
that I represent is a voluntary membership organization of accredited,
private, postsecondary schools, institutes, colleges, and universities
that provide career-specific educational programs. We have more than
1,450 members that educate and support over 1 million students each year
in employment in over 200 occupational fields. Our schools provide the
full range of higher education programs: masters and doctoral programs,
baccalaureate degree programs, associate degree programs, and short-term
certificate and diploma programs.

As you know, our sector now represents almost 10 percent of students in
higher education, and last year, when the national baccalaureate degree
numbers increased by about 3 percent according to Department of
Education officials, our numbers increased by 20 percent showing the
rapid growth in student attraction to the career college sector. All CCA
member schools must be licensed by the state in which they are located,
accredited by a regional or national accrediting body recognized by the
Department of Education, and of course approved by the Department. Many
also participate in many other federal, state, and local education and
workforce training programs.

I\'d like to focus on two issues of paramount importance in the new
legislation that are paramount to our career education sector, some of
which I\'m sure you\'ve already heard about in your other hearings: the
90-10 rules and revisions to the cohort default rate calculation. This
is not to downplay the significance of the other provisions in this over
1,000-page bill, which we believe will bring much-needed improvements in
areas such as borrower notifications, preferred lenders lists, college
cost transparency, and student outcomes, and we will be submitting with
our testimony a list of other issues we look forward to working with the
Department on as this negotiated rulemaking process proceeds. At a time
of, to state the obvious, great anxiety about the current and future
status of credit markets, it is absolutely critical to the 2.8 million
students in career higher education that reforms to the 90-10 rule be
undertaken with surgical precision and exceptional care. For the many
students who attend our schools coming from working class and
lower-income backgrounds, often independent, working adults\--the first
in their families to attend higher education­-access to private loans
these days to pay for college has been hampered, even blocked, by the
new stringent lending criteria.

The simple fact is there\'s been a sea change, as you know, in
availability of private student loans to students of lower incomes and
lower credit scores over the past year. The loss of these private loan
sources has placed great pressure on the ability of many institutions to
serve both less-affluent populations and, at the same time, to meet the
90-10 funding threshold that Congress has established. Congress wisely
realized the impact of this credit crisis on America\'s working
students, and lawmakers crafted important changes to 90-10 in this
legislation that serve as a temporary relief valve to relieve some of
the pressure on the lending system. Now, we need to make sure that we
get the lending implementation right through the regulations. For
instance, in the past, career colleges have been limited in their
non-Title IV program revenue, the so-called 10 percent. The HEA reform
allows revenue from non-Title IV programs that have been approved by a
state or by an accrediting agency. As a practical matter, however, the
state or accrediting agency may not perform a program-by­program review.

Therefore, we recommend, in developing the implementing regulations, the
Department adopt the rule that allows program revenues to be included in
the 10 percent so long as such programs are considered part of the
overall institutional accreditation, or the programs do not otherwise
require a specific state approval. The reforms of the legislation also
allow non-Title IV program funds to be included in the 10 percent
calculation for programs that provide an industry-recognized
credential\--\"industry recognized\" is actually in the language. But of
course, the interpretation provided by the Department through the
regulatory process is apt to vary among competing professional and
certification testing bodies. We suggest, therefore, that the Department
allow the marketplace to be the arbiter, and allow any credential
recognized by some segment of the given industry.

The Department will also be addressing difficult, and if developed
without sufficient care, potentially damaging accounting rules for
institutional loans. I\'ve had to learn more about accounting in my
year-and-a-half at CCA then I ever hoped to know, but it is critical to
your oversight and to the operations of our schools to make sure
they\'re in compliance.

To help relieve the situation brought about by the credit crunch, the
new legislation allows institutions to include the net present value of
loans they themselves make to students between July 1, 2008, and June
30, 2012, in the 10 percent calculation. In other words, many schools,
because their students have been unable to get private loans in the
marketplace anymore because of the credit crunch, are now themselves
becoming the lenders to the students. And what the legislation says is,
the net present value of those loans can be included in the 10 percent
calculations. However, as you go about writing these regulations, the
Department must focus on the fact that career colleges initiate multiple
class starts throughout the year. I think, as you well know, we are not
schools that believe in the magic words \"June, July, and August.\" They
mean nothing to our schools. Schools don\'t always start in September;
they start in January, February, March, April\--they start whenever the
students are available and the schools have the faculty and training to
provide it. So, with those multiple class starts, how these calculations
are made is going to be very tricky. Requiring schools to disburse funds
on a class-start by class-start basis will be, frankly, an accounting
nightmare, causing confusions and delays for students and unwarranted
costs for institutions and probably will, frankly, be confusing to you
and others involved in the oversight.

A far better course will allow institutions to provide a single loan at
the beginning of the student\'s academic year, with the loan itself
spread over the institution\'s fiscal year. While the new law states
that loans must be subject to regular repayment and collections, payment
deferments until after graduation, if in keeping with existing
institution practice, should be allowed to give the student every chance
of completing his or her academic program. Many schools currently,
though\--even before the passage of this law\--have been following the
existing regulations. While we welcome the changes in the new law, we
believe that the schools who\'ve been operating under the old accounting
rules should be allowed to continue to maintain those in order to,
again, have simplicity for their operations and simplicity for you in
your oversight role of these institutions.

The new Higher Education Act also allows the recently enacted increase
of \$2,000 in the unsubsidized Stafford Loan limit to be included in the
10 percent. Again, to achieve what we believe is the added flexibility
lawmakers intended, the Department must be very careful in crafting your
regulations. Federal financial aid, as you know, is divided into
multiple disbursements, and this extra amount\--this extra
\$2,000\--will overlap fiscal years. We suggest that the accounting
rules you establish in the rulemaking process allow the extra amount to
be attributed to each payment period in proportion to the total loan as
originally packaged. Should the student drop out before the funds are
disbursed, the full extra amount should not simply be reattributed back
to the original loan and therefore excluded from the 10 percent. As a
final point on 90-10, we ask the Department include in its negotiated
rulemaking process on this critical issue for our sector, only those
stakeholders directly affected by 90-10 restrictions. And in terms of
higher education, that means only career colleges. Allowing others
without a direct connection to this issue participate is like allowing
non-pilots to help fly the plane. They may have a point of view, they
may find the proceedings interesting, but giving them a seat at the
controls would simply be wrong for the millions of students depending on
career education as their flight path to a better life.

Career colleges serve a population that is largely underserved by
traditional higher education. As I mentioned before, they tend to be the
first in their families to pursue higher education, much more likely
than so-called traditional students to be economically independent,
older, and more likely to be juggling the conflicting realities of a
job, of a family, and of school. Little surprise, then, that they are
also more likely to default on their student loans. While I\'ve been
pleased to see the overall trend over the last ten years
towards\--dropping in these\--default rate in our sectors\--with other
sectors\--until the recent uptake in the most recent numbers, we have
the reality that, because our students are from tougher backgrounds, it
is not astonishing that their default rates are somewhat higher than
traditional higher education institutions. So, any change to the cohort
default rate calculation hits our students and our institutions
particularly hard.

Empirical data tell us that increases to the CDR are the product of
student behavior, not necessarily the failure of institutions to deliver
quality education. Earlier this year, a study commissioned by our
association and conducted by Professor Dawn Hostetler at the Indiana
University School of Education found no linkage between the type or
quality of educational institutions and the rate at which borrowers
default. Let me repeat that: no linkage between the type or quality of
educational institutions and the rate at which borrowers default on
their student loans, according to Professor Hostetler\'s study.

They looked at 41 studies of student loan default that have been done in
higher education between 1978 and 2007. So, they looked at all the
literature that was out there and could find no linkage.

Even so, many critics of career education continue to view the CDR as
indicative of the institutional quality, and they have pressed to have
the scope of the calculation expanded. The new law adjusts the time
horizons for calculating the CDR, extend the period from one to two
years, beginning in FY 2009. They also increase the threshold for
imposing sanctions from 25 to 30 percent.

The career education sector understands the need to minimize cohort
default rates, and we are committed to working on that. We have been
working for several years in conjunction with the Department on a
taskforce that we have on a default prevention initiative. At the same
time, however, as you develop your regulations on the CDR, we ask that
you understand the root cause of student loan defaults, and how a
less-affluent student population with fewer resources to repay student
loans at the outset, is likely to be buffeted by a weak economy going
forward. We urge the Department to adopt a policy of wide latitude and
reasonable forbearance in imposing sanctions on schools that exceed the
CDR threshold. Any other policy is apt to foreclose access to higher
education for those most dependent on career education for upward
mobility.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to provide these remarks. We
will be submitting them for the record. We look forward to working with
the Department and all your officials in the negotiated rulemaking
process going forward, in developing regulations to implement this new
law that best serve the interests of students, institutions, and a
globally competitive 21st century workforce in the United States. Thank
you.

**MS. GILCHER:** Thank you very much. Next is Richard Thema
\[sic.\]\--oh, sorry, Them.

**MR. THEM:** Good morning. My name is Richard Them. I am Senior Vice
President of Education Management Corporation. I work in the student
financial services area, which includes financial aid, whether
institutional or federal or state. We operate 88 locations in 28 states
and two Canadian Provinces. We have approximately 96,000 students in
school as of fall of 2007, that was last year, and we have about 13,000
students who are enrolled in online courses only. We have a mix of
schools, of\--South University, Augusta University, Brown Mackie
Colleges, and the Art Institutes. We offer everything from certificate
programs all the way up to doctorals in pharmacy and some other
programs-­psychology.

We have our\--our schools range in default rates from 1 percent up to
11, with about a weight average 5.6. Our 90-10 rates run from 50 to 84
percent, with a weight average of 64 percent. So, we\'re pretty diverse
in our student\--offering of programs and our students.

In the last year, we approximated \$370 million of alternative loans
that our students received while going to school. The market, of course,
has been terrible in that, and we\'ve lost some of those\--access to
those programs. We wanted to talk about two items: one is 90-10, and
then preferred lender list and private loan requirements. We think that
preferred lender lists, especially in the private sector, private loans,
are still a very important tool for students to understand their rights
and responsibilities as they go to school. We do monitor the lenders
that are on the list, and we make sure that the loans are appropriate
for the students. We obviously are doing the same with the federal loans
also.

We are hoping to make sure the students just don\'t get the predatory
loans that are out there, that are marketed, as you know, on the Web and
in other means. The HEOA did not ban use of opportunity loans to
students. It basically clarified some of the requirements of it that we
could not, in exchange for the institution providing concessions or
promises to the lender on volume of loans, include any lender on the
preferred lender list. Obviously, we don\'t do that. We wanted to make
it clear that the HEA conference report states that private party
recourse loans are not considered opportunity loans, and that the
\"conferees intend that the institution may request and accept an offer
of recourse loans that only if such request and acceptance is not
conditioned on the institution providing a lender with a specific number
of loans or loan volume, or a preferred lender arrangement for Title IV
loans.\"

In implementing those provisions, we ask the Department of Ed keep in
mind the credit crisis\--enough said on that, I guess\--that is going on
right now. FFELP lenders, and especially private lenders have left the
market very suddenly, and sometimes they\--well, many of them have
actually increased the requirements for students to get loans\--it\'s
become much more difficult for the students. Therefore, we have to go
out and we work with the lenders to see if we can help our students get
more private loans. We, of course, only use the private loans when Title
IV aid and state aid and institutional aid is gone or exhausted to help
fund our students. We do ask the Department of Ed to codify the
statements in the Higher Education Act conference report that recourse
loans are not precluded by the Higher Education Opportunity Act, that a
clarification is required because current regulations of 682-704
arguably create a rebuttable presumption that, if a lender is making
recourse or other types of alternative loans to school students and that
lender is on a school\'s preferred lender list, the placement on that
lender list was in return for the alternative loans. We ask that that be
placed into the regulations. I want to talk about 90-10 for a few
minutes. Obviously, you\'ve heard some other comments about it. We were
all appreciative of the extra \$2,000 of unsubsidized loan. Obviously,
it\'s an accounting issue as we go forward calculating 90­10. The Higher
Education Act contains temporary relief for loans disbursed from July 1,
2008 to June 30, 2012, by permitting the institution to treat as cash,
non-Title IV, the revenue that\'s received from those extra \$2,000. We
believe the best way of doing that is to use the proration of the loan.
If you\'re on payment periods\--everybody is on payment periods, so
that\--by disbursement periods, that you compare what the student could
have received under the Act before the increased \$2,000 to what they
currently can receive, and that increase\--loans, if they\'re accepting
it, would be used for cash purposes and 90-10 for that particular term.
There would be no retroactive going back and changing or reassigning
that portion of the loan.

An example would be if a student\--a first year freshman was getting
\$7,500 in Stafford Loans as an independent student, now they would be
getting \$9,500. If you were getting it in equal quarterly
disbursements, a third each time, but prior to the Ensuring Continued
Access to Student Loan Act, a student would have been receiving \$2,500.
If they were receiving \$3,166, which is a third of the \$9,500 during
the term, obviously the \$666 difference is the new money or the extra
unsubsidized loan. We believe that that can be put into the regulations
so that it would be clear to schools how to calculate the rate.

We also believe that when a student ceases attendance and if there\'s a
return to Title IV, the return money should be prorated as it\'s
returned back in the same fashion that it was received. We\--in summary,
we are asking that the Department of Ed codify the statements in the
Higher Education Opportunity Act conference report that recourse loans
are not precluded by the Higher Education Opportunity Act.

We ask that the Department clarify that a private lender, if it\'s also
on the FFELP lender, does not create an automatic presumption that the
lender made private loans available in return for being placed on a
preferred lender list. We ask that, for 90-10 purposes, that the most
appropriate method of handling the new Stafford loans is to attribute
the extra unsubsidized loan, as we\--before\--on a prorated basis based
on disbursement periods or payment periods, so that it is clear how to
calculate the rate. That concludes my testimony. On behalf of EDMC and
my colleagues, I look forward to continuing dialogue on this. Any
questions?

**MS. GILCHER:** No. Thank you, Richard. Jane West.

**MS. WEST:** Good morning. My name is Jane West. I\'m Senior Vice
President for Policy Programs and Professional Issues at the American
Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, AACTE. Thanks to the
Department for this opportunity to speak with you and to submit written
comments. I\'ve provided them there for you. AACTE is a national
alliance of educator preparation programs dedicated to the highest
quality professional development of teachers and school leaders in order
to enhance K-12 student learning.

The 800 institutions holding AACTE membership represent public and
private colleges and universities in every state, the District of
Columbia, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam. AACTE\'s reach and
influence fuel its mission of serving learners by providing all school
personnel with superior training and continuing education. As the
regulation process begins to get under way, we hope that this is a
strong beginning to the partnership between the Department and the many
stakeholders who will be impacted by the provisions in HEOA.

My comments that follow will be focused on the provisions in HEOA that
impact educator preparation programs. I\'ll structure my recommendations
around five key areas: first, the accountability provisions for educator
preparation programs in Section 205, second, the amendments to the TEACH
Grants in Section 412, third, the teacher quality partnership grants in
Section 202, fourth, the authorization of Teach for America in Section
806, and fifth, a new data provision. Our first recommendation to the
Department, and probably the most important one, is for the Department
to develop working groups to advise it on how to implement the
accountability provisions in Section 205. This is the Section that
requires institutions, states, and the Secretary to report on the
quality of teacher preparation programs. There are numerous changes to
the reports that institutions of higher education and states must submit
to the Department. There are significant differences across institutions
of higher education and among the states regarding the types of data on
teacher preparation programs that they collect.

When the accountability provisions were first enacted in 1998, the
Department formed working groups and consulted closely with stakeholders
about how to operationalize these accountability provisions. The
regulations that resulted from these consultations reflected the
abilities and limitations of both IHEs and states to collect the data
required by the Higher Education Act. A similar process for information
gathering should be followed for implementation of the provisions in
Section 205 so that the Department has a good understanding of how
information is collected and reported in the states, and what kind of
data is reasonable to expect institutions and states to collect. Our
second recommendation is that the Department should require that
non-higher education-based teacher preparation programs should be held
to the same reporting requirements of higher education-based preparation
programs. In Section 205(b)1(E), states must now report on non-higher
education-based teacher preparation programs. The regulations should
require states to name each of these programs and to report on the pass
rates and scaled scores of the teacher candidates who go through these
programs.

