U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

PUBLIC REGIONAL HEARING ON

NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING

Friday, September 19, 2008

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

3rd Floor Ballroom

2901 Stadium Drive

Fort Worth, TX

> PROCEEDINGS

**MR. KERRIGAN:** My name is Brian Kerrigan. I\'m with the Office of
Postsecondary Education. To my right, I have Fred Marinucci from the
Office of General Counsel at the Department of Education, and to my left
I have Fred Sellers, also with the Office of Postsecondary Education.
Out at the desk out in front we have John Kolotos, Michelle Belton. They
are also with the Office of Postsecondary Education. Basically, we\'re
here to listen to you. And the first thing I want to say, however, is
that, on behalf of all of us, I would like to thank Texas Christian
University, and in particular Chancellor Victor Boschini for hosting
this event here. This event is the first of six that we\'re going to
have throughout the country, the purpose of which basically is to gather
information from you about your ideas about the agenda and about the
issues that we should be considering when we get into negotiated
rulemaking to talk about how we\'re going to implement the changes to
law that were brought about by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of
2008. There is a signup sheet out front. I\'ve been informed that, at
this point in time, the first person to sign up wants to speak at 9:50.
Before we get to that, the very first person is going to be Chancellor
Boschini, and he will be speaking in a couple of minutes. If anybody has
not signed up and wishes to speak after Chancellor Boschini speaks,
between that point in time and 9:50, please go ahead and sign up and let
us know. We do have that open space at this point in time. As you can
see, we do have a sign interpreter. Anybody who needs that help can
check with the people at the front desk and we can make sure that that
is taken care of for you. In addition to making oral remarks here, you
can submit written comments to the Department. You can submit them after
you make your oral remarks, and anyone who is unable to attend one of
these sessions can also submit comments to the Department. There\'s a
Federal Register Notice that was published around September 8th of this
year, and there\'s an address in there where you can send this
information. And again, you can send that information even if you do not
attend one of the six sessions that we have throughout the country. Fred
Sellers is going to make a couple of comments at this point in time
about the negotiated rulemaking process and about a couple of other
things, and then we will get started with Chancellor Boschini. Again, I
want to thank Texas Christian University for hosting this event. It is
very gracious of them, and we are very grateful to them.

**MR. SELLERS:** Good morning, everyone. I was just going to go over a
little bit about what the processes are. We have this new Act now, the
Higher Education Opportunity Act. We have to do rulemaking around it;
it\'s fundamentally the reauthorization of the whole Higher Ed Act after
some other pieces over the last few years. And really, we have two
rulemaking processes; you can call it non-negotiated rulemaking and
negotiated rulemaking. These hearings are primarily focused on the
negotiated hearing process, and the public comments we want for that.
However, we welcome comments on anything to do with the reauthorization
of the Higher Ed Act and the other programs beyond those affected by
negotiated rulemaking.

If we were doing non-negotiated rulemaking, basically the Department
creates an NPRM pretty much on its own, maybe with some kind of
knowledge of what folks are doing\--want out there\--and we seek public
comment and then do a final reg based on the public comment we get back.
And normally, that\'s handled for non-Title IV programs, like Title II
Teacher Quality, Developing Institutions, some of the other programs of
that type.

For Title IV, we do the negotiated process, except this round we\'re
going to have some non-negotiated rulemaking around the Academic
Competitiveness Grant Program and National SMART Grant Programs, because
we were exempted from negotiated rulemaking to make some changes that
need to be done more quickly than we could do if we were subject to the
master calendar and to negotiated rulemaking.

In negotiated rulemaking, basically, we start off with public hearings
like this. We seek public comment about issues\--from the public, and
concerns the public has. We do it through the hearings here and through
written comments you can submit that are\--you can submit it to the
address in the Federal Register Notice. We\'ll take those public
comments in a review of what we see in the Act and go back and develop
the idea of what areas we need to negotiate on, the subject areas for
committees, and we\'ll be publishing a notice about that, and we\'ll
announce what subject areas we\'re going to negotiate, what the proposed
committees are, and request nominees for those committees to come and
participate in the negotiation process. That process may begin in
February 2009. I say \"may\" because you recognize we have a change of
administration coming. We\'re making sure everything is set up to go,
but we will be subject to new bosses by then. So, we\'re just doing the
best we can to be as ready as we can.

Once we do the negotiation process, which usually involves the
committees meeting about three times over three or four months, with the
staff at the Department going back from each meeting and developing
stuff to take to the next meeting, we\'ll publish a notice of proposed
rulemaking and the public will be invited to comment on the proposed
rules that came out of the negotiation process, and then based on that
public comment will publish final rules. For the student aid programs,
we\'re subject to a master calendar deadline date of November 1, 2009,
for any rules we would want to be in effect for July 1, 2010\--for the
2010-11 school year.

I\'d like to reiterate how much we are happy to be here, and we look
forward to hearing the public\'s comment on these different matters, and
they are really valuable to us. Even in the old process, the public
comment meant so much to us, and I don\'t think a lot of folks
understood that, but the public comment is very helpful to us. Thank
you.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Chancellor Boschini.

**CHANCELLOR BOSCHINI:** Thank you. Good morning, and it\'s a pleasure
for us to have you and an honor for us to have you here today. American
higher education is the most diverse in the world, and that\'s a pretty
commonly held belief. It includes research universities, private liberal
arts colleges, faith-based institutions, historically Black colleges and
universities, small public colleges, massive state systems, community
colleges, and proprietary schools. Together, we represent the
multiplicity of choice and the richness of educational opportunity in
the states. Other groups also assure students have access to the capital
to attend higher ed, helping to open educational opportunity to all.
These include direct lenders, private lenders, guarantors, secondary
markets, and servicers. Their representatives also are here today, as
well as a variety of other people who help to assure students receive a
quality education, such as the accreditors. And I want to offer a
special welcome to student representatives who might be here today. I
know they can be very knowledgeable. One of our TCU students, Amanda
Edmostin, who is here today, is an excellent example. She was involved
in lobbying for several proprietary sector institutions while she
learned about educational policy as an intern in Washington last fall.
I\'d also like to recognize those from the Department of Education.
Together, we work on behalf of all Americans. It is our responsibility
to make sure institutions are good stewards of public funds and worthy
of the public trust.