Additionally, as required of higher education-based educator preparation
programs, these non-higher education-based programs should report on how
they ensure that their candidates are prepared to teach children with
disabilities and English language learners, and how the programs infuse
technology and universal design into their curriculum and clinical
experiences. Our third recommendation is that the regulation should
define several terms in Section 205 of HEOA. There are several
definitions that need to be clarified or developed related to the
accountability provisions in this Section. The first recommendation is
to clarify what is meant by \"program\" in the statute. Is it the entire
teacher education program at the institution of higher education, or
does it refer to a specific program area, such as special education or
math education?

Secondly, \"student\" should be defined as the teacher-candidate.

Third, regulations should allow the institution of higher education to
define those candidates who have completed all of their non-clinical
coursework. HEOA wants institutions to report on the pass rates on this
category of candidates. As preparation programs are so differently
structured\--some offer a clinical internship after all the coursework
is completed, and some offer simultaneous coursework and clinical
internships. They should be able to determine which of their candidates
fall into the category of completing all non-clinical coursework.

Fourth, the regulations should use the same definition or determination
for urban K-12 schools and rural K-12 schools that is used in the No
Child Left Behind Act.

Fifth, the regulations need to define \"alternate route.\"

Our next recommendation has to do with the TEACH Grant amendments. HEOA
amends the TEACH Grant program so that a recipient can teach in a
state-listed shortage field, regardless of whether that field remains on
the shortage list. AACTE is very pleased with this amendment and
recommends that the agreement to serve that every TEACH Grant recipient
must sign include a place where the applicant can indicate in what field
she or he intends to teach, if that field is on the state-listed
shortage list so that the recipient can adequately satisfy the service
obligation. This will provide some documentation for that applicant
should the field fall off the shortage list. The following
recommendation addresses the Teach for America authorization in HEOA.
Regulations should require Teach for America to report on the same data
required of institutions of higher education in Section 205.

Section 806 authorizes the Teach for America Program in terms of the
data that Teach for America is required to report to the Secretary.
AACTE believes the required data should mirror the data that
higher-education based educator preparation programs must report. Thus,
AACTE recommends that the Department collect data on the average scaled
scores and pass rates on the certification or licensure exams taken by
Teach for America candidates, or report that the Teach for America
members did not take such tests. Teach for America should set goals
towards preparing teachers in shortage areas, just as the higher
education programs are required to do. Teach for America should provide
assurances to the Secretary that its candidates are prepared to teach
children with disabilities and English language learners. Additionally,
Teach for America should report not only the number of teachers it has
provided to LEAs, but also the fields in which those teachers are
teaching.

Another recommendation addresses the Teacher Residency Program
authorized in the Teacher Quality Partnership Grant Program in Section
202(e). Regulations need to address how institutions should define the
living stipend that the partnerships are required to provide. AACTE is
very pleased with the restructured Teacher Quality Partnership Grant
Program in HEOA. Grants can either be used to strengthen
pre-baccalaureate preparation programs or to create teacher residency
programs at the graduate level.

The Teacher Residency Program is a new component to the grant program
that holds significant promise for preparing highly effective teachers.
As the Department develops regulations to address this component, we ask
the Department think carefully about how it defines the living stipend
requirement, as this is new to Title II, and it may be one of the more
expensive parts of the program.

Finally, I\'d like to mention Section 208(c), which is release of
information to teacher preparation programs. This is a very important
new provision in the law that our members were very eager to have
included. It requires that all states that receive funds under the Act
release any data requested to allow the Teacher Preparation Program to
evaluate its effectiveness, including information about its graduates
who have become teachers. These data are essential for teacher prep
programs so that they can track their graduates and assess their
effectiveness in the classroom. And I\'d like to point out specifically
that it requires all states funded under the Act, not just states funded
under Title II.

My final comment to you is to request to include AACTE members in the
negotiated rulemaking committee that will be developed to address the
provisions in Title IV and Title II. AACTE was pleased to be at the
table during the TEACH Grant Program, and we were\--we\'re very
impressed with that process and the outcome of that process. Our
expertise in the area of educator preparation informed the committee\'s
development of regulations and the resulting regulations reflect a good
understanding of the structure of higher education-based educator
programs. Given the expertise that AACTE brought to the development of
regulations for the TEACH Grants, AACTE would like to be at the table
again as new regulations are developed for the TEACH Grant amendments,
the loan forgiveness program impacting teachers, and other school
personnel, and for the new Title II provision requiring institutions to
provide transitional assistance to students in teacher preparation
programs whose state approval has been rescinded. These provisions
impact our members significantly, and our perspectives would contribute
to the process.

I want to conclude my remarks by noting that AACTE is very pleased with
the many amendments and the new provisions in the Higher Education Act.
We are eager to roll up our sleeves and work with you in helping to
ensure a successful implementation. Thank you.

**MS. GILCHER:** Thank you, Jane. Next is Matt Gerson.

**MR. GERSON:** Good morning. My name is Matt Gerson, and I\'m Executive
Vice President of the Universal Music Group. Universal is the world\'s
largest music company, with recording and publishing operations all over
the globe.

I want to thank the Department for allowing me to speak to the HEA
provisions that address the use of university computer networks to steal
copyrighted materials. It\'s clear that technology is essential to
higher education, and that technology will define how students live and
earn their livelihoods. Technology in the form of innovative, online,
and mobile music services will also ensure our industry\'s future. And
technology, thoughtfully applied, is no less essential to stemming
online piracy. The theft of copyrighted music is not just an industry
problem. While it has taken billions of dollars away from record labels,
songwriters, aspiring artists, retailers, graphic designers, sound
engineers, and everyone else who brings a song to the marketplace, it\'s
also taken its toll on the U.S. economy. This illegal activity is by no
means victimless.

The piracy epidemic on college campuses is untenable. A recent report
from Carnegie Mellon University based on studies at Illinois State
University found that in just one month at a moderate-sized campus, at
least 42 percent of the students were using peer-to-peer networks to
commit at least 119,000 copyright infringements. It stands to reason
that other schools look the same way. That\'s why we urge the Department
to ensure that the HEA provisions enacted to address this problem are
enforced. Now, many schools have already implemented some of the HEA
requirements. Indeed, most have updated their computer use policies to
condemn illegal file sharing, and schools are doing a better job of
informing students about the policies and the penalties for violating
them. But how many schools are actively enforcing their policies?

The HEA should encourage schools to create acceptable use policies,
communicate them frequently, and enforce them to let students know that
the consequences are real. Many schools have also implemented legitimate
online music services that gives students an alternative to theft. One
such service, Ruckus, is offered for free to the universities through an
advertisement-based model. Students can also access other legitimate
services, from online downloads to subscriptions through a cell phone,
to options on MySpace and Facebook that are free to the user. The bottom
line is that, today, it\'s very easy to lawfully acquire all the music
one could every want.

I want to highlight what we see as the critical component of the new
HEA: that which requires schools to develop plans to effectively combat
the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials, including
through the use of a variety of technology-based deterrents.

Enforced computer use policies, and legitimate services help to reduce
illegal files haring, but they\'re truly effectively only when used with
technological deterrents that filter or block. Schools like Howard
University, the University of Maryland, Ohio University have chosen to
block or filter illegal file haring. Others credit new technologies with
saving significant taxpayer and tuition dollars. I know that you\'ve
heard concern about the costs of these technologies, but the University
of Florida reported that it saved \$1.5 million by implementing a
filtering system. The University of Utah has reported that implementing
filtering and blocking technology saved \$1.2 million in bandwidth
costs, and about \$70,000 in personnel costs.

Anti-piracy technology such as Audible Magic\'s CopySense, in use at
over 80 universities, and Red Lambda cGRID, a product developed at a
Florida university, has proven not only effective, but economical. Since
a substantial number of schools have successfully implemented piracy
blocking or filtering technology, there\'s a track record to reassure
doubters that such technologies will not pose a risk to privacy, squash
the First Amendment, limit academic\--or impose crippling costs.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of schools have not yet tried
technological solutions, or have addressed the problem only by using a
bandwidth shaping tool. Given the relative small size of music files,
even limiting bandwidth still enables hundreds and thousands of
copyrighted songs to be illegally distributed. In addition, schools
that, during the daytime, decrease the bandwidth that can be used for
files haring often drop these restrictions at night. This approach sends
the unfortunate message that illegal file sharing is acceptable as long
as it\'s done during permitted windows of infringement, teaching
precisely the wrong lesson to our citizens of tomorrow.

The HEA is an opportunity for the education and entertainment
communities come together on an issue of economic, ethical, and cultural
consequence to our Nation. I don\'t think it\'s old-fashioned or corny
to emphasize that young adults have to understand that stealing is
stealing, and it\'s wrong. We look forward to working with the higher
education community, and with the Department, to make sure that the
regulations fulfill Congress\' intent that universities address piracy
aggressively with the many tools at their disposal. Thank you very much
for your time.

**MS. GILCHER:** Thank you, Matt. Is Tammie Plickusimler \[sic.\] here?
You\'re going to have to correct the pronunciation of that, I\'m
certain.

**MS. PICKELSIMER:** It\'s Pickelsimer. I\'m a high school teacher, so
the kids had a lot of fun with that. A lot of tunes to go with that.

Good morning. My name is Tammie Pickelsimer, and I am the Disability
Policy Fellow for the Association of University Centers on Disabilities,
and a doctoral student in disability policies at the University of
Hawaii. Before coming to Washington, I was a high school special
education teacher and a researcher at a center for postsecondary
education, focusing on access and opportunities for students with
disabilities.

AUCD is a national organization representing 126 university centers that
conduct research, provide interdisciplinary training, and services to
individuals with developmental and other disabilities. Across the
country, many of our centers have begun to develop model postsecondary
programs for students with intellectual disabilities within their state.
AUCD strongly supports the provisions within the Higher Education
Opportunity Act that will expand opportunities for students with
intellectual disabilities and access to financial aid.

On a personal note, as a high school special education teacher, I am
thrilled about these programs that are offered, knowing that the school
bus does not stop when they graduate. This is very exciting for me. AUCD
strongly recommends the following: that the Higher Education Opportunity
Act negotiated rulemaking team should include individuals with expertise
in higher education programs for students with intellectual
disabilities, including families and students with intellectual
disabilities. In developing the regulations, it would be necessary for
the Secretary to waive a number of financial aid requirements to ensure
that the institution of higher education enrolling students with
intellectual disabilities may receive such assistance.

AUCD also recommends utilizing the following principals when writing the
regulations:

The application process for financial aid should be as similar as
possible to non-disabled peers. The process for identifying whether an
individual meets the definition of a student with intellectual
disability should be determined by the admitting institution of higher
education and should be minimally burdensome for students, families, and
the IHE.

Whenever possible, existing documentation should be utilized from school
records or sources such as previous evaluations conducted for public
agencies to determine eligibility for disability benefits. Rather than a
complex application process, institutions of higher education should
provide assurances that they offer a program that meets the criteria of
a comprehensive transition and postsecondary program for students with
intellectual disabilities, and this process should be as streamlined as
possible.

As a point of clarification, if an institution of higher education
desires to design a program around a single student with an intellectual
disability, this should be allowed, as long as it meets the criteria of
a comprehensive transition and postsecondary program for students with
disabilities. An institution for higher education should determine if
the student maintains satisfactory progress based on standards the
institution of higher education sets. Also, the Secretary should further
clarify that participating on not less than half-time basis, as
determined by the institution, means that the amount of time the student
participates should be similar to the clock hours and credit hours for
non-disabled students; however, programs such as work study and mentor
programs should be considered into half-time requirements as determined
by the institution of higher education.

In addition to this brief summary, I\'ve also submitted written comments
that were done in collaboration with the National Down Syndrome Society
and other disability organizations. I\'ve left it here at the table for
you.

And again, I just want to thank you for this opportunity to provide
comments and to the negotiated rulemaking process for Title IV of the
Higher Education Opportunity Act as it concerns access to financial aid
for students with intellectual disabilities, and AUCD and the disability
community looks forward to working with you in the future on this.

**MS. GILCHER:** Thank you, Tammie Pickelsimer. Dialo Sumby.

**MR. SUMBY:** Good morning. Forgive me if I\'m a little nervous. I\'m
much more comfortable speaking in front of a group of students than I am
here, but\--

**MS. GILCHER:** Well, we could slouch.

\[Laughter.\]

**MR. SUMBY:** \--I\'ll do my best. First, it gives me great pleasure to
stand before you today as the current President of the District of
Columbia Consolidation for Educational Services, which is a grassroots
nonprofit organization comprised of all the Washington, D.C.­based TRIO
programs right here in the Nation\'s capital.

I also want to thank you all for the opportunity to come here and
provide some suggestions on this reauthorization on behalf of our
national TRIO community. Specifically, what I\'d like to do is offer
suggestions in three areas that directly affect TRIO, one being Talent
Search, which is also a program that I coordinate here in Washington,
D.C. at the city\'s only public institution of higher learning, which is
the University of District of Columbia, the other would be Student
Support Services, and the revision in distribution of all annual
performance reports.

With regard to Talent Search, the legislation has modified the purpose
of the program to include college completion, expanded prior experience
points to examine whether students pursue rigorous programs of study,
whether they receive their diploma on time, and if students enrolled and
graduated from a postsecondary institution. Furthermore, the
reauthorization also creates a required services section to specify\--or
specifying that projects must have high-quality academic tutoring,
proper guidance in secondary and postsecondary course selections, and
assistance in completing college entrance exams, admissions, and
financial aid applications. I think I speak for all TRIO personnel in
Talent Search when I say that this is an exciting challenge, and we are
excited about the opportunity to address those challenges; however, that
excitement is only real when it\'s underscored by a reduction in the
minimum number of participants to below 600, and when there is an
increase in the cost per students allotted for Talent Search
participants. According to the ASCA in 2004-2005, they recommended that
the counselor-to-student ratio be 250-to-1. In Washington, D.C., it\'s
224-to-1 for high schools, and 2,711 for K through 12.

With all due respect, the Talent Search programs would be asked to do
something as an outside program working with schools with an equal or
larger counselor-to-student ratio that the schools themselves couldn\'t
do. We would necessarily be required to fight all of society\'s ills, or
battle those ills with the students, to assist them in pursuing a
postsecondary education and follow them through college to ensure their
completion, which would almost be virtually impossible unless the
authorization reduced the number of Talent Search participants to below
600, while at the same time\--increase the cost per student allotted for
participants. So, again, I just want to underscore that TRIO programs
are excited about the challenge; however, we will be doomed to failure
without those other measures of reducing the numbers to below 600 for
the minimum number of participants and to sufficiently increasing the
cost per student allotted.

With regard to the Student Support Services Program, it is our
understanding that the Department is also considering to delay the next
Student Support Services competition for three to four years in an
effort to bring all of the Student Support competitions grantees into
sync with those have had five-year grants due to their high scoring.
This is something that the TRIO community is strongly opposed to
delaying for greater than one year. To delay this for greater than one
year, it would extensively limit the opportunities for students at
institutions that would be eligible to host Student Support Services
projects, as well as those institutions that already have Student
Support Services projects. Any delay of these services to students who
are already dealt pretty much an unfair blow due to multigenerational
poverty and lack of access to postsecondary institutions, would be
dreadful. So, again, we encourage the Department that, if that delay is
to happen, that it not be greater than one year so that the participants
at the various universities around the country who need Student Support
Services, because they\'ve already made it into an institution and they
need that assistance to complete the postsecondary institution\--that
that delay is not greater than a year.

Finally, we encourage the Department to revise all of the TRIO annual
performance reports and distribute them to the community as soon as
possible. That\'s extremely important for the TRIO community so that we
can really prepare the data that we need to submit to the Department,
and really focus our priorities on the work, which is assisting the
many, and unfortunately continuing growing number, of low-income and
first-generational students who don\'t have the opportunity to pursue
postsecondary education.

Thank you guys very much.

**MS. GILCHER:** Thank you. Shelly Saunders.

**MS. SAUNDERS:** Good morning. My name is Shelly Saunders, and I am
Vice President of Strategic Services with the American Student
Assistance, or ASA, and I\'m speaking on behalf of ASA and my fellow
guarantee agencies in the National Association of Student Loan
Administrators, or NASLA.

NASLA is a private, nonprofit, voluntary membership organization that
represents the interests of FFELP guarantee agencies. A core focus of
guarantee agencies is to maximize the success of borrowers in repaying
their loans. As administrators of the FFELP guarantee agencies work
closely with the Department, students, families, schools, lenders, and
loan servicers throughout the life of their loan. Inclusion of a
guarantee agency voice in the negotiations will promote a broad-based,
well-informed discussion as rules are developed. NASLA proposes the
following list of issues for negotiation for both the FFELP and the
Direct Loan Program\--Default Reduction Program.