I speak to you today as Chancellor of Texas Christian University, but my
remarks will also reflect my roles beyond the campus as Board Chair of
the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, and
also a member of the Independent Colleges and Universities of Texas.
We\'ve traveled a long road to reach this point. Perhaps no one in this
room is fully pleased with the Higher Education Act as it is
reauthorized. Perhaps the least happy may be those in the Department of
Education, who are faced with the difficult task of implementing this
massive law in a relatively short period of time. I applaud your efforts
to conduct these regional hearings swiftly and efficiently, and to get
the negotiated rulemaking process underway. I\'d like to do two things
today. First, I\'d like to offer some guiding principles for the
rulemaking process that I hope we can all agree upon. And second, I\'d
like to offer some suggestion on those issues particularly of\--of
particular importance to NAICU and ICUT.

First, the law is the law. Had any of us in this room had the privilege
of crafting this legislation, it would undoubtedly be different, but for
better or worse, Congress has spoken. The negotiated rulemaking process
should not be a venue for reopening or trying to undo decisions Congress
has made. Simply put, the Department does not have the authority to undo
congressional decision-making, nor should we revisit the last six years
of debate on matters that are already settled.

Second, less is more. It\'s no secret that colleges in general believe
that this bill is going to add enormously to our costs. The burden of
the new reporting requirements alone is mind-boggling. However, the
final bill did take a number of steps to ease that burden. These include
existing IPEDS definitions, converting several provisions from mandates
into institutional reporting requirements, and using such new tools as
postings on campus Web sites instead of reports to the Department of
Education. I encourage everyone to approach the rulemaking process with
the recognition that often the simplest option is the best, particularly
if such an option is more useful to consumers and is less expensive as
well.

Third, please select negotiators who are legitimate representatives of
the affected parties. At several points during the past decade,
negotiators with a rather narrow perspective have been chose to
represent broad sectors of American higher education. This has been a
disservice to the negotiators, who are often torn between allegiance to
the employers who nominated them and allegiance to those they have been
assigned to represent. Admittedly, there is value in having a variety of
campus perspectives represented, as well as views from beyond
Washington. However, there are also many experts in Washington who are
immersed in the details of this legislation and knowledgeable of both
our needs and the intent of Congress. Please include our legitimate
representatives.

Now, there are several areas I want to highlight on behalf of private
colleges specifically. First, Student Loan Sunshine. Some of the most
complex areas of this legislation are the sections addressing conflict
of interest between colleges and lenders. We welcome these new
guidelines; however, the legislative language is still a bit murky. Some
Sections are in Title IV, which is subject to negotiated rulemaking,
while others are in Title I, which is not. To help restore public
confidence in our student lending practices, these issues must be
clarified.

I\'m also concerned about transfer of credit. This was one of the most
contentious areas throughout the reauthorization process. Every college
must publish its transfer of credit policies and articulation agreements
on its Web site. Traditional nonprofit colleges would have preferred no
mention of transfer of credit in law, while for-profit colleges would
have preferred federal mandates on institutional policies. Neither of us
truly got what we wanted, but this is a clear example of Congress having
spoken. Despite its difficult political history, this provision should
not be difficult to implement. Postsecondary institutions should be
required to post obligatory information on their Web site in a manner
appropriate to them. College Navigator should simply link to the section
of each institution\'s Web site where this information appears.

Of course, you know there are many new reporting and disclosure
requirements in this law. It requires numerous reports and disclosures
in areas such as fire safety, campus emergency response, and file
sharing. Over the years in which reauthorization proposals were debated,
these provisions have been refined in response to concerns about the
cost and complexity they would impose. Further regulatory embellishments
should be kept to a minimum. I\'ve not included on my list the private
college concerns\--the various provisions on college costs or the new
disclosures for the College Navigator Web site, given that they are not
subject to the negotiated rulemaking process. These provisions include
the development of college costs watch lists, the definition of net
price, and the creation of net price and multiyear tuition calculators.
Allow me to discuss them briefly, however, because these new provisions
are enormously complex, and all of them carry enormously high stakes,
since they will have a significant impact in shaping public perceptions
of individual institutions. Throughout its cost section, the legislation
directs the Department of Education to consult with higher education
institutions in developing these new tools. While following this
directive will not entail a formal negotiated rulemaking process, I do
believe the same guiding principles I spoke of earlier are appropriate
for the cost provisions, and I respectfully urge the Department
officials to follow them.

Finally, whether I personally like or don\'t like particular provisions
of this new law, I do want to get it right on my campus, and adhere to
the direct intent of Congress. I believe that my colleagues at colleges
and universities across the country feel the same way. We need guidance
on what is expected of us, particularly given that most of the new
provisions became effective August 14th. While the rulemaking process is
under way, let me request that the Department provide a list of actions
that colleges should take now, as well as give us a sense of how we
should approach these new requirements in the absence of regulatory
guidance. Again, many thanks for allowing me to kick off this section,
and thank you for choosing TCU for your first hearing. I wish each and
every one of you a productive day, and please let us know if you need
anything throughout the day. Thank you.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you. If anyone has signed up between my opening
remarks and this point in time, they would be able to come forward right
now. If not, again, the next person who is signed up is scheduled to
speak at 9:50. So, we would be waiting for anyone else to step forward
or for that person to come at that point in time. I would also
mention\--I did not indicate earlier, I don\'t believe, that your
remarks will be captured and there will be a transcript presented to the
Department, so that nothing that you say will be lost to us. Even though
you don\'t see us taking a lot of notes, we will get things word-for­word
through our transcript service. So, at this point in time, if there\'s
no one else is scheduled to sign up, we will be waiting until 9:50 when
the next person has indicated he is going to speak.

**MR. SCOTT:** I\'m ready to go, if that\'s all right.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** That\'s perfectly fine.

**MR. SCOTT:** My name is Mike Scott and I\'m the Director of Financial
Aid here at TCU. My office will administer approximately \$50 million in
Title IV funding, so we\'re very appreciative of the help that this Act
gives us. Chancellor Boschini addressed several issues of importance
both to TCU and to independent institutions across the country, and my
staff would certainly want to add our second to proposals that
Chancellor Boschini made. And while it\'s true that, under normal
circumstances, no self-respecting financial aid officer worth their salt
would pass up a chance to complain to a group of Department of Education
officials about regulatory reporting burden, I\'m not going to do that
today, because my suspicion is that this time you may be just as
confused as we are as to how to get some of this stuff enacted. And I\'m
not even going to complain about the TEACH Grant. So, hopefully, this
will be a little bit better atmosphere for you guys today.

I\'ve just got a couple of comments that I want to make, and I\'ll do
this briefly. There\'s two pieces of the legislation that I felt the
need to just add a little detail to or make a suggestion for. Sections
152 and 153 contain just a myriad of disclosure requirements for schools
who maintain preferred lender lists for both FFELP lenders and lenders
in the private sector for private educational loans. And while I have no
objection whatsoever to full disclosure of lender selection, I\'m
somewhat concerned about the tone or the direction that some of the
legislation and that these new rules are taking. A lender list is in
fact the only real tool we have to protect our students from making
costly mistakes in the application process. My institution goes to great
lengths to evaluate the lenders we recommend. We calculate APR and
approval rates. We make secret shopper calls to evaluate customer
service, and we track servicing issues on a weekly basis. Now, to
illustrate my point, I\'d urge you at some time to just Google the term
\"student loans.\" Try to select the best loan based on the information
you find during that search, and you\'ll know what most students go
through if a school doesn\'t have a lender list. What most students will
do after being barraged with these unfamiliar terms and concepts is to
simply give up and select the lender that advertises the lowest interest
rate. Of course, we all know that interest rate is but one part of the
overall cost of a loan. There are fees, repayment incentives, early
payment penalties, and interest capitalization. What about approval
rates? These are things that we research and we calculate so that
students don\'t have. Here\'s an example of why you and I know this is
so important: When you and I go shopping for an auto loan or a mortgage,
we might apply for preapproval from several different lenders to find
which one has the best rate or will offer us the best deal. As we do
this, credit rating agencies are able to group these inquiries together,
and consider them as just one application for credit. Unfortunately,
this isn\'t the case with student loans\--specifically, private student
loans. Consequently, students that apply for prequalification can end up
with a ding on their credit report for each inquiry they make. They can
actually ruin their FICA score while searching for the best interest
rate. Within the last year, the Department has issued rules on how
schools select preferred lenders. Many states have issued codes of
conduct and regulations on preferred lender lists. NASFAA has issued its
own code of conduct, and Congress has added even more regulatory
requirements. And again, we have no problem with any the requirements
that are being made; in fact, we already do all of those. But schools
have lender lists to help students, period. Unfortunately, though, some
of our colleagues have decided that constructing these lists is simply
not worth the liability and the risk with all the new regulations, and
that\'s a disservice to our students. As the Department considers
guidelines on the implementation of these requirements, I urge you to
keep in mind the valuable service that these types of lists and
preferred lender lists provide, and understand that many in the aid
community feel that we\'re working under a suspicion of being guilty
until proven innocent just for trying to help our students.

Section 472 of the Act speaks to the ability of an aid administrator to
use what we refer to as professional judgment. The new regulations
specifically addressed two areas, which are now\--which we are now
\"allowed\"\--and that term is actually what I\'m emphasizing\--that
we\'re actually allowed to use discretion in making adjustments to data
elements that affect the expected family contribution. Now, note that I
have no issue with either of the two areas: adjusting for both
extraordinary medical expenses and dislocated worker status\--is
certainly worthy of consideration and will no doubt help many students.
My concern lies in the apparent interest in defining the circumstances
under which professional judgment can be used. I\'ll call your attention
to Section 479(a), which states\--and is already in legislation\--states
\"Nothing shall be interpreted as limiting the authority of the
financial aid administrator on the basis of adequate documentation to
make adjustments on a case-by-case basis to the cost of attendance, or
to the values of the data elements required to calculate the expected
family contribution. Section 479 then goes on to clearly state, for
situations where we cannot use professional judgment, fair enough. But
now that Congress has begun to legislate specific allowable situations,
I fear that we will actually add confusion to a process that actually
already works pretty darn well. I know it seems counterintuitive, but by
further defining what is allowable, you imply that other decisions may
not be. In my opinion, this is one area in which we definitely don\'t
need further guidance. Section 472 also stipulates that aid
administrators are now allowed to use their discretion to offer
unsubsidized Stafford Loans to dependent students whose parents do not
support them and refuse to complete the FAFSA. While certainly well
intentioned, I fear that this action may actually result in some yet
unforeseen outcome that will prove to be a calamity for aid
administrators. A basic tenant of needs analysis is that a parent\'s
unwillingness to pay neither establishes a student\'s dependency status
nor impacts the outcome of calculating a family\'s ability to pay.
Please keep that principle in mind if schools do begin to ask for
additional guidance in that area. Thank you.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you. Okay. Again, the next scheduled person is
scheduled at 9:50. And so, we will wait until 9:50, in the absence of
anyone else wishing to go earlier. If the person scheduled at 9:50
wishes to go right now, Becky Thompson, that would be fine as well.
Hello, Becky.