The Higher Education Opportunity Act requires that, upon the sale of a
rehabilitated loan to an eligible lender, the guarantee agency and
previous holders of the loan must remove the record of default from the
borrower\'s credit history. NASLA supports this incentive for borrowers
to rehabilitate their loans. However, we are concerned that some
borrowers misunderstand the actual result when a default trade line is
removed but the pre-default delinquency history remains. NASLA believes
guarantee agencies and lenders that provide borrowers with information
on the rehabilitation program should be required to disclose in a
conspicuous manner that the removal of the default from the credit
history does not remove any history of pre-default delinquency that has
been reported for the rehabilitation loans.

Information provided to borrowers having difficulty making payments. The
HEOA requires that, when a borrower notifies his or her lender that the
borrower is having difficulty making payments on a loan, that the lender
provide the borrower with repayment option information in simple and
understandable terms. NASLA believes that these disclosures should
include the applicable guarantee agency\'s contact information and
notice that the guarantee agency may be contacting the borrower to
assist in resolving the delinquency. The addition of this disclosure
information ensures that the borrower knows he or she may be contacted
for default aversion purposes, and also enables the borrower to contact
the guarantee agency directly to help resolve issues that arise during
repayment. With respect to the cohort default rate, the HEOA requires
that an institution with the cohort default rate of 30 percent or more
to establish a default prevention taskforce to prepare and submit a
default prevention plan to the Department. NASLA feels strongly that
guarantee agencies can play an important role in assisting such an
institution by being included in this taskforce, and suggest regulations
be written to require a FFELP school to request the guarantee agency\'s
participation on the school\'s default prevention taskforce.

Guarantee agencies have consistently demonstrated that they play an
important role in assisting students in managing their student loan debt
successfully. In recent years, a number of guarantee agencies,
particularly those with voluntary flexible agreements, have explored new
approaches to delinquency and default aversion activities, providing
additional insights about how to improve borrower success in loan
repayment with assistance tools and information available through
schools, lenders, and guarantee agencies.

In addition, since guarantee agencies have observed innovative and
permissible, as well as overreaching and impermissible default managing
practices, we encourage the Department to facilitate periodic forums
with guarantee agencies to exchange frontline useful information and to
promote a consistent understanding of permissible approaches for
schools. The Department is in a critical position to ensure that
guarantee agencies, the Department, and the Department\'s FDLP servicer
are all on the same page regarding the provisions of clear and
consistent default management guidance for schools.

In deference to time, please refer to our written testimony for comments
regarding loan forgiveness for service in areas of national need,
teacher loan forgiveness, total and permanent disability, eligibility
criteria, school code of conduct, entrance and exit counseling. NASLA
appreciates the Department\'s consideration of this testimony, and
offers itself as a resource to the Department on these and other issues
that the Department may consider in the negotiated rulemaking process.

Thank you.

**MS. GILCHER:** Thank you, Shelby. Nancy Broff.

**NANCY BROFF:** Hello. My name is Nancy Broff, and I\'m here today
representing ITT Educational Services Corporation.

ITT Educational Services appreciates the opportunity to provide input to
the Department as it begins the process of developing regulations to
implement the Higher Education Opportunity Act. ITT is a leading
provider of technology-oriented postsecondary degree programs. As of
September 1, 2008, ITT operated over 100 ITT technical institutes and
nine learning sites in 36 states, predominantly providing career-focused
associates and bachelors degree programs of study to a total of
approximately 53,000 students.

I\'m going to cover a number of issues quickly this morning, and I will
provide additional written testimony and I will do my math word
problems\--they\'re in the written testimony, but I\'m not going to get
into them here today orally. The first issue I wanted to talk about
briefly is one that hasn\'t been mentioned yet today in very much
detail, and that\'s the year-round Pell Grants. ITT technical institutes
operate on a year-round schedule throughout the year. We provide four
quarters a year, and allow students to complete their education in a
shorter calendar period of time by continuing throughout that entire
period. This schedule generally provides students, many of whom are
non-traditional students, with the flexibility to attend school while
they\'re employed. Under this schedule, our full-time students can
complete an associate\'s degree in eight academic quarters over two
calendar years and a bachelor\'s degree in 15 academic quarters over
three and three-quarters calendar years.

Under current Pell Grant rules, these students have a number of payment
periods where they\'re unable to access Pell Grants because of the limit
to one Pell Grant per award year. And because we do more than one
complete academic year of education during an award year, there\'s been
a gap for our students. The HEOA remedies this, but there will be a
couple of implementation issues in determining how exactly this
provision will be implemented. We would like to make sure that the
provision is implemented in the way that will be the most flexible to
allow students the best opportunity to have access to these additional
funds. And one way to do this is to give the institution maximum
flexibility in attributing a payment period either backwards to the
current award year or forwards to the following award year when you are
deciding whether that student is going to be eligible for that extra bit
of year-round Pell. And the reason this makes a difference is two
things.

One is, the student has to have been at least half time during that
award year, and students, because they sometimes change how much
they\'re doing in a given period, that could influence whether they\'re
meeting that standard or not in a given year.

Second, things economically change for a student from year to year, and
they might increase or decrease their estimated family contribution from
one year to the next. So, being able to attribute the payment period to
the one with the lower estimated family contribution would allow them to
get the additional amount of Pell. On the issue of cohort default rates,
we agree with much of what many of my colleagues have already talked
about this year with the change from the two-year to the three-year
cohort default rate. The transition period is going to have to be
handled very carefully, and the period once we\'re fully using the
three-year rates. One issue that I\'d like to talk about that hasn\'t
been raised yet is the provision in the regulations currently that is
not something that is required by law where the Department views
institutions that have a single-year cohort default rate of over 25
percent as not being fully administratively capable, and puts these
institutions, sometimes, on provisional certification.

I would cite, again, the CCA study that Harris referred to in his
testimony that showed really that there isn\'t a link demonstrable by
the research so far that demonstrates the cohort default rates\--really
tell you much about institutional quality or about the administrative
capability of an institution, and we would urge that this provision in
the regulations be deleted. And in the alternative, if the Department
thinks that this is something you need to keep, we would urge that the
new trigger comply with the 30 percent trigger that will be used for all
other purposes for the cohort default rates. There are a number of
provisions related to 90-10 that I talk about in my written remarks. I
want to just talk about just one or two here today.

One is the issue between the accrual loans and the cash basis loans. We
believe that the Congress very much wanted to ensure as much flexibility
for institutions as possible as they move forward in implementing this.
And institutions should be allowed to treat loans on a loan-by-loan
basis, either on the accrual basis or on the cash basis, because
they\'re not going to be allowed to double count the loans. The law says
if you use this accrual basis temporary provision during the phase-in
period, you cannot use the income that comes in on those loans later on.
We think it\'s very important to allow schools to determine how they\'re
going to make their allocation in a given year as between which loans
they want to count on an accrual basis, and which ones they want to save
for out-years to be able to count on the cash basis. So, that would be
an additional. And then, we also agree with many of our colleagues that
have talked today about how the extra \$2,000 in the unsubsidized loans
should be counted. I do have a math word problem in my written testimony
that will kind of walk through what the issues here are. There are
issues both in how you count the money initially, and in how you treat
this loan if you have to do a return of Title IV funds and how that will
impact on the 90-10.

Okay. On the issues of some of the consumer information provisions that
have been enacted in the law, we very much support enhanced consumer
protection and advanced consumer information. There are a number of
issues that are going to arise in how you actually implement that.

Retention rate, for example, is something that institutions have not had
to report before, and there are going to be some very difficult issues
in figuring out how best to report a retention rate. One issue
particularly arises in the context of year-round institutions, which is
that a lot of times, students will choose not to continue through their
academic program term by term by term. They might stop out for a term,
particularly over the summer, because their kids are home and they want
to be at home a little bit more with their kids. Depending on how you do
the calculation of a retention rate, we want to be sure that students
who have just stopped out for a term but are intending to return are not
counted as dropouts, which would artificially inflate your withdrawal
rate and decrease your retention rate, so that\--we think that that is
an important issue.

On the disclosures relating to cost of textbooks\--I know you\'re not
supposed to be regulating on this. We would appreciate some
sub-regulatory guidance for institutions who include the cost of books
and supplies within the cost of their tuition. We think that presents a
particular issue, and would be happy to work with you offline in
creating some guidance that we can give to institutions to deal with
that.

Finally, on the loan issues\--again, I don\'t want to repeat much of
what has already been said here\--we think it is very important to make
sure that institutions are giving clear road map on how they can use
recourse loans in ways that will comply with what the HEOA permits to
make sure that institutions are capable of continuing to do recourse
loans, but doing them in a way that makes sure that they are done
properly. We would very much like to also make sure that the new
provisions dealing with private lender preferred lender lists are
explicitly explained in the regulations, again, so that schools have a
road map for how to comply with their private lender relationships.
It\'s getting more and more difficult to have private lender
relationships right now because of the dislocations in the credit
markets, and we want to be sure that, if an institution only has one
lender, private lender, who is willing to make loans to their students,
that this is not something that violates the provision that requires
that you have two private lenders if you are going to have a private
lender list.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk with you all this
morning, and we do look forward to continuing in the process with you as
negotiated rulemaking proceeds. Thanks.

**MS. GILCHER:** Okay. Nancy, thanks. We\'re going to take just one more
person this morning and then we\'ll break for lunch. Cindy Littlefield.

\[Pause.\]

**MS. GILCHER:** Okay. I guess Cindy has stepped out, so we will all
step out. Please return within an hour so we can get started
immediately\--oh. She got in under the line, it looks like. Well, Cindy,
that was impressive, here.

**MS. LITTLEFIELD:** Yes. I got my workout. I think I can still say good
morning to the Department of Education. And I\'m sorry I\'m a little bit
out of breath. I didn\'t know I was up next, so I thank you for that
indulgence.

Today, on behalf of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities,
I want to thank the Department for once again convening these most
interesting and illustrative negotiated rulemaking listening sessions.

AJCU represents 28 institutions across the U.S. in 19 states, and we are
affiliated with over 100 institutions worldwide. In\--I still haven\'t
caught my breath, I apologize. In this new reauthorization of the Higher
Education Act are 100 new regulations for colleges and universities. Not
all will be negotiated in our negotiating panels. Thank heavens, I think
we all would have to say.

Today, I\'m going to make a few just general comments on a few issues of
concern. On Title IV, the soul of the Higher Education Act is always the
implementation of our federal student aid programs. Certainly, AJCU was
very happy that our Pell Grant authorization levels were increased, and
the preservation of our campus-based aid formula program stayed intact.

On Pell Grant, we concur with our colleagues that the year-round Pell
Grant is an excellent achievement to try to secure and encourage more
students to graduate earlier. In doing so, we will be saving taxpayer
dollars in the process. There are, however, two areas in Pell Grants
where institutions will need some further guidance, and one in
particular is the added addition of the parents of\--who may die either
in Iraq or Afghanistan. Their students, if in college, would then
receive a full Pell Grant maximum award payment. That is in the
newly-developed law. While this is a very positive development, problems
for colleges and universities would be, how would they find out about
this particular development. So, obviously, we need a process and
verification procedure with the Department of Defense to make sure that
that program is adequately in place.

Second, there is another added area of concern, certainly by members of
Congress, in not allowing sexual offenders any Pell Grant funding. In
that regard, again, process and procedure would be helpful to colleges
and universities. Another important program is the Federal Work Study
Program. We approve of adding the civic participation as a new area for
Federal Work Study students. We can think of numerous entities,
certainly in the Washington, D.C. area where numerous of internships of
students from around the country come here to participate in really very
worthwhile adventures and internships. And so, further clarification, I
think, not only on those areas here in Washington, but certainly across
the country would be in order.

And we are very happy that there was an additional flexibility offered
for Federal Work Study students who are impacted by major disasters in
the United States. This is the direct result of Hurricane Katrina in
2005. And we want to, again, commend the Department of Education who is
an excellent partner in trying to assist the Gulf Coast colleges and
universities, or who are heavily impacted in that regard. A discussion
on negotiated rulemaking would not be complete without talking about
campus crime. In 1999, AJCU was a negotiator on campus crime, and that
was the first year, in essence, that colleges and universities had the
opportunity to discuss these very worthwhile legislative mandates in
making sure and assuring that our reporting requirements were accurate
and not too cumbersome.

We recognize the need in some complications, particularly on emergency
notification\--in emergency notification, certainly every college and
university across the United States recognizes the need to notify
students should an incident occur. But we also recognize the need that
one cannot clearly articulate every imaginable incident that would ever
occur on a campus in this country. And as a result, we concur with our
colleagues who have mentioned before the need for strict and open
flexibility provided to colleges and universities provided through a
regulatory language. Another area of concern to our association is the
peer-to-peer file sharing that has also been articulated before. We want
to associate our comments with that made of EDUCAUSE here before. AJCU,
our Jesuit institutions, have been in compliance with listing the legal
limitations of the copyright laws on our Web sites for over two to three
years. And so, I\'m happy to report, we\'re already in compliance with
some of those provisions.

However, we share concerns about adopting regulatory language in regards
to planning on how to stop the illegal use of these copyrighting
infringements. We are interested in this area because AJCU developed
over eight years ago, Jesuit Net, our distance education consortium
among our 28 colleges and universities. Because of that, we have over
400 institutions\--400 courses, rather, excuse me\--offered online on
graduate programs and degrees, and we have had the opportunity to work
with the Department on distance demonstration programs in the past, as
well as the once authorized LAAP Program, which no longer exists. So,
that is an area of interest that we share.

On TEACH Grants, I also would be remiss if we did not mention this, AJC
was also a negotiator in the TEACH Grant negotiating process this past
year. And through this process, we were able to realize, as the Higher
Education Act Reauthorization process was also going on simultaneously,
that there were some areas in particular that needed to be addressed in
legislative language.

So, we are grateful that the language we submitted to Capitol Hill was
adopted in HEOA. And as a result, we concur with the remarks also made
by AACTE that these amendments that would allow students who were
majoring in a specific academic area and then later found out after
graduation that their academic area was no longer a high demand-­that
they would not be lost in the system, and the TEACH Grant Program would
not be automatically converted to a loan program. We think that this is
an important initiative, and also to encourage students as well as
institutions of higher education to utilize this very important TEACH
Grant program.

Now, we recognize that, most likely, elements in Title I and other
Titles will most likely not be negotiated in the negotiated rulemaking
process, in all likelihood. One of the larger issues in Title I for all
of us in higher education has been the issue of college cost. I will not
get into that issue today because it is a very complicated one. Many of
the new reporting requirements for colleges and universities are really
not new\--that will be required and listed on college Web sites provided
by the Department of Education. Most of that information is now
currently given either through IPEDs or FISAP already. However, there is
a new area of net tuition pricing that is not. And as a result, the
legislative language clearly indicates that the Secretary should be in
consultation with institutions of higher education and interested
parties over formulating the definition of net tuition price. And AJCU
would want to recommend once again that that consultation indeed occur,
and we would be most happy to work with you in whatever forum you
believe appropriate, but we strongly endorse that measure.

And finally, I couldn\'t be standing here unless I would mention the
Education Disaster Loan Program. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina
ravaged the Gulf Coast Region of the United States. Fifteen colleges and
universities in five states were damaged, some substantially. Since that
time, AJCU has been working extensively with the New Orleans
institutions\--one of ours, Loyola University in New Orleans was
damaged, in addition to Tulane University and the University of New
Orleans. The four of us have been in partnership in trying to secure
funding through three emergency supplementals.

We were able to secure \$280 million in that process, but that\'s a far
cry from the \$2 billion losses that occurred from this devastating
hurricane.

In the second emergency supplemental, we included an education disaster
loan component, and we had secured approval of everyone in the Senate
and House side, from appropriators to authorizers, as well as the
Department of Education, at that time, and were stopped by the OMB
because this program was not authorized at that time.

So, naturally, we authorized this program, with the help and support, I
might add, of other higher education associations who, indeed, signed
our letter asking for this inclusion. Now that the Education Disaster
Loan Program has been included, we face a hurdle. And the hurdle we face
is the fact that we have been told by the Department of Education of
your desire not to do any new regulatory language on any new program
unless it is funded by Congress. While we understand the necessity and
the practicality of that statement, we also have to disagree, and in
particular for the Education Disaster Loan Program. It does not have to
be stated here enough about what has already happened this year from
Hurricane Gustav and Ike. Texas institutions and Louisiana institutions
have incurred over \$800 million in damages just in this one-month
timeframe this year. And combined with the fact that Hurricane Katrina
institutions, again, who were shut down for over a full semester, are
still in dire need of this funding. We respectfully request from the
Department not to do a negotiated rulemaking session, but to somehow
find a way and a means to come up with regulatory language so that these
institutions who were impacted over the last three years, much less
those institutions who will be impacted from a major disaster in the
future, have this as an opportunity for them to recover.