**MS. THOMPSON:** I was just thinking, 9:50, I wouldn\'t have to go
first. Good morning. My name is Becky Thompson, and I\'m the Assistant
Vice President for the Western Region Client Services at EDFUND.

EDFUND is a not-for-profit public benefit corporation, and one of the
Nation\'s leading providers of student loan guarantee services under the
Federal Family Education Loan Program. EDFUND offers students a wide
range of financial aid and debt management information while supporting
schools with advanced loan processing solutions and default prevention
techniques. EDFUND was founded in 1997, and in \'06-\'07 processed more
than \$9.3 billion in student loans, and managed a portfolio of
outstanding loans valued at more than \$30 billion. EDFUND is based in
California, and we operate with regional representatives such as myself
located throughout the Nation. I am pleased to be with you here today to
discuss just a few issues that are of particular importance to EDFUND
and the schools, students, and families that we serve. I will keep my
comments brief, but I did want to let you know that we will be
submitting additional written comments or testimony and covering other
issues as well. Before I address the specific issues, we would like to
take this opportunity to applaud the U.S. Congress for reauthorizing the
Higher Education Act through the passage of the Higher Education
Opportunity Act. We at EDFUND believe that the new law contains many
provision that will continue to open the doors of opportunity for
millions of American families, and we look forward to working with you
in conjunction with our trade associations to implement the new law with
the best interests of the students and families we serve foremost in our
thoughts and actions.

The first topic I\'d like to discuss relates to entrance and exit
counseling activities performed by lenders and guarantee agencies in
conjunction with school personnel. Language included in Section 493(e)
of the HEOA explicitly states that entrance and exit counseling
activities are not considered a gift under the gift ban section. The law
also explicitly allows lenders and guarantors to perform exit counseling
services in Sections 422(d) and 436(c) under the supervision of school
personnel. Conversations with congressional staff have indicated that
they believe the language adopted in the HEOA permits lenders and
guarantors to provide both entrance and exit counseling. Based on the
legislative citations provided, and the express congressional intent, we
request that the Department modify its regulatory position on guarantors
and lenders performing both entrance counseling and exit counseling on
behalf of any institution. EDFUND believes that by\--EDFUND believes
that allowing lenders and guarantors to assist both direct loans and
FFELP schools with entrance and exit counseling activities is good for
schools, good for the loan program, and most importantly, good for
students. As financial aid offices are increasingly stretched for
resources, lenders and guarantors are best equipped to provide the most
comprehensive and accurate information to student borrowers on the
specifics of their loan obligations and what options and programs,
including federal, state, and institutional, exist to ensure a
successful repayment experience. We request that the Department align
its regulation with the HEOA and with congressional intent with regard
to entrance and exit counseling performed for any FFELP or direct
lending institution that may request assistance.

The second topic I\'d like to address relates to a new provision in the
law that requires schools with cohort default rates of 30 percent of
more to assemble a default prevention taskforce responsible for creating
a default prevention plan to be submitted to the Secretary. EDFUND,
along with our other guarantor colleagues, play a valuable role in this
process by working directly with schools to develop strategies to lower
their cohort default rates. Guarantors have consistently demonstrated
success in assisting students with successfully managing their student
loan debt obligations. The growing importance of this work has been
emphasized by increasing\--by increased requirements for guarantee
agencies to provide financial literacy education and other resources to
both schools and students, showing these agencies to be knowledgeable
and effective, trusted agents. A school with a higher-than-desired
default rate likely does not have the resources and experience needed to
effectively assist its students in money management and avoiding
delinquency and default. By including the guarantee agency in the
taskforce designed to help the school develop and implement its default
prevention plan, the school is able to take advantage of countless
resources and expertise to assist both the school and its students
achieve success, as well as ensuring that these default prevention plans
become the effective tools they are intended to be. We also welcome the
opportunity to work with the Department globally to help develop best
practices for default management plans. The two topics I\'ve addressed
here today represent two opportunities for the Department to strengthen
the student loan programs by utilizing the demonstrated experience of
the guarantor community to better serve postsecondary institutions and
the students we all serve. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with
you today.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you. All right. The next speaker is Rachel
Kincaid, and she\'s scheduled to go at 9:40. And so, anytime between now
and 9:40, she can step up to the microphone.

**John:** I\'ve got 9:50.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** 9:50? Thank you, John.

**MR. PETTIBON:** I think I\'m after the break. My name is Joe Pettibon,
I\'m the assistant Provost for financial aid at Texas A&M University,
and I share many of the same sentiments that others have already
expressed today, with this bill being passed, and the many good things.
One of the things from a financial aid standpoint that we think very
favorably of is obviously the year-round Pell Grants, and those
provisions. I would encourage, as I imagine the Department is already
looking at, following the similar rules that were set up through the
TEACH Grant process and negotiated rulemaking for the year-round Pell
and how that will operate. What I\'m more concerned with is the
implications of the new section, the Title X Private Student Loan
Transparency and Improvement, and in particular the self-certification
that students now will have the opportunity to do to lenders that\--with
information that they gain from the financial aid office. So, as I
understand it, we\'re being asked to now provide a form which provides
basic information such as the cost of attendance, the expected family
contribution, and the amount of their estimated financial assistance.
And while one can debate whether or not a self-certification,
nevertheless, my concern is with the implications of that. What exactly
is the responsibility of the school once that information is provided to
the student? Under current Title IV regulations, we must take into
account any resources that students are receiving. We are now enabling a
process for them to obtain private loans, but do not necessarily know
the information about how they are receiving\--whether or not they are
actually receiving or the amount that they may be receiving. So, what
obligation do we have to follow up with the student to obtain that
information, and what obligation does the student and/or the lender to
provide that information back to the school if the student ultimately
does obtain that private loan. That is specifically the concern I wish
to address. I would also echo Mr. Scott\'s concerns about professional
judgment and further delineating that. And in particular, the
professional judgment for the unsubsidized Stafford Loan. While I
suspect that some guidance may need to be provided to schools, I would
caution that it not be overbearing, or too much guidance in that
particular realm. And with that, I will close my comments. Thank you.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you.