Now, we have learned from these disasters that colleges and universities
are the economic epicenters of a city or a town. And as a result, we
believe that it is vitally important that this Education Disaster Loan
Program legislative language that\'s already adopted be adopted somehow
through some regulatory process. And I know I share the interests and
concerns by the Katrina-impacted institutions by saying that AJCU and
those institutions would be willing to work with the Department in
trying to find out how in the world we could come up with regulatory
language in a way that is not too cumbersome for the Department, but in
a way that allows us to try to secure funding on Capitol Hill.

So, I thank the Department for this wonderful opportunity, and we hope
that AJCU can once again be part of this very important process.

Thank you.

**MS. GILCHER:** Okay. Thank you all for your patience and attention.

We will reconvene\--we\'ll try for 1:00, because we have a full schedule
for the afternoon, as well. Thank you.

**AFTERNOON SESSION**

**MR. BERGERON:** Good afternoon. Welcome back. We have a lot
fewer\--many fewer people here this afternoon. We were saying we should
have found a different venue with more\--that was larger, but maybe not
if we stay at this level of people in the afternoon. Our first person
speaking this afternoon is Phil Day. Phil, if you could indicate who you
are and where you\'re from, that would be great.

**DR. DAY:** Thank you very much. My name is Dr. Phil Day. I am
President and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial
Administrators here to talk with you today about the topics for
negotiated rulemaking.

On behalf of the nearly 3,000 postsecondary educational institutions
that are a member of the National Association of Student Financial Aid
Administrators, I would like to express NASFAA\'s strong support for the
negotiated rulemaking process. We believe that the community
participation in the regulatory process allows us to work together to
protect student access and choice in higher education, provide workable
procedures, and ensure that statutory boundaries are maintained.
Although the Higher Education Opportunity Act advances the goals of the
federal student aid programs in many ways, it also presents challenges
that require careful analysis and a deliberate plan of action.

In implementing the HEOA, we urge the Department to regulate only when
necessary in order to ensure understanding of and compliance with the
law, and to preserve the integrity of the student aid programs. We also
urge you to negotiate all regulations that impact on institutional
operations or student decisions. Allow us to focus institutional
resources towards serving students rather than feeding an insatiable but
meaningless data machine.

Consolidate and standardize disclosures to avoid confusing students and
their parents, and take a wide view towards provisions that encourage
families to think early of higher education as an attainable goal. Our
written submission lists the provisions from the Act that we feel should
be negotiated. We also ask that the Department take this opportunity to
revisit existing regulations that, now that they have been tested
through implementation, may need some fine-tuning. We have included some
recommendations for regulatory areas to review. Today, I would like to
highlight a few general areas of special concern. In its approach to
reporting and disclosure requirements, the HEOA takes a shotgun approach
asking institutions to produce as much data as possible without any
clear or meaningful purpose. Unless carefully orchestrated, the effort
required to comply will divert resources and detract from the time
schools would otherwise focus on services that more effectively help
students and contribute to their success.

We urge the Department to consult information and research specialists
to assist the data and design its presentation. To the extent possible,
consolidate reporting so that it is unduplicated and derives as much
data as possible from reports already being submitted. We also should
point out that the information burden is not limited to schools.
Students are the targets of so many scattered and duplicative
disclosures from schools and lenders, it is no wonder they become
frustrated and ignore them. Disclosures to students and their parents
should be coordinated, unduplicated, unless absolutely necessary for
comprehension, and at the very least, consistent and straightforward.
The HEOA places a good deal of new disclosure and reporting requirements
under Title I of the Higher Ed Act. Although negotiated rulemaking is
not required for Title I, we ask the Department to use that process to
ensure the most effective regulatory results. We make the same requests
for Title X provisions. A number of HEO provisions reflect recent
attention to ethical integrity. We all have a stake in ensuring that the
federal student aid programs are viewed as a good investment of public
funds, but that should achieved through a rational dialogue that
ultimately helps us help students.

We hope the Department will take this opportunity to establish that
federal student aid is subject to federal requirements that take
precedence over other jurisdictions and resolve ambiguity in the law
about the permissible uses that institutions may make of the expertise
of lenders and guarantors in their efforts to educate students about
loan provisions, debt management, and financial literacy. The HEOA also
opens the door to simplification of both application and the
verification processes. Although NASFAA believes the true need for
simplification is in the EFC formula itself, we hope the Department will
take up the HEOA authority to try out a prior prior-year basis for need
analysis among a limited number of applicants, together with an IRS
database match. We also urge the Department to use whatever resources it
can, including negotiated rules and procedures with the TRIO and GEAR UP
Programs to implement HEOA recommendations regarding early application
and analyses to make-­to help make low-income families more aware of
higher education\--that higher education is possible for them.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment. NASFAA is looking forward to
working productively and proactively with the Department to achieve the
best results possible, and we\'re hoping to encourage as many members of
our association to step forward and volunteer, as I\'ve already
indicated to Dan.

Thank you very much.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you. I\'ll just make one observation.

The way in which the Department develops its data collections
principally related to the Title I requirements is through not a
negotiated rulemaking process, but through technical review panels that
are conducted by the National Center for Educational Statistics.

**DR. DAY:** Right.

**MR. BERGERON:** And then, as part of that, they post on their Web site
the results of those technical review panels and solicit public comment
on the plans. And then, also, there\'s the Paperwork Reduction Act
process with OMB.

So, there\'s lots\--actually, in some sense, more involvement from the
public in those collections, although the points you made about
consolidating and making it as least burdensome as possible, you know,
we hear that. Thank you.

**DR. DAY:** We understand that those processes work concurrently. And
in fact, I\'ve been invited to sit on one of them myself, because my
background\--former background in an earlier life was institutional
research and evaluation. So, I look forward to that opportunity.

Thank you very much.

**MR. BERGERON:** Yeah, they\'re actually very good
experience\--learning opportunities.

**DR. DAY:** I heard all about them. I met some of the folks as well.
Thank you very much.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you.

**DR. DAY:** And I have to apologize. This is a little bit of a comedic
aside\--on our way over here, and I\'m a little bit embarrassed by this
because I don\'t usually perspire like this, but I found out from my
associate over here that IDs were required, so I ran\--literally
ran\--all the way back to my offices and back only to find out that they
weren\'t taking IDs.

\[Laughter.\]

**DR. DAY:** So, my pulse rate is a bit high. Thank you.

**CROWD:** They like to keep you on your toes.

**DR. DAY:** They sure do.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you, Phil. Christine Johnson. Again, if you
could say what organization you\'re from, that would be great.

**MS. JOHNSON**: Good afternoon. My name is Christine Johnson, and I\'m
the Director of Government Affairs for Capella University. I appreciate
the opportunity to present to you some of Capella\'s thoughts and
suggestions regarding the implementation of Title IV of the HEOA. And
just a quick note on Capella, we\'re based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We
are accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central
Association. We serve 23,000 students, and we are primarily an
adult-serving online institution.

In the interest of the issues pertaining to HEOA, we\'ll be talking
about distance education, accreditation, and access to student loan
programs. On the distance education provision, Capella is pleased that
the Act defines the term \"distance education,\" and distinguishes it
from correspondence programs and other delivery methods. We support the
definition for its flexibility, recognizing that a number of modes of
technology are utilized. In particular, the Department has already
interpreted that the statutory term \"regulatory and substantive
interaction between students and the instructor, synchronously or
asynchronously\" to mean an interaction that should take place at
regular intervals and not be trivial.

We support this interpretation, and even though not a subject for
negotiated rulemaking, I want to take this opportunity to suggest that
the Department\'s interpretation be included in the regulations
implementing this new definition of distance education.

Capella also wants to applaud Congress for defining the term \"diploma
mill.\" It\'s not a perfect definition, but as all of us in the distance
education field know, it\'s not an easy task. We\'re grateful that the
HEOA requires the Department to continue its coordinated federal efforts
to combat the diploma mill problem. Like many other legitimate
high-quality distance education institutions, Capella University finds
it essential to continue the battle against these illegitimate entities
and hope that the Department will seek any guidance or assistance from
institutions like ours.

Finally, included in Title XI of HEOA is a provision requiring the
independent evaluation of distance education for which the Department of
Education must rely on the National Research Council within the National
Academy of Sciences. Capella welcomes this evaluation, and particularly
its review of how the quality of distance education and student
achievement in the distance education environment is assessed. We hope
that Capella would be able to provide helpful information to the
Department and to the NRC as this evaluation occurs. On the
accreditation provisions of Title IV, there is a provision that requires
an institution that offers distance education or a correspondence
education to have processes through which the institution establishes
that the student who registers for the course or program is the same who
participates and completes the program. There have been suggestions that
this provision requires the installation of sophisticated verification
technologies by institutions and students, and that they have the
ability to infringe on the students\' right to privacy. This was very
clearly not what Congress intended, and the accompanying legislative
history to both HEOA and the initial House bill that included this
language was clear in setting forth Congress\'s expectation. The
conference report to HEOA states that Congress expects institutions
offering distance education to have mechanisms such as identification
numbers and password information in place when students participate
online.

With regard to future use of newer technologies, Congress defers to the
institution and Accreditors\' considerations of whether those
technologies are cost effective and appropriate. In no circumstance
should the use of any technology infringe on the right to privacy of
students.

Capella would urge the Department and Accreditors to respect the intent
of Congress when implementing the supervision. And again, we would be
happy to share our experience and efforts to ensure student
verification, which we believe are equal to and perhaps surpass the
efforts of our on-ground colleagues.

Secondly, Capella supports a new provision which requires that
accrediting agencies train their evaluators specifically on distance
education. While we believe that our Accreditors already take such steps
to ensure that the evaluators who visit Capella have some experience and
knowledge in the area of distance education, we believe that a federal
policy supporting this concept will provide some consistency and
assurance that all institutions offering distance education are being
evaluated by site visitors with the appropriate experience and training.
On student achievement. While Capella believes that the accreditation
provisions on student achievement maintain the appropriate balance
between the responsibility of the institution and the Accreditors, the
discussion during the congressional debate left some impression that
institutions may not be prepared to have their outcomes data evaluated
in a consistent and a comparative manner with other institutions.

I would like state Capella\'s unequivocal readiness to not only disclose
to\--student achievement data, whether quantitative figures like
graduation and job placement rates are qualitative, but also to provide
students the ability to view that information in a comparative fashion
with other institutions. That is why Capella has played an instrumental
role in the formulation of Transparency by Design. Transparency by
Design is the result of a collaborative effort between fourteen
regionally accredited institutions, all of which offer their education
at a distance. Beginning in 2009, these institutions will issue regular
reports that disclose comprehensive data on student demographics, cost,
and student outcomes, including completion and progress rates,
program-level earning outcomes, and alumni feedback. I mention
Transparency by Design and the issue of data disclosure, because in
addition to the role of the accreditor, HEOA includes several disclosure
provisions relating to student achievement and outcomes.

There are several significant amendments to the Title I disclosure
requirements on IPEDS relating to graduation and completion rates, and
there are also similar but not identical provisions amending the public
disclosure requirements in Section 485 of the Act.

The Department has already issued a notice for comments in the
implementation of new guidance for IPEDS. As I noted, Capella strongly
supports the disclosure of outcomes data to the public. However, we also
believe that the multiple manners in which the information is disclosed
should be as consistent as possible so as not to confuse the student
consumer. I strongly urge the Department to seek consistency between its
IPEDs requirements, which will implement through notice and comment, and
the new requirements of Section 485, which will implement through
negotiated rulemaking. These two provisions require a coordinated effort
on the part of the Department. On Title IV funding, Capella strongly
supported amendments to permit students access to Pell Grants on a
year-round basis. By enacting this provision, Congress has recognized
that achieving higher education no longer occurs on a nine-month,
per-year basis. Our students at Capella are enrolled year-round, and
this amendment will significantly help many of them.

We ask that, as the Department implements these amendments, that it
provide maximum amount of flexibility in determining on a
student-by-student basis the distribution of these funds. Capella would
also like to applaud Congress for relaxing the provisions on 90-10. We
believe that these restrictions serve a very limited, if any, public
policy purpose, and has the detrimental impact, in some cases, of
denying access to those students that may need an education and training
the most. The provisions included in HEOA on 90-10 are extremely helpful
but also complicated and will require some interpretation by the
Department. Again, as the Department begins the negotiated rulemaking
process, we urge the Department to include institutions with specific
knowledge on how 90-10 affects students.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak today. On behalf of Capella, that
concludes my testimony. Thank you.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you very much. Ginger Rushing. Good afternoon.

**MS. RUSHING:** Hello. My name is Ginger Rushing, and I\'m here on
behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America. The RIAA is the
trade group that represents the United States recording industry, and
its members create, manufacture, and/or distribute approximately 90
percent of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the
United States. As you can understand, we\'ve been extremely concerned
about the rampant illegal file sharing occurring on college campuses
across this country, and we\'re therefore pleased to see provisions to
address this problem included in the HEOA. For several years, we have
worked together with the higher education community including the Joint
Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities to find
reasonable and effective solutions to this problem. Our discussions with
schools and observations of successful strategies have led us to
advocate for the adoption of strong, acceptable use policies, consistent
enforcement of those policies, implementation of technology to deter
illegal file sharing, and the adoption of legal services for music and
movies.

This combination of efforts has not only helped to reduce illegal file
sharing on school networks, but has, in many cases, increased network
efficiency, reduced exposure to viruses, and saved schools money through
reduction of personnel and network operating costs. In short, taking
these steps is the best interest of content creators and education
institutions alike. We greatly appreciate the efforts that schools are
already taking in implementing these measures, and welcome HEOA\'s
recognition of their leadership in guiding others to do the same. In
particular, we acknowledge Section 488 of the HEOA\'s requirement that
schools create institutional policies against copyright infringement and
inform students of the penalties for violation of these policies of
federal copyright laws. It is important for students to understand and
appreciate the dangers of illegal file sharing and to know that the
school does not condone and will punish such activity.

We have, in fact, prepared a number of sample policies and best
practices often in cooperation with universities, and would be more than
happy to work with the Department and institutions to help apply them.
We also appreciate Section 493\'s inclusion of legitimate services and
technology-based deterrents. Services such as Ruckus have worked with a
number of schools to offer administrations and their students the
ability to legally offer and access both movies and music, and companies
such as Audible Magic and Red Lambda offer technologies that have helped
schools regain control of their networks and save thousands, even
millions of dollars in the process. These Businesses are eager to work
with schools, and we encourage the Department to keep them in mind as
possible. We would be able to\--we would be glad to provide context and
additional information on these vendors.

Once again, I wish to thank the Department for holding these hearings.
These forums allow us to convey the importance of these sections in the
HEOA and provide an opportunity to ensure the requirements are fulfilled
appropriately and effectively. We look forward to our ongoing
cooperation with schools and to assisting the Department in any way we
can. Thank you.

**MR. BERGERON**: Thank you. We are a little ahead of schedule. Is Nancy
McNabb in the room? Hi, Nancy.

**MS. McNABB:** My name is Nancy McNabb and I\'m the Director of
Government Affairs for the National Fire Protection Association. The
National Fire Protection Association urges the Department of Education
to enact regulations that keep the intent of the Campus Fire Safety
Right to Know Act legislation part of the Higher Education Opportunity
Act intact.

NFPA was founded in 1896, and for more than 100 years, we have
influenced the safety of the built environment through our codes and
standards, which have changed the regulations that drive building
construction and operations. This legislation to require the disclosure
of fire safety standards and measures at eligible institutions makes
sense because the lessons that students learn about fire safety while at
college will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Crafting
regulatory language to set forth the requirements mandated in the
student right to know portion of the HEOA will not be easy, if the
required institutional reports are to provide useful actionable
information to students, applicants, and their families. These reports
need to be more than routine checklists and they need to be in a format
that supports consistency and comparison between campuses.

Historically, the lessons learned from fires resulting from a major loss
of life have driven important changes in fire protection and fire
prevention practices. Few lessons have been learned as thoroughly as the
one from the Our Lady of Angels fire of 1958 which killed 95 people but
resulted in many new requirements for fire protection and fire
prevention at the K-12 level. NFPA hopes that these new Department of
Education regulations will encourage a similar wave of change for
higher-level institutions.