**MR. STUDER:** I\'m scheduled for 10:00. Is it all right if I go now?

**MR. KERRIGAN:** That will be fine, since there\'s nobody scheduled at
this point in time.

**MR STUDER:** Okay. Good morning. I\'m James Studer. I\'m the Associate
Vice Chancellor in the Office of Academic Affairs at the University of
Texas system, which has an enrollment of 194,000 students on 15
campuses. Today, I am representing the University of Texas system, and
EDUCAUSE has knowledge of my testimony today. I\'m specifically
addressing section 488 of the Higher Education Act as it applies to the
issue of enforcement procedures related to peer-to-peer file sharing on
movies and music. We understand and appreciate the need for the movie
and music industries to protect their products and their copyrights. We
also understand that students and others in higher education make up
only a very small part of all the Internet users who might be violators
of copyright laws. As such, we do not want the regulations to place a
heavy financial burden on our institutions, enforcing laws on behalf of
a third party. Indeed, the conference report states our concerns quite
clearly in suggesting that a one-size solution does not fit all of
higher education. We have no problem with informing our students about
copyright laws and the consequences of violating the law. We do that
now, and we will continue to do that every year. As noted in the
conference report, the various software and other technologies that are
available today to monitor and discourage downloading of large files
will change in the near future, and will continue to change as
technology progresses, thus the rules need to be quite flexible and
general in nature and not proscriptive, as noted in the conference
report.

The resources of the institutions and higher education to enforce the
mandate of the law are quite different from institution to institution.
For example, in the University of Texas system, the technology resources
at the University of Texas at Austin with 50,000-plus students is very
different from the technology resources of the University of Texas at
Permian Basin with just 3,500 students. The language of the conference
report is very pertinent in this case, and I will quote two examples.
For example, the phrase, \"To the extent practical,\" is a very useful
guideline. Or \"these approaches may,\" and I underline
\"may\"\--\"provide an institution with the ability to choose which one
bests meets its needs depending on that institution\'s own unique
characteristics, such as cost and scale.\" We believe it is very
important to include this type of language in the rules.

So, in summary, as the rules are written, consider the good ideas in the
conference report about, one, one size does not fit all. Two, give
institutions flexibility in developing their solutions to comply with
the law. Three, understand that this area of technology, peer-to-peer
file sharing and ways to manage it legally are changing very rapidly.
Three, technology costs of an institution of higher education are huge
already, and this new requirement has the potential to add new costs
that will eventually be passed on to our students in the form of tuition
increases, which is another issue that is addressed quite well in other
parts of the Higher Education Act. Our institutions are right to assist
the Department with the creation of the rules, particularly through our
representatives in EDUCAUSE. Thank you.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you. The next speaker, if he\'s ready, is Jon
Allen.

**MR. ALLEN:** Good morning. I\'m Jon Allen, Information Security
Officer at Baylor University, that\'s a private Baptist institution,
approximately 90 miles south of here. This morning, I would like to
address Section 493, subheading (a)(29), (A) through (B) of the recently
enacted Higher Education Act Amendments. Baylor University, like other
institutions of higher education, takes a strong stand against copyright
infringement. In the passing of the amendments to the Act, there is the
potential for significant costs to universities and colleges. These
costs include financial, staff, and reduction in research ability. The
language of the bill appears to be flexible, and allow campuses to find
solutions that best fit their environment from the technology and cost
perspective. We need the regulations that follow to have this level of
flexibility. The Act instructs in subheading (a)(29)(A) that the
institution has developed plans to effectively combat the unauthorized
distribution of copyrighted materials, including through the use of a
variety of technology-based deterrents. The file sharing programs that
are used today\--I\'m sorry. The file sharing programs that are used for
copyright infringement are evolving quickly. As such, the regulations
need to allow for ampuses to be limber and flexible with their
technology solutions. The bandwidth shaping and copyright material
detection technologies used today could easily be obsolete in preventing
infringement on the newer revised peer-to-peer networks. In addition,
universities and colleges are the forerunners in research of
peer-to-peer technologies for uses other than copyright infringement.
These facts result in a conflict, and campuses cannot implement
technology that would wholly bar the use of peer-to-peer technologies.
In addition to having a legitimate need for peer-to-peer technologies,
higher education institutions also operate high-speed local area and
wide area networks. In many cases, it will require a combination of
technologies to provide effective deterrents on these high-speed
networks. We also anticipate that, with the adoption of more technology
deterrents, that many peer-to­peer networks will evolve and begin to
encrypt traffic on their networks. This change would leave the
technology deterrents available today ineffective in preventing
copyright infringement. Regulation of the technology solutions needs to
allow flexibility to keep costs and the network-­flexibility to keep the
network reasonable, and allow the continued research and openness of
higher education networks.