In response to the Department of Education\'s request for public input
in this matter, we offer the following specific comments. We suggest
that the reporting begin with guidance on what is included in on-campus
housing. We suggest reports should indicate what fractions of students
live in designated on-campus housing facilities versus other properties.
Otherwise, the university that is working to control the living
environments of its students wherever they live could be held to a
higher standard than a university who has no on-campus housing and
provides no oversight of any other student housing. For example,
although fraternity and sorority houses are not technically on-campus
housing facilities in terms of location or ownership, many universities
dictate very specific rules for the operations of such policies.
Guidance is also needed on definitions and reporting details for each of
the specific requirements. We encourage the Department to ask for such
guidance from the U.S. Fire Administration National Fire Data Center,
agency to agency. NFPA would be pleased to work with the Department on
such guidance, but believe that USFA has the expertise and the authority
to make it the appropriate body to coordinate the work. We suggest the
use of standard shortlist of causes, or else there will be no way to
compare results from different campuses, or even from one reporter to
another on a single campus. We note that communities differ in how they
refer exposed people to a medical facility. The Department should
specify how long a follow-up will qualify for a late reportable fire
death. The U.S. official view is a year, but most communities aren\'t
set up to track that far out.

The Department should consider what they wish to count as property
damage, and how the value is to be determined. Does the cost of
temporary housing for displaced students count? This is not direct
damage, but it may be reimbursable loss under some insurance policies.
We encourage the development of a scope and coding categories for the
elements of a facility fire safety system. A fire protection system
might be generally understood to mean only active systems, primarily
sprinklers and smoke alarms, but also any other fire detection alarm
systems and smoke control systems, if any. The somewhat vaguer fire
safety system might be understood to include automatic door closers,
exit signs, any illumination or other equipment used to support paths,
et cetera, as well as fire prevention rules such as controls on hot
plates or other fire safety technologies, like AFCIs or ranges that shut
off when they sense an incipient fire. It is not clear what \"regular,\"
\"mandatory,\" or \"supervised\" mean in this context. If \"regular,\"
means scheduled, then they may miss the opportunity to check readiness
through unannounced drills which is the best way to see whether people
will really react as they should. \"Mandatory\" could mean mandatory for
the university, the students, or the managers of the facilities.
\"Supervised\" could mean supervised by student floor wardens, student
facility leaders, resident faculty, campus fire safety personnel, or the
local fire department.

The Department should clearly establish the meanings of these terms so
that it is clear who is being mandated and counted as the supervisor.
NFPA urges the Department to provide some reporting structure. This
would make the difference between of a stack of narrative reports and a
database amenable to statistical analysis. The latter would allow one to
say, for example, what fraction of campuses has hot plate policies,
while the former would make that very difficult to do. The Department
should provide guidance on the necessary elements of a plan. It should
specify what is being added, budget cost, and schedule. Absence such
compliance, the Department might give credit to universities\' plan for
improvements as no more detailed than, for example, \"One of these days,
we really ought to sprinkler those dorms.\" The students should clarify
what is meant by\--the Department should clarify what is meant by the
nature of the fire. Is this term intended to be another word for
\"cause\"? The Department should carefully consider the requirements for
publishing. Will each campus publish its report for distribution to
designated members of the campus family, that is students, their
parents, applicants\--their parents, faculty, staff, legislators, local
officials?

Although the Secretary is charged to annually report on compliance, what
kind of reporting will be available to the Secretary to make that
determination? The results may range from a simple e-mail from the
campus that says, \"Here\'s what we\'re doing,\" to a more meaningful
national collection and analysis of the data. NFPA favors the latter. At
NFPA, we believe that safety is everybody\'s business, and encouraging
campuses to invest more in fire safety policies, procedures, programs,
and practices is important. Effective campus right-to-know regulations
will provide meaningful information that will enable prospective parents
and students to select a safer school.

Properly crafted regulations have the potential to significantly reduce
fire-related injuries and deaths in student housing, dormitories, and
other campus buildings, and decrease the amount of property loss
associated with the fire incidents. In order to achieve the intent of
the enabling legislation, the Department will need to define a project
to fill in the necessary details to disseminate the information to
campuses, and to do quality edit checks on submitted reports, or at
least on a sampling basis. NFPA encourages the Department to coordinate
the student right to know project with and through the U.S. Fire
Administration without providing an unfunded mandate in the process.
NFPA is committed to assist where appropriate in these activities, and
for all these reasons, we support the Campus Fire Safety Right to Know
Act.

Thank you for your attention and the opportunity to be heard on this
important issue.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you. I\'ve got one question. As I read this
provision, the only information the Secretary would receive is the
statistical information. We wouldn\'t receive the plans for future
improvement. We wouldn\'t receive the policies and procedures. We
wouldn\'t receive a description of each on-campus student housing fire
safety system. The statute is fairly clear that what we are to receive
is the statistical data. Am I missing something?

**MS. McNABB:** Well, you have to craft the regulations on how to\--how
the\--you receive\--they are to give you that statistical data, and our
advice is, to you, to get that statistical data in a form that is
comprehensible.

**MR. BERGERON:** Today, we collect campus crime statistics. We do it
on\--in a Web-based tool and make it available to the public using that
same kind of tool. It would seem to me that the data we\'re required to
collect under the law is easily collectible in that kind of a system.
What the law\--what our system would not collect is narrative form
content of\--in the nature of the other things that are listed here. And
I\'m not sure what we would do if we got it. And the specific
requirement of the statute is that we collect the statistical data.

**MS. McNABB:** Right. I\'m just giving you advice on how to collect
that data so that it\'s meaningful.

**MR. BERGERON:** Okay.

**MS. McNABB:** Because fire data is not crime statistic data, and
it\'s, you know, collected differently than crime data.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you.

**MS. McNABB:** You\'re welcome.

**MR. BERGERON:** Is Richard Williams in the room? Good afternoon,
Richard.

**MR. WILLIAMS:** Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Richard
Williams, and I am the Higher Education Associate with United States
Public Interest Research Group, or US PIRG. The PIRGs are a nationwide
network of state-based, non-partisan nonprofits that work with students
on 200 different campuses and 30 states.

We work on federal higher education issues on behalf of college students
and their families. We believe that American colleges and universities
play a pivotal role in training the Nation\'s citizens, leaders,
innovators, public servants, and educators. In today\'s economy, a
college education is practically a necessity. Millions of high school
students strive for its promise and the benefits it brings for both the
individual and society. As such, we aim to keep college affordable and
accessible. Today, I would like to thank the Department of Education for
allowing me to relate our concerns regarding the implementation of the
Higher Education Opportunity Act as well as other pieces of higher
education legislation passed recently. I have submitted more extensive
written comments, and will limit my statement to three items of concern.

Our first area of concern is the subject of the provisions related to
textbooks. The most significant reform the bill contains is the
provision that focuses\--that forces publishers to disclose the
wholesale price of the textbook to a faculty member in all sales
interactions. The disclosure provision is critical to help faculty take
price into account. But due to the language of the provision, which
instructs against the Department to write the regulations, the
Department may conclude that it has no role to play in guiding the
implementation and enforcement of this provision. To the contrary, the
provision recognizes the means that the Department has at its disposal
to publicize the new law and to broadly disseminate the information to
colleges, universities, and other relevant stakeholders.

More significantly, the successful implementation of the rules provision
necessitates strong departmental enforcement. If the Department fails to
put tough enforcement mechanisms into place, then the new provision will
fail to accomplish its goals of lowering college costs for students when
and if a publisher is found to be breaking the law. We urge the
Department to devise and enact strong enforcement mechanisms for the
textbook provisions.

Our second area of concern is the new self-certification process that
the reauthorization bill creates. If not implemented correctly, the
process occurring through college financial aid offices could allow
students and their families to be exposed to a conflict of interest
between colleges and lenders. The process by which students must report
his or her private loans to the college could facilitate further
deception about private loans, could increase student and family
confusion, and it may even promote more borrowing. We urge the
Department to ensure that this new process protects students and
families from these potential pitfalls by tightly controlling the
content of this process and supervising it.

Finally, we are concerned that no information is given to college
students about the income-based repayment and public service loan
forgiveness programs. The creation of the income-based repayment and
public service loan forgiveness programs over the past year has been
enormously encouraging to students and families looking to keep college
affordable. However, information about these programs is not currently
integrated into the full range of required information that colleges
must ensure that students receive about the federal loan programs. As a
result, borrowers can leave college unaware of the assistance that these
programs can provide, and on the front end, incoming students and
student aid recipients may make major and career choices based on the
knowledge\--on the lack of knowledge about the flexibility of repayment
options that await them upon graduation.

We urge the Department to modify student aid counseling regulations to
accommodate information about these two important programs. On behalf of
US PIRG and its members, thank you very much for your time.

**MR. BERGERON:** On textbooks, just for a second\--the Department of
Education Organization Act has a general prohibition against
federal\--any federal education official getting involved in a list of
things. One of the things on that list is textbooks. So that, taken with
the requirement here, that we not regulate, seems to place the
Department in a position where what we can do is tell institutions and
tell publishers what the requirements of the law are, but I don\'t know
to what extent we have a lot of flexibility to go beyond that. Is there
something in the law that I\'m missing that we should look at?

**MR. WILLIAMS:** Yeah, I can definitely keep in touch, but we strongly
encourage the Department to use any flexibility at its disposal, and
I\'ll definitely get back to you on specific areas.

**MR. BERGERON:** That\'d be great. Thank you. Jean Morse. Good
afternoon.

**MS. MORSE:** Somebody left a watch here.

**CROWD:** You\'ve got a new watch\--

Thank you for inviting us\--

**CROWD:** Somebody\'s got a new watch.

*\[Simultaneous discussion.\]*

**MR. BERGERON:** You know, that\'s on the record now, right?

**MS. MORSE:** Thank you for inviting us to testify.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you.

**MS. MORSE:** My name is Jean Morse. I\'m the President of the Middle
States Commission on Higher Education. We accredit over 500 colleges and
universities serving over three million students in our region, which
includes Washington, D.C.

We participate in C-RAC, which is the Council of Regional Accrediting
Commissions. C-RAC meets regularly to develop common policies and
positions for regional accreditation. The seven regional accreditation
commissions accredit all of the major public and private universities in
the U.S., over 3,000 institutions serving 17 million students. On behalf
of both MS CHE and C-RAC, thank you for this opportunity to testify. The
representatives of C-RAC have testified at each of the preceding
hearings, so, I will try not to repeat what you\'ve already heard. While
we work to meet U.S. DOE requirement regulations, we strongly support
the non­governmental peer review character of accreditation as truly
essential to maintaining and improving quality in higher education.

We can be and are tough when needed. For example, the number of warnings
and probation actions issued by my commission has more than doubled in
the last two years, and we ask for some type of follow-up in 50 percent
of the actions that we take. We need to have the flexibility to take
appropriate action when serious problems are found, considering the
context, and not be spinning wheels for situations that we don\'t think
merit it. We\'ve been working very hard to improve the quality of
student learning and student learning assessment. We\'ve offered almost
30 workshops during the last three years on various aspects of
assessment and planning.

I\'d like to comment on a few general approaches in regulation before
commenting on specific aspects of the new legislation. And the first has
to do with focusing on practicalities of implementation. I think that we
realized in the last neg-reg hearings that we\--it would be helpful for
us to have input in\--and the institutions about what the actual,
on-the-ground consequences of some of these regulations might be,
what\'s possible, what isn\'t possible. If we don\'t have regulations
that aren\'t needed that will, of course, reduce cost. And sometimes, we
and the institutions just don\'t have the staff, the technology, or even
the data to implement complicated new regulations. Those kinds of
regulations also inhibit the kind of innovation and accreditation in
higher education approaches that were recommended by the Spellings
Commission. We would like to be flexible and adventurous in trying new
ways, but we\'re already overloaded and constricted by existing
regulations that are extremely detailed about areas that standards must
cover\--things as small as academic calendars\--how institutions must be
reviewed, the self-study, and what types of substantive change must be
reviewed. In fact, I don\'t know if this is possible, but it would be
extremely helpful if the Department would consider adding flexibility to
existing regulations to encourage innovation while you\'re looking at
the regulations.

I\'d like to give an example of this as substantive change, where the
regulations are so specific that we really can\'t tailor their
application where it\'s needed. Congress, in legislation, named a couple
of areas, branch campuses and change of ownership, where regulation was
needed. Obviously, that\'s-­those are important areas. The regulations
then added six substantive changes, including, for example, additional
locations with more than 50 percent of a degree. This means that our
institutions are having to submit what are actually rather lengthy
applications. We\'re having to gather a Committee. Everybody is supposed
to meet, the Commission has to meet if they\'re offering a program in a
high school for one year, and that\'s a real example. So, it\'s not
something that we can tailor, and it means that we are really doing a
lot of work that we don\'t need to do. Related to that, a variation of
that, is creating regulations that permit multiple approaches rather
than one-size-fits-all. One of the strengths of accreditation and of
higher education is diversity. In order to allow each agency and
institution to find the approach that best fits its context, the
regulations should allow flexibility. We commit ourselves to finding
appropriate approaches in a timely and effective manner. That\'s why I
mentioned earlier the extent of enforcement that we\'re doing.

Lastly, I would like to comment about having the right people at the
table. The group that considers new regulations should include fair and
representative participation of regional, national, and specialized
Accreditors engaged in proportion to the number of institutions and
students affected. We are the ones who can speak best to our current
standards and processes, as well as to the impact of the proposed new
regulations.

Institutional representatives should be truly representative of the
major institutional types of American higher education in relation to
their proportional enrollment of students, and should include
participation of representatives of the national associations
representing the different sectors. We feel that there would be greater
buy-in and perhaps more mutual sharing of information if that kind of
representation were included. We would also suggest that accreditation
not be lumped in with all of the very many other subjects that are
included in this Act. I know you\'re setting up committees right now,
and given the importance of accreditation during the legislative
process, we think that perhaps it needs to be considered separately.
With respect to specific provisions, I know you\'ve heard these
before\--the first is due process. We feel that we already have very
good processes in place. We always feel caught between­-well, you\'ve got
to protect the students, immediately, right now, and, well, you\'ve got
to let the institutions have a long time to have all of their appeals
and everything. It\'s a difficult balancing act. We think that the
provision allowing new information to be considered seems clear as
drafted, and we suggest that regulations do not go beyond what is stated
clearly in the law. We support allowing each agency to implement the
HEOA provision, permitting legal counsel, rather than adopting highly
detailed and prescriptive rules. That\'s partly because we do have
different appeals processes, all of them complying, but we would have to
tailor it to ourselves. And by the way, Middle States already does allow
submission of additional financial information.

Next one is transfer of credit. Again, we feel the law is clear.
Institutions must have and publish their policies on transfer of credit
and the criteria they apply in making transfer decisions. Given the
directness of the language, we do not see the need for further
regulation or interpretation and I noticed that earlier testimony today
by a national accreditor agreed with that. Distance education has been
discussed a lot today. The report that went with the new legislation
says, as new identification systems are developed and become more
sophisticated, less expensive, and more mainstream, the conferees
anticipate that accrediting agencies and associations and institutions
will consider their use in the future.

We think that the conferees clearly were calling for flexibility, and we
concur with that. The regional Accreditors have called together a group
of institutions to ask for suggestions, state of the art, what\'s the
best thing we can do now, and we hope to get together in our approach.
And finally, monitoring institutional growth is new language in the law
requiring accrediting agencies to monitor the growth of programs that
are experiencing significant enrollment growth. Any single metric as to
what constitutes \"significant growth\" is problematic, and we urge a
flexible response. Much depends on institutional size and context to
determine how to implement this provision, and Accreditors are equipped
to consider each change in the appropriate context. I would also note
that the regulations already require us to monitor rapid growth of
additional locations.

In conclusion, when it comes to rulemaking on accreditation issues, we
urge the Department to keep two overarching principles in mind:
consultation and flexibility. We look forward to working with the
Department as the regulatory process proceeds.

**MR. BERGERON:** I have a question. How large do you think the
negotiating committee should be so that we can get proportionality? If
you think about the nine sectors of higher education and the multitude
of Accreditors, you\'d have to have a committee of, what, a hundred?

**MS. MORSE:** Well, you know, the people who were attending the
hearings and kind of complaining \"so, the votes you had last time\"
\[ph.\]\--were some of the groups of universities that didn\'t
feel\--and colleges that didn\'t feel that their national associations
were included. So, I think as a minimum, it would be helpful to have
those national associations.

There were some Accreditors on the committee last time. There was some
question as to whether the particular institutions that were chosen were
really representative\--as representative as they could have been. I
think the size of the committee last time was fine\--maybe even too big,
considering that we don\'t have that many issues outstanding, but I
think that the composition might be different.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you. Donald Spicer. We\'re still running a
little ahead of schedule. How are you?