The second area I would like to address is the need for flexibility in
the regulation (a)(29)(B), which states that, to the extent practical,
other alternatives\--offer alternatives to illegal downloading or
peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property. Students entering
higher education campuses today have grown up with digital music. Many
of them own few CDs and as a consumer have chosen their preference for
accessing legal copyrighted digital content. While some higher education
institutions have attempted to license content on behalf of these
students, many have found the adoption low enough to not justify the
significant expenditure. The students see little value in converting
their digital libraries from their current provider, knowing that it is
only available while they live on campus or while they attend the
institutions. Furthermore, at least one of the leaders in this space of
offering copyrighted digital content to universities has ceased most of
its operations, leaving campuses without a working solution. At Baylor
University, we license a large amount of digital copyrighted material
for campus use. The content has a primary use of educational purposes
with limited entertainment value for the undergraduate students. I ask
that you follow-­that you allow for the regulation under this section to
not require the licensing of a commercial content provider to meet
compliance. In conclusion, I ask the complexity of the potential impact
of the regulations on these areas be recognized, and sent for further
cooperative analysis in the upcoming review committees. Thank you for
your time.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you. Next person scheduled is Rachel Kincaid. If
she\'s present at this time we can hear from her. And basically, we\'re
getting ahead of schedule in terms of people signing up for specified
timeframes. So, there will be a little bit of down time. If Rachel is
not here, Matt Orem was scheduled shortly after 10:00.

**MR. OREM:** Good morning. I\'m Matt Orem. I\'m the Director for
College Access Initiatives at the University of Texas system, Institute
for Public School Initiatives. We\'re dedicated to improving the
pipeline to college across the state of Texas. One of the, I guess,
non-negotiated provisions in the Higher Education Opportunity Act calls
for the development of a net price calculator to help increase awareness
and transparency regarding college costs and available financial aid
from all sources. I\'m here today to let you know that the nine academic
campuses in the University of Texas system have been offering this
information to the public since 2003 through Texascollegemoney.org, a
Web-based tool designed to use eight items of basic student and family
information to calculate estimated financial aid award packages and net
costs using institutional, state, and federal resources, and the
institution\'s own awarding policies and practices. Based on this model,
the National Association of State Land Grant Colleges and Universities,
NASLGCU, and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities
commissioned the UT system to build a net price calculator for their
voluntary system of accountability. This program is rolling out
presently. I believe there are about 299 institutions signed up right
now for the VSA. Also, the UT system is under contract with the Texas
Higher Education Coordinating Board to build a centralized net price
calculator that any and all public/private two- and four-year colleges
and universities in Texas can participate in as part of the statewide
marketing of postsecondary education, College for All Texans. This
program will be completed and begin testing at the end of this October.

A little more about the background of these programs. The three systems
I mentioned have some differences. For instance, the Texas systems
estimators run off a centralized system where the VSA will be based at
the institutional level, but they all share two important principles:
One, the programs are user-centered. This means questions, information,
nomenclature, and the user interface are all designed with the end user
in mind, students and families. We did all we could to use\--to avoid
the use of jargon, and more importantly, we display the bottom-line
estimates of financial aid and net price, the whole enchilada. Second,
following the first principle, the net price calculator is not and
should not be used as a tool for institutional recruitment, but it
should instead be used to help increase institutional transparency and
offer a real picture of the comparable net price across institutions.
Our program support increasing institutional choices, and using public
transparency about financial aid practices is a way to encourage
students and families, especially those from low socioeconomic
backgrounds or with little history of participation in higher education.
The point is, of all these systems, that financial aid is available and
college is possible. All the programs are designed to increase the
number of students completing the FAFSA, encourage college enrollment,
and help reverse the public perception that college is out of reach. In
your packets, the blue packets, you\'ll find detailed information about
each of these programs, and flowcharts with our algorithm used to
calculate the expected family contribution, based on eight to ten items,
quite a bit less than\--I think there are thirty or so in the FAFSA
forecaster. Our wish is that the Department look at these programs and
not reinvent the wheel in developing the net price calculator. Thank you
for your time and attention.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you. All right. Now, we have two more people who
are scheduled to speak. One of them is on a conference call, and will
presumably be ready to speak in a few minutes, five or ten minutes, or
whatever, and then there\'s another person scheduled at 10:50 who may or
may not want to go early, and after that, we have no one else scheduled
at this point in time. So, we\'re waiting for two other speakers. If
they both speak in the next several minutes, next couple time slots,
then we would probably take a break. So, that\'s where we\'re at.

**MR. KEPIC:** I\'m the 10:50.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Yeah, Paul Kepill \[ph.\]?

**MR. KEPIC:** Kepic. Yes.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Kepic. I\'m sorry.

**MR. KEPIC:** Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Paul
Kepic. I am Campus President with Westwood College. We\'re a nationally
accredited college, and we are approved for HLC regional accreditation
candidacy. I just wanted to make a few comments. I applaud the efforts
on the reauthorization act, and in looking at the disclosure section on
retention rates and unemployment rates, I believe it is important that
we consider how we measure those rates. It\'s really important on the
retention side that we look at reasons that are outside of the control
of school, such as when they join the military, death in family, serious
illness. Those all need to be taken into consideration. And in addition,
I think that the reporting period needs to account for students that
take terms\--a term off or two\--that their reporting period be long
enough for those students to come back into school and not count against
the school\'s retention rates.

On the employment rates, as a career school, we have been focused on
career education for a while, and we applaud the efforts on getting the
employment rates. Again, we\'ve learned many lessons and I think we\'d
love to share those with you from the Career College Association
standpoint, as well. Part of what we\'ve learned is it\'s very
difficult, once the student graduates and the get employed to get the
information back from the employer from the student on the employment.
So, although I see in the documentation that a lot of this is
survey-based, I\'m just concerned as to how this gets implemented and
how it affects public and private institutions as well.