**DR. SPICER:** Good afternoon. I\'m Dr. Donald Spicer, Associate Vice
Chancellor and Chief Information Officer for the University System of
Maryland.

The University System of Maryland consists of 13 public universities,
with a combined student population in Maryland of over 135,000 students,
and more than 50,000 additional students on all seven continents of the
world.

I also have an appointment as a Senior Fellow of the EDUCAUSE Center for
Applied Research. I wish to submit oral comments regarding the
peer-to-peer file sharing and copyright infringement provisions in
Section 493 of the HEOA. In general, my observations give emphasis to
those on this topic made in the conference report of the House Senate
Conference Committee. The conferees clearly understood the diversity of
American higher education and the need to develop rules that are
flexible enough to allow varied institutions to deal with the problem
and to meet the expectations of the law as appropriate to their local
needs.

While the university system of Maryland consists of only 13
institutions, they vary widely in their mission, demographics,
geography, and character. Two are research-only institutions, with a
community consisting only of graduate students and researchers. One
institution has only professional schools, largely populated by graduate
students. Several institutions are more traditional, with undergraduate
and graduate residential and commuter students. And two of our
institutions have focused on non-traditional age students with
place-based and online programs. These institutions are located in the
full range of locales: inner city, suburban, rural locations, as well as
fully online. In the University System of Maryland, we\'ve worked for
years to address the issues of copyright infringement via illegal
downloading. Our framework, which agrees with that presented by a
previous commenter, includes education programs, policy and its
enforcement, technology approaches, and offering legal alternatives.
However, we recognize that, given the diversity of our institutions,
each institution before us has needed to adopt approaches within this
framework appropriate for its individual circumstances.

This is particularly true regarding the expectations for plans and for
the use of technology. How one might plan if the institution has few if
any residential students is quite different than planning for an
institution with a large number of residential students, and this is
largely a residential student problem. Regarding technology, most of our
institutions using packet-check technology such as Packeteer. A few have
adopted Audible Magic\'s CopySense. One research university feels that
any such technologies potentially interfere with legitimate research
applications of peer-to-peer technologies.

There are also serious concerns regarding technologies that do content
inspection as potentially compromising privacy, as well as being a
security point of failure. Further, our experience with technologies has
been that technology filters can be easily foiled by means of
encryption, and therefore, any investment one might make at the current
time would be soon worthless.

Given the fact that we\'ve used a wide range of technologies, some of
our experience might be of interest. One of the previous commenters
mentioned one of our institutions as having used technology to filter
out peer-to-peer traffic, and that is correct, but the nuance on that is
that they filtered out only two of the peer-to-peer protocols that have
no known current applications, and they use the technology that, in
fact, was perceived by that commenter as being ineffective, which is
using packet-shaping technology. One of our institutions that\'s using
CopySense has in the end received a disproportionate number of DMCA
notices and other legal notices.

The institution that did not apply technology for reasons that I
mentioned does receive DMCA notices, but it\'s proportionate to the size
and the character of its residential population as compared with our
other institutions, but it stringently applied policies and severe
sanctions whenever a violation has been found, and they have a very low
rate of recidivism. Which brings me to the issue of how to measure the
effectiveness of institutional approaches to dealing with infringement.
Historically, there have been proposals put forward in previous versions
of the bill that use the number of DMCA and other legal notices as an
appropriate metric. Our experience is that these notices are episodic
and generally are not related to anything we see happening on the
campus.

Also, these notices are externally generated by an opaque process, and
do not appear to take into account any measures that we might be putting
forward to deal with the problem. We strongly feel that a more valid
measure of success or failure of our efforts is the amount of
recidivism, i.e., the number of repeat offenders who receive notices.
This is something we can measure and deal with through our internal
judicial systems. Admittedly, our experience is that stringent
enforcement will lead to a very small number of repeat offenders, but
that\'s the point of the law.

Finally, we have had, long in place, a legal alternative to illegal
downloading. We have currently over 21,000 subscribers system-wide,
which is a substantial number of our residential students. That being
said, the first company with whom we contracted has left this business,
and we had to go out and redo a contract with a new company, and I\'ve
now been told that the second company is no longer offering such
institutional contracts. It should also be observed that not every
institution in the university system has offered this service to its
students. In particular, the two institutions focusing on
non-traditional age students, whose students\--none of whom live on
campus, and may not even been in Maryland or the United States, for that
matter\--do not feel that investing in such a service serves a need. And
in fact, investing in that service might be seen as being in conflict
with a growing number of commercial alternatives for online music and
movie services. Thus, while our experience is with a small sample of
institutions\--I hope it is sufficient to indicate that a flexible
rather than a prescriptive rulemaking will be necessary in applying this
law.

I recognize you have a difficult task, and I wish you well in creating
rules that will apply appropriately to the breadth of American higher
education institutions. I might also say that these are complex and
ever-changing technological and marketplace factors at play here. We
support the suggestion that you include professionals from EDUCAUSE in
the negotiated rulemaking.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you. One of the things that we\'ve heard some
mention about is the role that institutions play as an Internet service
provider, and that has implications for some of the things that you
could do as an institution. Does the University of Maryland serve in
that role, and if so, do you see that is an issue?

**DR. SPICER:** I\'m a little hard of hearing. Was it us contracting
with a service provider?

**MR. BERGERON:** No. Some institutions are themselves an Internet
service provider, and therefore there are additional issues for them in
terms of what they can do\--they can\'t restrict content.

**DR. SPICER:** The answer is a little complicated, but we are an
institution-centric system. We do run\--my office does run the
inter­campus network, and we hold a number of the Internet protocol
addresses for\--is that me? We do hold the IP Addresses, and we
occasionally get notices, but we pass them on to the institutions.

**MR. BERGERON:** Okay. Thank you. Our next speaker is Wendy Fox, if
she\'s in the room. Hi, Wendy. Take your time.

**MS. FOX:** That\'s the fastest hour I\'ve ever\...

**MR. MADZELAN:** Time flies when you\'re having fun.

**MS. FOX:** I guess so, yeah. My name is Wendy Fox, and I am a member
of the National\--of my national association, the American Speech
Language Hearing Association. And the reason I am here today is because
I hope to give some testimony that will help to dramatize the importance
to find the funding that has been extended to disciplines where national
shortages exist. It will also help to recognize the importance of
supporting the training programs for designated professions where the
shortages exist. And in addition, I hope to also show for you the
importance of speech language pathologists\' roles in the school system,
and what we seem to be involved in. Over the past 30-plus years, I have
practiced my profession in a variety of medical and educational settings
both in the United States and abroad. Within the past 20 years, I have
seen firsthand that our professional responsibilities in the school
setting have steadily grown to an increasingly significant degree of
importance.

The responsibilities to our students are quite comprehensive and
demanding as we take on increased numbers with our caseloads. These
responsibilities include but are not limited to the following tasks that
require evaluations, comprehensive testing, active participation at
student studies and participation in eligibility teams. Additional time
is spent at IEP meetings where we develop relevant programs for our
students. Needless to say, the speech language pathologist schedules and
delivers the students\' programs. And in addition to this, time is
carved out to consult with our faculties and parents while
simultaneously merging the other responsibilities intrinsic to each
school. And if that is not enough, there is the ever-increasing and
timely documentation required for meeting of regulations at the local,
state, and federal levels, as well as the ongoing credentialing for
improving our skills. Speech language pathologists, as well as
educators, have very demanding jobs. They\'re considered as part of the
educational team, and thus should be given this respect in accordance to
the Higher Education Opportunity Act.

However, given the climate of reduced funding and fewer training program
options for students who would be attracted to the field of speech
language pathology as well as educational audiology. We\'re finding an
ongoing challenge to meet the current and future shortages of speech
language therapists, as well as educational audiologists daunting. Our
profession\'s visibility by the Department of Education for support is
currently diminished. When reading the survey that the Bureau of Labor
Statistics reveals, we find that in the next ten years, our Nation\'s
public schools are going to need to fill over 14,000 additional speech
language pathologist positions and 3,000 additional educational
audiologists nationwide. This is a 15 percent increase. Concurrently,
over half of the speech language pathologists now employed by our
Nation\'s schools will be retiring by 2017. This will exacerbate that
shortage.

Given that most of us here at this hearing work tirelessly to provide
quality services in the field of education, we acknowledge the
importance of a comprehensive educational program. We know the important
role we play today and will need to play in the future for all our
students. Professional shortages in the area of communication disorders
should be more strongly considered by this United States agency.
Anecdotally, I continue to hear stories from colleagues and from
students who cannot afford the tuition to complete the two-year
master\'s program in state university programs, and in even more costly
private universities whereby the cost for undergraduate and graduate
school over this period may exceed in excess of \$80,000. In a
profession where the mean starting salary, with a master\'s degree,
nationwide, hovers around the \$40,000 range, this investment may not be
particularly attractive in these current economic times. Speech language
pathologists in the school setting should be treated as educators with
regard to funding to offset their academic schooling. To give you more
insight, this past year, I had worked with two specific graduate
students amongst others. One woman was concerned that she could not
afford to work in this field after graduate school, as her debt was so
high. She was seeking work elsewhere despite her completed master\'s
degree program. This capable professional was not feeling confident that
she could pay back her loans. Her parents were Korean immigrants and
worked entry-level positions at local cleaners in their hometown
community. She had no cushion to get temporary support.

Another student with whom I worked was coming from a small community in
North Carolina where he was a first-generation graduate from college.
His parents worked at factories where they too had limited resources and
could not help him out. His debt for college and graduate school was
well in excess of \$70,000. He knew that the school districts in his
home state did not pay the salaries that he would need to work locally,
and thus sought work elsewhere. Had each of these students had the
opportunity to gain access to postsecondary loan forgiveness in a
program like the Title IV program, these exceptionally qualified
students would have had more than likely sought positions in the school
setting, where there are and will be ongoing shortages.

Had each of these students had access to a postsecondary loan
forgiveness program, I sense that each of these students may have more
strongly considered going back to their hometown school district
communities, which both have Title I programs. One district was in a
major metropolitan area with a large inner city school district, and the
other in a rural setting. We all know that one of the hardest battles
for each of these settings is in retaining qualified personnel in their
districts. Had this option been available to these fine young people, it
may have been a beginning to pave the way for young professionals to get
debt relief.

At the same time, they would be gaining excellent professional
experience, which may have been self-fulfilling and grounding for
pursuing their professional career paths. And equally important, they
would, in turn, be exposing their young students to accomplished and
motivated young professionals who may have been influential role models.
Speech language pathologists do student teaching and meet parallel
standards to teacher training, as well as participating in a clinical
fellowship year after graduation. They take the relevant practice exams
as well as the required state educational exams such as the CBEST in
California. With all of this being stated, it should now be more clearly
understood that the interconnection of the speech language pathologist
and the educational audiologist in the educational setting should be
included in the teacher training opportunities of the Title II programs
and the loan forgiveness program for the Title IV program. I appreciate
you taking the time to allow me to address my views on this important
matter. hope that my input and the input from other colleagues will
encourage your recommendations to enable us to seek some relief from the
existing shortage of speech language clinicians and educational
audiologists in the public schools setting.

Securing the funding needed for loan forgiveness and training programs
would be welcome opportunities to further the importance of higher
educational outcomes of all of our students across the United States.

Thank you.

**MR. BERGERON:** Linda Sickman.

**MS. SICKMAN:** Good afternoon.

**MR. BERGERON:** Good afternoon.

**DR. SICKMAN:** Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Linda Sickman. I am a
certified speech language pathologist by the American Speech Language
Hearing Association, and I am licensed by the State of Maryland Board of
Examiners in Speech Language Pathology. I am an Assistant Professor in
speech language pathology at Towson University. My area of expertise is
in child language and literacy development disorders. I have 16 years of
experience, even though I don\'t look like I have 16 years\' experience,
I do have 16 years\' experience working in a variety of settings,
including early intervention, the public schools, and Head Start. I am
here today to speak to the issues that are important to speech language
pathologists, or SLPs, and audiologists, particularly those who are new
to entering the field of communication sciences and disorders. Loan
forgiveness is one such issue. This tool can be used by states and
school districts to assist in the recruitment and the retainment
\[sic.\] of ASHA certified school-based SLPs and audiologists.

Today the need is great in our schools, and I\'m going to echo exactly
what Wendy said. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that between
the years 2004 and 2014, more than 14,000 additional SLPs will be needed
to fill job vacancies, which is a 15 percent increase in that decade.
This increase coupled with almost half of all school-based SLPs who will
be eligible to retire in 2017 make this issue of utmost importance. And
this last statistic was from the U.S. Department of Education\'s 24th
Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of IDEA. In addition,
3,000 more audiologists will be needed to fill the demand between 2002
and 2012, which is a 29 percent increase according to the Bureau.
Currently, in some locations in the United States, there is only one
full-time audiologist for every 10,000 children between the ages of
birth and 21 years of age. The bottom line is that there will be a
severe shortage; it\'s inevitable, and it will happen soon. And one way
to combat this shortage would be through the new loan forgiveness
program under HEOA.

The federal education statues and regulations on student loan
forgiveness are incongruent and need to be harmonized, and this issue
may seem very costly monetarily, particularly at this time in our
country, but I\'d like to ask you this question: Would it not be more
costly for our children not to have qualified SLPs and educational
audiologists in our schools? I have taken an informal poll among the
students of the three courses that I have at Towson University. Two
courses are graduate courses where they are in their first year, and
that\'s 45 students. The other course is my undergraduate course with 36
students, and they\'re in their sophomore and junior years of school.
Overwhelmingly, the undergraduates were in absolute favor of loan
forgiveness, and the graduate students were approximately 50-50 split on
the idea of providing a specific amount of time in service for loan
forgiveness.

Can you imagine how many new and qualified SLPs can be hired into
schools across the country to support IDEA with loan forgiveness? Can
you imagine the number of educational audiologists who can address
school-based hearing screening programs, auditory management needs, and
ensure the education, communication, and psychosocial needs of children
with hearing loss? So, I strongly encourage you to consider this issue.
One of the reasons why I went into Head Start was because my loan
program offered me the opportunity to have loan forgiveness if I worked
with low-income children. So, I strongly believe in this program.
Another issue which ASHA supports is the current accreditation statutory
requirements. I am making a request that the Department of Education not
consider accreditation as a part of the negotiated rulemaking. Judgments
about student achievement should remain in the hands of institutions.
Accreditors\' activities are focused on standards to support the student
acquisition of knowledge and skills, and on protocols for how programs
can demonstrate that students are achieving the necessary outcomes. The
process of accreditation is highly successful, and a well tested system
of quality assurance and quality improvement.

The final issue I would like to discuss today is to request the
inclusion of SLPs and audiologists among the providers eligible for
funds under professional preparation programs in Title II. The induction
into teacher training and recruitment efforts should be extended to SLPs
and audiologists as they\'re an integral part of the special education
team, which Wendy also highlighted. Providing SLPs and audiologists the
same access to training and educational opportunities is important
because they are a part of the student educational team. The services
provided by these professionals help students in both general education
setting and in the special education setting so that they can succeed in
school. States should be given the flexibility to utilize funds to
provide training opportunities to all professionals who are providing
services to children in schools. By allowing SLPs and audiologists
access to professional preparation funds under Title II, this is another
way by which to retain and recruit these professionals who have been
identified by Congress as a professional area of national need.

Again, I encourage you to consider these issues under HEOA which are
important to speech language pathologists and audiologists. The loan
forgiveness to recruit and retain qualified professionals in the
schools, keeping the current statutory requirements related to
accreditation, and include SLPs and audiologists among the providers
eligible for funds under professional preparation programs in Title II.

It was an honor for me today to represent ASHA and Towson University
this afternoon, and I thank you for your time.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you. Linda.

**DR. SICKMAN:** Yes.

**MR. BERGERON:** Why don\'t you stay there for a second. I was
wondering if you could speak to how you think that states and local
governments can use this loan forgiveness to recruit and retain
students, especially since the way that this program is structured,
it\'s on a first-come, first-serve basis where there\'s no guarantee
that anyone would receive the benefit.

**DR. SICKMAN:** Well, there are some identified areas of need in the
United States, such as West Virginia. That is a state where we are
actually doing teleconferencing for speech language pathology services
rather than actually having a physical body there. And in order for the
states to do a first-come, first-serve basis, I think if they were
allowed to know what was going on, they could\--

**MR. BERGERON:** But this is a federal program where the federal
government would be delivering the loan forgiveness on a first-come,
first-serve basis.

**DR. SICKMAN:** To the actual students who are participating?

**MR. BERGERON:** Yes, yes.

**DR. SICKMAN:** Well, what would happen is, through ASHA, we would let
them know in those high areas of need where, if they are working in
specific sites, that they can apply for that loan forgiveness. And what
would happen is, the students\--I have a couple of students who are
actually from West Virginia, and they would like to go back home and
work. And if this was an opportunity, it would entice them to go back
and actually provide those services in their state. Am I getting at the
heart of your question, or not really?

**MR. BERGERON:** Not really. The way that this program is structured is
that people apply for the loan forgiveness, and they get on a
first-come, first-serve basis, and audiologists and speech pathologists
are among other groups\--early childhood educators, occupational
therapists, nurses, and on and on the list goes.

**DR. SICKMAN:** Right.

**MR. BERGERON:** Right. So, they\'re competing, essentially, on a
first-come, first-serve against all of those other students. Contrast
that to our teacher loan forgiveness where there is mandatory money
available and anyone who qualifies gets the benefit. I\'m having a hard
time understanding how this first-come, first-serve program would serve
the needs of state and local governments and recruiting people to be
audiologists or speech pathologists. I\'m just having a hard time
understanding how that would work.

**DR. SICKMAN:** Well, first of all, we would need to allow the students
to be aware of the fact that this was a program that existed, and to
identify the areas in which there is a need, which ASHA would fulfill
that role, I assume, in letting these students know where these areas of
needs are. Now, as far as state and local governments, if\--I\'m not
clear about how they would go about signing up for the funds or anything
like that, but I would assume that, if the state is aware of the fact
that they can have these loan forgivenesses for certain areas of need,
that they could also advertise that as a fact in their job positionings.
Does that make sense?

**MR. BERGERON:** See, this is\--I guess I\'ve heard this testimony a
couple of times and I\'m trying to meddle around with it in my brain a
little bit. And it seems to me, that if a state or local government
wanted to offer loan forgiveness in order to use it as a recruitment
benefit, they could do that and be effective in using it to get people
to come and work for them.

**DR. SICKMAN:** Right.

**MR. BERGERON:** I\'m having a hard time understanding how a federal
program would accomplish that goal, because it\'s first-come,
first-serve, it\'s for a whole range of possible fields\--this is just
one of them.

**DR. SICKMAN:** Right.

**MR. BERGERON:** So, there\'s no guarantee that anyone who is an
audiologist would ever get the benefit.

**DR. SICKMAN:** Right.

**MR. BERGERON:** Even if they did everything right\--everything that
you\'d want to do and were working in a low-income school and in a
community with lots of needs for these kinds of services\--but I
don\'t\--but they would not necessarily end up with a benefit. It\'s
just as likely someone who\'s a nurse might get that benefit instead.
And I don\'t understand how that would quite work. So, that\'s why I\'m
asking the question. Just don\'t understand.

**DR. SICKMAN:** Okay. Well, I guess that\'s an issue that\'s beyond my
control, then, as far as that goes. But I would think that, if the
opportunity was there, that the recruitment would increase. And even if
the student was put into a hopper and said, \"You may have the
opportunity to have this,\" it\'s a lot better than having them go into
the medical field, where they\'re assured of possibly getting a car, a
cell phone, a sign-on bonus, and that type of thing. I mean, that\'s
what we\'re competing with. I was talking to my students, in fact, today
about this very issue, and I said, \"You know, you\'ve got all these
rehab hospitals and medical places who are saying, \'I\'m going to give
you a car. If you sign on with us today, you\'re going to get a \$5,000
bonus, you\'re going to get a car, and you\'re going to get a cell
phone.\'\" Now, granted, they\'re going to get\--have to do other things
with those. I mean, it\'s not just, you know, have that as a plaything
and that\'s it. But when schools are competing with that type of a
thing, I hate to tell you what these grad students are thinking. I mean,
I had one student who was like, \"Woo-hoo. I\'ll go there. I don\'t
care.\"

And I\'m like, \"Do you realize you would be on 24-hour notice?\" And it
didn\'t matter to them. So, at least giving some sort of an incentive,
whether they actually will come through with that\--you know, I see
where your question is, but we have to start offering some sort of an
incentive, or else we\'re not going to get that pull into the schools of
the really bright students who really want to help a lot of people.
We\'ve got to have some sort of an incentive, and we\'ve got to start
someplace.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Yeah. I think the issue that we\'re grappling with
here is this notion of an empty promise, because, as David said, we may
be in a circumstance where an individual does everything they\'re
supposed to do, and, you know, they may be the five thousand and first
person in line\--

**DR. SICKMAN:** Right.

**MR. MADZELAN:** \--and the first five thousand get the benefit. I
mean, that\'s what\--

DR. SICKMAN: Right.

MR. MADZELAN: And that\'s the kind of thing that we\'re struggling with
here.

**DR. SICKMAN:** Sure. Well, we can do as much as we can at the
university level, and we can do as much as we can at the professional
level-­organization as well to try to ensure the notification of when the
deadline is and how it would work. I do know that would be in place.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Okay.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you. Appreciate it.

**DR. SICKMAN:** You\'re welcome.

**MR. BERGERON:** Pam Fowler.

**MS. FOWLER:** Good afternoon.

**MR. BERGERON:** Good afternoon, Pam. It\'s nice seeing you.

**MS. FOWLER:** I just made it. I have to leave. I\'m Pamela Fowler,
Executive Director of Financial Aid at the University of Michigan. I am
here today representing the Financial Directors of the University of the
Big Ten.

Many people know that the Big Ten is a major athletic conference founded
in 1896 comprised of large research universities in the Midwest.
However, the Big Ten I represent today is also a group that is part of
the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, or the CIC, a consortium of
12 research universities. With campuses in eight states, CIC
universities enroll more than 300,000 undergraduates and 76,000 graduate
students, and employ some 33,000 full-time faculty, and 139,000
full-time staff. Our mission is to advance academic excellence by
sharing resources and promoting and coordinating collaborative
activities across the member universities.

Our comments are restricted to three areas of the Higher Education
Opportunity Act that we deem of high importance and that eleven people
could agree on; not always easy. Section 483, improvements to paper and
electronic forms and processes, early estimates. The Directors of the
Big Ten have long been interested in providing notifications of aid
eligibility to students, especially low-income students, much earlier
than the current system allows.

In April 2007, we offered our services to Under Secretary Sara Martinez
Tucker for a pilot program using prior prior-year data to determine aid
awards so prospective students could be notified of their eligibility
for aid at about the time they learn of their admission to the
university. We believe moving the start of the aid application process
back to the fall of the year will give us more time to work with
low-income and other high-risk populations to make their transition to
college smoother. A pilot project was not specified in Section 483;
however, our interest in earlier award notifications to students remains
strong. We would welcome the opportunity to work with the Department in
any capacity to ensure early notification to needy students and
thereby\--to thereby assure them that college is possible.

Second is Section 494, regulatory relief and improvement. Eight
universities of the Big Ten have participated in the experimental sites
initiative since its inception. We participated in this initiative
because we believe the regulations from which we sought relief did not
improve the administration of the programs, enhance the students\'
educational experience, or produce measurable improvement in student
outcomes. We believe our experiences have substantiated our initial
assessment; therefore, we support the continuation of these experiments
until such time they are proved to be ineffective or become part of new
legislation. As a group, the universities of the Big Ten participate in
nine out of thirteen experiments. Although we do not participate in all
experiments, we strongly support the continuation of all that have
proven to be successful. The reason for this initiative is just as
relevant today as it was when it was authorized. The initiative
addresses concerns that federal requirements place unnecessary burdens
on postsecondary students and institutions, and may foster unintended
consequences counter to the goals of the Higher Education Act. In the
last two academic years, four new aid programs have been introduced,
creating confusion for students, parents, and aid administrators, and
increasing the administrative burden of aid officers throughout the
country. If there were ever a time to eliminate unnecessary burdens, it
is now. We are interested in the development of measures and standards
by which the existing experiments will be reviewed and evaluated. We
suggest the Secretary establish control groups, develop and publish
reasonable analytical measures so participating institutions can assess
their progress prior to the official reporting timeline.

For example, entrance and exit counseling and loan proration are two
experiments we believe can be evaluated in this manner. Comparing the
cohort default rates of experiment schools to that of a peer control
group would provide meaningful data to the Secretary. If the data show
that the experimental site universities had default rates lower than or
equal to the rates of the control group, one could conclude that the
experiment was successful. For the fiscal years 2003 to 2005, the cohort
default rate of the Big Ten Universities was half that of the national
average for four-year public universities. Therefore, we suggest that we
improve in our experiments with entrance and exit counseling and loan
proration to be a success. The third one is the private education loan
disclosures and elimination, Section 1021. We strongly support any
regulation that requires intervention by the aid office before a private
educational loan can be obtained by a student.

In our experiences, far too many students have borrowed at exorbitant
interest rates and/or fees when lower cost options were available to
them. Any means of notifying the aid office in time to intervene and
advise students of their options is in the best interest of the student.
However, we do not want the self-certification process to become
unwieldy for both families and aid offices. The process should be
standardized regardless of lender, and should be Web-based for maximum
processing efficiency. Most of the information required in Section 155
can be found on an award letter if the student applied for aid and/or
the institution\'s Web site. If the student did not file for aid, the
EFC is unknown an estimated aid beyond an unsubsidized loan\--beside an
unsubsidized loan cannot be readily determined.

One suggestion is a certification statement that states the student is
aware of his or her eligibility for an unsubsidized loan but chooses to
forego this option for the private loan. The development of this
statement is very important from our perspective, and we look forward to
providing suggestions and comments on the self-certification form during
the negotiated rulemaking process.

On behalf of my fellow Big Ten Universities, I thank you for the
opportunity to present our primary concerns and comments to you today.

**MR. BERGERON:** Pam\--and I call your attention to Section 894 of the
Higher Education Act as amended by the HEOA, which authorizes that early
Federal Pell Grant commitment demonstration burden.

**MS. FOWLER:** Oh, okay.

**MR. BERGERON:** It just didn\'t\--it just isn\'t in Title IV. It
migrated back to Title I.

**MS. FOWLER:** Well, good.

**MR. BERGERON:** The other\--just so that you know that it\'s there,
and we\'ll\--I\'m sure we\'ll have opportunities to talk about it. The
thing I was going to ask is, when we look at the statute governing
X-sites, it seems clear to us that the measure of success of an
experiment that\'s conducted under that is that the experiment results
in changes to the law and regulations. And Congress has had
opportunities over the last several years to change the law to adopt the
X-sites and\--

**MS. FOWLER:** And some of them have been adopted.

**MR. BERGERON:** \--and some have been and some haven't. Similarly,
we\'ve had a few rounds of regulatory activity, and in the\--they
didn\'t get changed, and that\--those\--that context, either. So,
that\'s kind of our view, and I\'m not really necessarily looking for a
response, but that\'s kind of our view of what constitutes success in
X-sites.

**MS. FOWLER:** Well, you know, in my view, success is not always the
same in all institutions.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you.

**MS. FOWLER:** There are differences in institutions, and therefore
differences in the success of those institutions.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

We\'re going to take a break and reconvene at 3:00\--okay, 2:40. We\'ll
reconvene at 2:40.

**\[Brief recess.\]**

**MR. BERGERON:** Good afternoon, again. We\'re going to go ahead and
reconvene. Our first person speaking this afternoon is Gregory Cendana,
and if you could say where you\'re from and state your name for the
record, that would be great. Thank you.

**MR. CENDANA:** So, good afternoon. My name is Gregory Cendana. I
currently serve as the Vice President for the United States Students
Association. USSA is the country\'s oldest and largest national student
association, and represents more than 4.6 million students. We have been
the official voice of students to the Department of Education, the
Capitol Hill, and White House since 1947. So, thank you for the
opportunity to speak with you on behalf of the current and future
students of this country.

The focus of today\'s hearings, implementation of the Higher Education
Opportunity Act, is vital to continued access to higher education in
America. The HEOA has the potential to increase student protection, and
work towards the all-important goal of making college more accessible
and affordable. However, there are several areas that will require
attention during the implementation process to ensure the program\'s
success. My intention this afternoon is to highlight two of these areas
and share some personal stories that may help\--that may help members of
the negotiated rulemaking committees keep the student perspective in
mind as you all move forward. So, I\'ll start off with the Pell Grant.
In addition to the incremental increases to the maximum Pell Grant award
amount over the next six award years, the HEA includes language that
would allow Pell Grant eligible students to receive two grants during a
single award year.

This addition is seen by some as giving students a chance to attend
college year-round and speed up their progress towards graduation.
However, the addition of two grants in a single year does not clearly
address the issue of year-round school attendance. Greater explanation
is required to this item in Section 401, Title IV. The idea of a Pell
Grant covering the cost of fall and spring semesters, plus an additional
grant during the summer semester is ideal for many students on a fast
track to earning a degree. However, if this is the intention, it is not
clear in the current law. It is necessary that the rulemaking process
discuss the logistics and practicum of this measure to ensure the
express goal of the year-round Pell Grant is reached.

As a past Pell Grant recipient, I cannot begin tell you how beneficial
it would have been to receive two Pell Grant awards in one year. As a
student that had to work 30 hours a week during the school year and more
than 50 hours a week during the summer, and still graduating with more
than \$30,000 in debt, the additional Pell Grant would have helped with
my work and loan burden. Additionally, more institutions are beginning
to implement policies that require minimum unit progress each semester,
and are pushing students to graduate at faster rates, even though they
may not be able to handle certain workloads at one time.

So, these policies are making summer sessions and summer school a must
in order to meet the minimum standards, and thus make the year-long Pell
Grants a necessity for students who are already working numerous hours
and taking out thousands of dollars in loans. Please ensure that the
year-long Pell Grant is implemented through the rulemaking process. Last
year, more than 5.3 million students received a Pell Grant and are
looking forward to the additional support from the program. The second
thing I\'d like to talk about is loan forgiveness programs. With the
widespread discussion of Americans doing more in areas of public
service, the addition of student loan forgiveness programs in the HEOA
is timely and beneficial to students in their communities.

The loan forgiveness programs have the potential to have far-reaching
benefits, and it is important that the implementation of such programs
includes clear methods to educate students on the details for
service-based loan forgiveness programs. The rulemaking committee must
outline the criteria for a student to qualify for loan forgiveness as a
public servant. We would like to see a list of job categories or an
application process for a student to have their job of choice included
in the loan forgiveness program.

It is also important that institutions of higher education are
encouraged to share the information about loan forgiveness programs with
students at all levels of the aid process. These are just some
suggestions to be discussed during the rulemaking process. A clear
understanding of the loan forgiveness eligibility may give students the
chance to major in and work in areas of public service without fear of
paying back unmanageable loan debt. The average student graduates with
\$19,000 in debt, and with such high amounts of debt, many choose to
forego bachelor\'s degrees or working in public sector to ensure that
they\'re making enough to pay back their loans.

Students are excited about the potential of the loan forgiveness
programs and what it may mean for their futures as public servants and
community members. We ask that, during the rulemaking process, clear and
detailed methods be discussed. These are just some of the issues
concerning my constituents. Members of the United States Student
Association have been invested in the Higher Education Act for decades.
We will continue to push for measures that protect students and reduce
the cost of receiving an education.

Thank you for this opportunity, and USSA looks forward to working with
the Department of Education as this paramount legislation moves into its
final stages.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you, Gregory. Angela Peoples. Angela knew she
was next. How are you, Angela?

**MS. PEOPLES:** I\'m doing very well. How are you?

**MR. BERGERON:** Doing great, thanks.

**MS. PEOPLES:** Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, and thank
you for allowing the time for public comments on the Higher Education
Opportunity Act. My name is Angela Peoples, and I am Legislative
Director of the United States Student Association. This fundamental
legislation includes some great additions in the regulation of higher
education. On behalf of the members of the U.S. Student Association, I
want to say we are very pleased to see the Higher Education Act
reauthorized after ten years. I would like to take a few minutes to
submit some areas of concern that should be examined during the
negotiated rulemaking process.

USSA has been advocating with and on behalf of students since 1947. Our
membership is diverse and far-reaching. We believe that students need
assistance in all aspects of higher education. The concept of a
certification process for students taking out private loans seems to be
a positive step towards encouraging students to exhaust all
possibilities before turning to private lenders who offer fewer
protections than federally-certified lenders. However, the
certification\--the self-certification outlined in the reauthorization
of the HEA does more to hinder student protections in this process.
Attempts should be made to give financial aid officers more flexibility
in the certification process. A certification process that requires a
school\'s financial aid officer to verify that a student has utilized
all federal and state aid available before turning to a private lender
will cut down on the number of students accessing private loans
unnecessarily.