Also, in looking at the Distance Education and Verification Act, the
technology isn\'t quite there as to how you can verify that the student
is actually the student when they log in. And although PIN methods may
be a suggested method for implementation, I\'m not sure that really
accurately reflects that the student is indeed the student that is
taking the exam or the course. So, I think we need to make sure that we
give the accrediting bodies some flexibility as technology advances in
that implementation.

And we already heard on copyright infringement. One thing from the
career college side that I would like also to be considered is a lot of
this has to deal with residential campuses, and I suggest that, in the
implementation that we look at limiting it to residential campus
locations and not schools that are primarily using the technology for
classrooms.

And then lastly\--and I know we\'re just in this reauthorization act,
but I\'d like to\--I\'d like for us to consider in looking forward that
we really put some work into transfer of credits. It\'s an issue on our
students in terms of acceptance of credits as they transfer to other
institutions. It\'s an issue for me as a taxpayer as I watch my tax
dollars fund grants and loan programs\--federal grants and loan programs
for courses that they\'ve already taken when they transfer to another
institution. Again, thank you for this opportunity.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Could you spell your last name. We apparently got
it---

**MR. KEPIC:** Sorry. K-E-P-I-C.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** All right, thank you. Thank you, again.

\[Pause.\]

**MR. KERRIGAN**: All right. We do have one other person who\'s going to
be speaking shortly, but she is on a con call right now. I think what
we\'ll do is we\'ll take a ten-minute break. If she\'s\--we won\'t get
started again until five after ten at the earliest. If she\'s ready to
go at that point in time, we will have her speak at that point in time.
If not, we\'ll have her speak whenever she\'s ready to speak. After
which, we have no one else signed up. So, once we have her speak, we
will take another break. So, if you wish to stretch your legs, you have
at least ten minutes. We will not have her speak until at least five
minutes after ten.

\[Brief recess at 9:56 a.m.\]

\[On the record at 10:13 a.m.\]

**MR. KERRIGAN:** All right. We will reconvene in about 30 seconds, and
the next speaker is Rachel Kincaid. And when Rachel is finished, I think
we have Richard Renshaw. And after those two speakers, to my knowledge,
nobody else signed up, so we will hear right now from Rachel Kincaid.

**MS. KINCAID:** Thank you. Good morning. I\'m Rachel Kincaid, Vice
Chancellor of Governmental and Community Affairs at the University of
New Orleans, and I\'m here this morning from New Orleans to talk about
the Education and Emergency Loan Program that was recently authorized in
Section 864 of the Higher Education Act. The comments that I wanted to
bring on behalf of all of New Orleans institutions, both public and
private, as well as the Mississippi institutions that were affected by
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is the importance and need for this program,
and how thankful we are for this program being included. One of the
challenges that has faced the Gulf Coast area, and we hope will not be
faced by the Texas institutions that were recently affected by the
hurricanes, is the challenges between FEMA and the other agencies in
trying to rebuild your institutions. I can say, for the University of
New Orleans, we were the second largest institution in the state of
Louisiana\--public institution, and we\'re celebrating our 50th
anniversary this year-­and we\'re now probably fourth or fifth. Our
enrollment, still three years later, is 30 percent less than what it
was. We still have buildings on campus that have not been gutted
and\--three years later. And even though were eligible for about \$80
million in FEMA recovery, I think we\'re now at \$7 million So, the
challenges that faced institutions as they are trying to rebuild\--this
program will help institutions by giving institutions direct
loans\--quickly help themselves. And I know if we\'d had\--if we would
have had the opportunity to have this loan program early on, we probably
would have self-financed some of the buildings that now we\'re still
waiting on. So, those are my comments and we are grateful and thankful
for this inclusion.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you. Okay. The next scheduled speaker is Richard
Renshaw, and whenever he\'s ready we will hear from him.

**MR. RENSHAW:** Good morning. My name is Rick Renshaw, and I\'m
District Director of Financial Aid for the Dallas County Community
College District. And my comments are rather informal this morning, but
I will revise and extend and send those to you in written from a little
bit later. The first thing I\'d like to comment to you about is in
Section 401 about Pell Grants. In looking at the\--where the time limit
has been set for Pell Grant for 18 hours\--or 18 semesters or its
equivalent, several comments\--several questions have come up on that,
you know, what the definition would be of the semester or its
equivalent. It says here that only the amount or percent of time that
the students are enrolled will count against that time limit. Does that
mean semesters in which the student is receiving the Pell Grant or is it
any semester? Those types of questions have come up to us and we need
clarification on them. As a community college, we have much different
demographics than a university, and we have students stopping in and
out. And so, the tracking of that is going to be a tremendous burden, so
we really need some good clarification on that issue there.

Then the second area I want to bring to your attention is in Section 436
where the cohort default rate has been changed to 30 percent. And then,
also, that the schools with the cohort default rate, 30 percent for two
consecutive years, may have their eligibility revoked. Obviously, this
is of great concern to community colleges because of our demographics
and the average higher default rate for our students, and how that\'s
going to be determined, if there\'s any ability in the rules to allow
for schools to have small volumes to deal with that. I know of one
community college that has just recently gone into the program. This
year, they had two students go into default, set them at a 50 percent
default rate. Those types of issues are things that we are very, very
concerned about in the community college community. Another thing that
came up this year, and our efforts to develop a good default management
plan\--longstanding guidance was that we could limit students to one
annual loan limit over a course of a number of hours, or one annual loan
limit for the first 30 hours. That guidance was reversed in the
\'07-\'08 financial\--FSA Handbook. So, essentially, that took a major
tool from community colleges that have low\--that were low-cost
institutions. We\'re trying to encourage students not to borrow more
than they need and to save that money as they feed onto a four-year
institutions. And that took a major tool away from us in helping to
control defaults. So, essentially, now, we basically advise students the
best we can. And I understand that\--how the regs are written and
setting those limits to allow students to borrow, but I would hope that
in the discussion of how we\'re going to deal with cohort default rates
that we look at that guidance and what we can do as community colleges
to help us with better default management plans.