However, the process for students reporting private loans to colleges
could also facilitate further deception about private loans. It is
important that this process be reviewed during the negotiated rulemaking
process to ensure that students are protected and that this new process
is as streamlined as possible. I would also like to echo the sentiments
of my colleague, Mr. Cendana, in saying that the addition of the loan
forgiveness for public service in areas of need is very exciting for our
members. However, we urge the Department of Education to consider the
process by which students are informed of these new programs, as well as
the types of careers that qualify for loan forgiveness under the
program. Finally, I would ask the Department of Education to consider
measures designed to simplify the Free Application for Federal Student
Aid. The creation of the EZ FAFSA form targeting families that qualify
for an auto-zero family contribution is a step towards simplifying the
aid process, which will lead to increased access to college for many
first-generation and low-income students. However, efforts should be
made to further simplify the aid process by allowing all students to
file a simpler, shorter FAFSA form, not just auto-zero qualifiers. The
HEA reauthorization also gives the Secretary of the Department of
Education the opportunity to work with the IRS to share tax information
for students and families that would minimize the number of questions in
the FAFSA to about half the current number. These two provisions in the
student aid process must be reviewed by the rulemaking committee to
ensure that the goal of simplifying the federal aid process is in fact
reached.

The U.S. Student Association is committed to working on these and other
issues that have been proven to affect both college access and
affordability.

Thank you for the opportunity to share the concerns and perspective of
students on the Higher Education Opportunity Act.

**MR. MADZELAN:** If you will, I have a question or two.

**MS. PEOPLES:** Sure.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Going back for a moment to the notion of the so-called
private label loans and the self-certification by a borrower\--and I
think you suggested\--and we heard others suggest that perhaps the
college, university, or the financial aid office ought to be somewhat
more involved in that. And I think I heard you say something to the
effect that\--you know, just to make sure that the student has availed
her or himself of all of the federal opportunities. I guess my question
is, what\--in your mind, what additional heft might the aid
administrator bring in terms of having-­ensuring that the student has
exhausted all the federal opportunities, given that you can\'t make
somebody take a Pell Grant\--of course, why wouldn\'t you? You can\'t
make somebody borrow under the Stafford Program, that kind of thing. We
all know that the federal loan programs are the best deal out there. But
again, you know, this notion is you can\'t force someone to borrow from
the person you want them to borrow from. So, that\'s one of my
questions\--is, what\'s the added value there of the third party
involvement\--the financial aid administrator involvement? Do you
think\--

**MS. PEOPLES:** Sure. Yeah, I think that, in cases where a student,
however rare I think they are\--that students just absolutely want to
take out private loans, it will be difficult for a financial aid officer
to keep them from doing that. However, it\'s been my experience that a
lot of students are just unaware of all the opportunities they have
under federal loan programs.

Students are not aware of, for example, a PLUS Loan that their parents
may be eligible to take out for them, and so they just feel like,
automatically, they have to go to a private loan, when, in all
actuality, they have other options, and it\'s\--and if the financial aid
officer has more ability to\--or more flexibility for a certification
process, they\'ll be able to say, \"Oh, well, this student
hasn\'t\--they have applied for the following loans, but they haven\'t
gotten x, y, and z loans. So, these are still options for you before you
head to the private loan.\"

**MR. MADZELAN:** Thank you. Another quick one on the Free Application
for Federal Student Aid, that is\--it\'s technically not a subject for
negotiation, because basically it reflects the federal need analysis
formula which, by law, we cannot regulate.

There are, obviously, opportunities to comment. We still have the
Paperwork Reduction Act process where you can comment on the FAFSA. But
I think where we are\--and this is born out certainly by the
announcement that Secretary Spellings made a week ago up in Cambridge
about, you know, some of the ideas that the Department has put out there
about a greatly simplified FAFSA by greatly simplifying the eligibility
formula. So, you know, given the formula that we currently have in
statute, which we cannot regulate\--or at least regulate in a
straightforward manner, you know, there may not be a whole lot more that
we can do with the FAFSA. I think our student aid office has done a
pretty good job over the past couple of years, certainly on the
electronic side, because, you know, we have the targeted questioning and
the skip patterns and all that kind of stuff. You know, you\'re only
presented with the questions that you need an answer. But that\'s just
something that we\'ve been struggling with.

And of course the reauthorization legislation does direct the federal
government look at alternative measures of, my words, family ability to
pay or unexpected family contribution calculation. But again, I\'m just
suggesting that we may have gotten as far as we can go with FAFSA
simplification, given the other constraints around eligibility
determinations.

**MS. PEOPLES:** Yes. And while that may be the case, I think it\'s
important to further encourage the federal government to work to exhaust
all possibilities, and especially working to include tax information
that families have already filed with the government in the federal
application process.

**MR. MADZELAN:** Thank you.

**MS. PEOPLES:** Thank you.

**MR. BERGERON:** Stewart McLaunin. I would note that we have just two
more individuals signed up to speak this afternoon. If anyone does want
to speak and hasn\'t checked in with Mary or Patty or Nikki, I\'d
encourage you to do that. Thank you. Thank you, Stewart.

**MR. McLAURIN:** Thank you. Good afternoon. I\'m Stewart McLaurin,
Executive Vice President of Education Affairs for the Motion Picture
Association of America.

I appreciate the opportunity to provide comments as the Department
begins the negotiated rulemaking process for the Higher Education
Opportunity Act. We look forward to continuing discussions, and
respectfully ask that the entertainment community, along with others
seeking to protect intellectual property, be adequately represented on
rulemaking committees regarding the campus-based digital piracy issue.
The MPAA stands ready to work with the higher education community on a
common sense approach that will actually help institutions develop
anti-piracy plans and that will reduce theft and improve network
performance and security in a cost effective manner.

With the passage of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, institutions
of higher education will now be asked to focus more intently and
responsibly on how their networks are being used. For the first time,
institutions of higher education must develop plans to \"effectively
combat the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material included
through the use of a variety of technology-based deterrents.\" There are
examples of this being done successfully on campuses around the United
States currently. Effective and proven technology-based deterrents are
currently available to universities through a number of private vendors.
These technologies can be deployed according to the individual needs and
sensitivities of the campus community. Here are just two examples:

The University of Utah, which utilizes Audible Magic\'s CopySense
Network Appliance has saved over \$1 million in Internet bandwidth
charges, and an estimated \$70,000 per year in personnel costs. That
would have otherwise been required to investigate and respond to
copyright infringements. The University of Florida has also saved over
\$1 million by implementing Red Lamda\'s Integrity program, and has seen
dramatic improvements on their system because they have essentially
eliminated illegal file sharing on their network. Those two examples are
from the congressional testimony of those two institutions. The fact is,
an effective technology-based plan to combat unauthorized distribution
of copyrighted material can ease the burden on university technology
infrastructures. It saves money for universities and for taxpayers who
help subsidize considerable university research, reducing digital piracy
on campus networks, save staff time and resources of personnel
designated to deal with responding to complaints of illegal activity.
Preventing piracy maintains the integrity and security of campus
networks. Finally and perhaps most importantly, a proactive
technology-based plan to fight piracy on campus networks sends a clear
message to students that illegal peer-to-peer file sharing is wrong.
It\'s illegal, and illegal activity must not be tolerated.

Technology-based responses ensure that university computer networks, the
bulk of which are funded by taxpayer dollars, are available to help
fulfill their core educational purpose, and not to help facilitate
elicit activity. The MPAA stands ready to work closely with leaders in
the higher education community to implement the digital piracy
prevention components of the Higher Education Opportunity Act. As part
of our proactive effort to work together, this month, in October, we
will provide colleges and universities a campus briefing book that will
include information on the new law, and how to meet the new
requirements. The materials will also include information on
peer-to-peer file sharing, examples of technologies that can be used to
detect infringing activity, and a list of Web sites that provide legal
content such as movies and television shows. And on October 21st, in
partnership with the University of California system, the California
State University system, and the University of Southern California, MPAA
will host a conference with leaders of higher education, the
entertainment industry, and technology companies to discuss
entertainment issues and challenges currently faced by campus
communities.

Thank you again for the opportunity to participate in this process. The
MPAA looks forward to working with the Department of Education, the
Congress, and postsecondary institutions on this vital economic issue.
We are confident that this can be accomplished in a way that meets the
needs of the higher education community and their sensitivities, while
also protecting our hard-earned intellectual property and the workers in
this industry. As Chancellor William Kerwin of the University System of
Maryland acknowledged before the House Committee on Education in the
Workforce in 2006, and I quote: \"There are many compelling reasons why
higher education must address this issue. First and foremost, if members
of our community, the education community, are using our resources to do
something illegal, we have an obligation, a fundamental obligation, to
respond and address that matter.\"

\"Also, intellectual property is one of the coins of the realm of higher
education. We want to raise a new generation of people who have a great
respect for and value the sanctity of intellectual property. So, it is
an obligation on our part to ensure that our students are educated
properly in this way.\"

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be with you today. Thank you.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you. George Nunez. How are you, George?

**MR. NUNEZ:** First of all, thank you for the opportunity to address
this Panel and provide input into the process. I am George Nunez. I am
the Supervisor for Operations and Partnerships with the Office of Public
Safety and Emergency Management at the George Washington University here
in D.C., just down the street. And I\'m also a member of the
International Association of Emergency Managers, specifically with the
Universities and Colleges Committee. But today, I come before you and
offer comments as a private citizen, which is very different from
everyone else who has come before you, and also a practitioner of
emergency management in higher education.

I come before you with comments on Section 488 of Title IV, Part G,
specifically to request that the Department establish a separate
committee to address this Section due to the specific and complex
matters in this Section.

As you may know, this Section covers a wide area of\--a wide breadth of
topics, especially when it comes to campus safety and security, and
certainly the area also covers a wide breadth of incidents that could
occur on any of our college campuses, including natural disasters,
public health incidents, as we had here in D.C. recently, and also law
enforcement incidents. However, we need to be able to take special
consideration into the uniqueness of each of our campuses, whether it\'s
our location, our size, or whatever else may be unique to our campuses.
I, along with my other emergency manager practitioners and our safety
personnel, encourage the appropriate personnel be brought to the table,
certainly, the Association of Emergency Mangers is a perfect resource to
offer its expertise. This is a similar practice, and service that is
offered to other legislative bodies, executive agencies both at the
national, state, local and also international level. So, again, I just
encourage the establishment of this committee to look at these specific
comments and certainly thank you for this opportunity. Written comments
will be provided, and I know some of my colleagues that are out in the
country have also provided testimony and written comment as well.

**MR. BERGERON:** Just to clarify, when you speak for the aid, you\'re
speaking of E, criminal offence reported and\--as well as the disclosure
for fire safety?

**MR. NUNEZ:** Right. And that\'s also\--there are several sections,
including for campus safety reporting, fire safety. I believe the bulk
of it is in Section 488.

**MR. BERGERON:** Right. Thank you. Just wanted to make sure.

**MR. NUNEZ:** Thank you.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you. Is Mollie Benz here? Hi, Mollie.

**MS. BENZ:** Hi.

*\[Off microphone.\]*

**MR. BERGERON:** Well, we\'re not sure you\'re last, yet. We won\'t
know you\'re last for sure until about 4:00.

**MS. BENZ:** Okay. Well, good afternoon. am Mollie Benz, the Assistant
Vice President for Federal Relations at the Association of American
Universities, representing 60 of the leading public and private research
universities in the United States. I very much appreciate the
opportunity to provide comments on the proposed negotiated rulemaking
process to implement the Higher Education Opportunity Act. And these
comments are really intended to supplement the comments that have been
provided by a lot of our member institutions at numerous negotiated
rulemaking hearings outside of Washington, D.C. Written testimony has
also been submitted.

Overall, AAU believes that institutions are taking their new obligations
under this Act seriously, and are making a good faith effort to comply
as they would with any federal law. We recognize that the Secretary of
Education is obligated to conduct the negotiation process in a timely
manner, and thereby plan to identify the appropriate campus experts who
will be able to provide the advice and recommendations concerning the
necessary regulations regarding Title IV of the Act. So, we very much
look forward to working with the Department to clarify existing
ambiguities in the Act, and to streamline new regulations in a manner
that minimizes the cost burden and maintains maximum flexibility for
institutions of higher education. Now, with respect to new federal
requirements under Title IV, AAU recognizes and appreciates that the
federal government must set appropriate conditions and requirements to
ensure that federal student financial aid funds are used effectively to
help finance a very high quality higher education system.

However, we remain concerned that many of the new reporting and
regulatory requirements are duplicative, and may create costly new
administrative burdens on colleges and universities. We want to work,
again, with the Department to try to streamline these provisions,
recognizing that institutions already comply with a multitude of
reporting requirements. In light of the long list of new requirements,
AAU plans to actively work with Congress to secure funding for a
particular provision in the Act authorizing a study of all federal
regulations with which colleges and universities must comply. We believe
that the results of this study will be very valuable in informing policy
decisions in the future.

AAU research institutions are particularly interested in the
implementation of the following new regulations: copyright infringement,
peer-to­peer file sharing, which we\'ve heard many testify on today,
alumni reporting and graduation rate reporting, campus safety reporting,
and private education loan disclosures. So, as a function of time
restraints, I will provide very brief comments on the P2P provisions as
well as campus safety, and perhaps mention the cost provisions, even
though it\'s not included in negotiated rulemaking. With respect to P2P
file sharing, AAU understands and appreciates the need to reduce illegal
uploading and downloading of movies and music. In fact, the higher
education community has long been committed to working with others to
find workable solutions to the problem. The law now requires
institutions to certify to the Secretary of Education that they have
developed plans to effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of
copyrighted material and offer alternatives to illegal file sharing.

In fact, many institutions already provide regular notices to students
explaining that the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials may
subject them to criminal and civil penalties. As the Department works to
interpret this requirement, it is very important in our mind to keep in
mind that the software and technologies for monitoring and discouraging
unauthorized distribution and the new approaches for legitimate
distribution of digital entertainment are constantly emerging.
Technologies that may, for example, be effective in one setting may not
be effective in another setting. For that reason, rules on policing P2P
file sharing should maintain maximum flexibility. With respect to campus
safety reporting, AAU is particularly interested in the new reporting
requirements related to the disclosure of fire safety standards and
measures, criminal offenses, emergency notifications, missing person
procedures, memoranda of understanding with local law enforcement
agencies, and emergency response and evacuation procedures among a few
others. With so many requirements, it is critical that certain terms are
clarified during the negotiated rulemaking process. AAU\'s written
testimony outlines a list of such questions that campuses have
identified with respect to the new reporting requirements. Again, we
look forward to working with the Department to develop rules to
implement these requirements that are both practical and provide real
protection for students, faculty, and staff.

With respect, very briefly, to the college cost requirements, as noted
in previous communications to Congress and the Department, AAU supports
institutional as well as targeted federal efforts to provided improved
user-friendly information to students, families, and taxpayers about
college tuition and financial aid.

As a practical manner, AAU is very interested in the additional guidance
from the department that will be necessary to determine the full extent
of these requirements. In particular, AAU is interested in the cost
provisions related to the net price calculator, the multiyear tuition
calculator, and the Federal College Affordability List. It is very worth
noting that several AAU members have already developed a net price
calculator as a means to provide the public with information on
financial aid packages and net costs using institutional state and
federal resources. AAU hopes the Department will draw on the expertise
of these institutions. Overall, we look forward to identifying the
appropriate campus expertise to help the Department sort through the
multitude of issues related to the college cost provisions.

In conclusion, thank you again for this opportunity. AAU intends to work
with its higher education colleagues in the coming months to identify
and nominate campus experts for the various negotiated rulemaking
panels.

Overall, we look forward to working with the Department, Congress, and
the broad higher education community to help ensure practical and cost
effective implementation of the new law.

Thank you.

**MR. BERGERON:** Thank you, Mollie. I don\'t have any questions. Thank
you. Right now, we don\'t have anyone signed up to speak\--I don\'t
think so. We\'ll just hang out for a minute while Danny goes to check to
see if anyone has signed up.

**\[Brief recess.\]**

**MR. BERGERON:** We have no more witnesses who wish to testify, so
we\'re going to go ahead and adjourn the hearing. We will next have a
hearing in Cleveland, Ohio, on the 15th. Thank you. Thanks, everybody
who participated today.

**\[Whereupon, at 4:00 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.\]**