A third area that I saw was in Section 442 where it defines community
service to include disaster preparation and emergency services and those
things. It says that we\'re to give priority to positions or employment
to students participating in that, and that\'s a very flexible and
ambiguous description there, and I think there\'s going to be a lot of
questions about what is our responsibility in putting people in those
positions. And I know particularly as a community college, we\'re
frontline in training first responders, and that could impact us in how
we decide in how we\'re going to appropriate our monies within our
district, and so, some guidance there, I think, would be appropriate to
us.

The last thing is I would like to just support the same comments that
Mike Scott made earlier this morning on Section 472, where it allows
that unsubsidized loans could go to dependent students whose parents do
not support him or refuse to complete the FAFSA. This opens up a whole
can of worms as far as how we guide students and how we deal with
students in asking for dependency overrides and those issues. And
particularly in community colleges, we deal so much with first
generation students and the parents don\'t understand the
responsibilities of helping their child with their education. We serve
cultural communities that are very distrustful of government and are
very reticent to provide information to help their students get aid. And
so, all of these things put together\--I think we\'re going to have a
lot of questions in this area that are going to need to be clarified so
that this is not abused. Thank you.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** All right. Thank you. At this time, we have no one
else signed up. So, at this time, I guess we are on unofficial break.
I\'m not going to give any time span, because if someone does sign up in
the next two or three minutes, they will speak at that point in time if
they wish, but you don\'t have to feel like you\'re in church, I guess.
If no one\'s speaking, feel free to converse with them amongst
yourselves. Maybe you\'ll think of something you want to say. So, we
will wait for the next person to speak.

\[Brief recess.\]

**MR. KERRIGAN:** We have a speaker who\'s signed up, and I
apologize\--I may mispronounce the name\--Kathy Coghlan.

**MS. COGHLAN:** Good morning, my name is Cathy Coghlan. I\'m the
Assistant Director of Institutional Research here at TCU, and I\'m also
an adjunct faculty member from time to time.

**CROWD:** A little louder.

**MS. COUGHLIN:** Sure. And I\'m speaking today from the perspective of
a faculty member regarding the requirements for institutions to disclose
textbook costs on course schedules. While I agree that textbook costs
are a concern\--and when I choose books for my courses, I do take that
into consideration, although it cannot be a driving factor in
decision-making for academic reasons\--my concern is that students will
put too much weight on the costs of textbooks when making academic
course decisions, and this could eventually impinge on academic freedom.
For example, if I\'m teaching a course in Introductory Sociology and my
textbooks are \$30 less than my colleagues textbooks, I see the
potential for students to sign up for my class based upon that fact.
That course becomes full, and then students who have to sign up for the
course with more expensive textbooks are not going to be as happy. One
of the solutions that could come from that, and having\--for departments
not having to deal with that kind of problem, would be to adopt a
department-wide textbook for certain courses\--intro courses and
things\--you know, courses that a lot of students take, and that becomes
an issue of academic freedom. There are certain texts out there that I
really wouldn\'t care to use and wouldn\'t want to use in teaching a
particular course, and other faculty members feel the same way. So, I
appreciate you taking that concern into consideration so that we don\'t
over regulate these kinds of issues. Thank you.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you. Okay. No one else has signed up. Is there
anyone else who wishes to make a presentation? If not, again, we will be
on an informal break until such time as someone does sign up.

\[Brief recess.\]

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Okay. We\'re going to reconvene here. We have four
individuals who have signed up to speak, and again, I apologize if I
mispronounced anyone\'s name. We\'ll take them in this order unless they
happen to come up in a different order, but we have Lynne Flacky
\[ph.\], Amy Pitcher, Candice George, and Christyne Sterling.

**MS. FLAHIVE:** Good morning. My name is Lynne Flahive. I am currently
on the faculty\--it was close, don\'t worry. I\'m on the faculty here at
Texas Christian University in the Department of Communication, Sciences,
and Disorders. I am also a past President of the Texas Speech Language
Hearing Association as well as a past Executive Director of the National
Student Speech Language Hearing Association. So, I\'m here to evidently
talk about speech language pathology as it relates to this federal law.
So, I\'m grateful we have an opportunity to talk to you, and we were
told we would get about three to five minutes, so I\'ll be quick. Speech
pathology is a major that requires a master\'s degree in order to go out
and work in the professional community. That master\'s degree is part of
the minimum requirements to gain your Certificate of Clinical
Competence. And so, our students who elect to become speech language
pathologists, and this also applies with our colleagues in audiology,
are going to have to have a post-bachelor\'s degree. Most master\'s
program throughout the United States\--there are very few that are not
two-year programs. And so, we are asking students to do six years of
schooling, and are evidently going to assume large quantities of loans,
especially students who choose a private university as their means of
education. As a past President of the Texas Speech Language Hearing
Association, I created a taskforce back in 2003 to study the shortage of
speech language pathologists, specifically in the school setting. We
know in ASHA, which is our national association\--the American Speech
Language Hearing Association knows that the Bureau of Labor Statistics
estimates that from 2004 to 2014 we are going to need an additional
14,000 speech language pathologists. The primary practice area is the
schools. 50 percent of all speech pathologists are employed in schools
at a given time, and so we know that that\'s going to be a critical
shortage area. The Texas State Association did a survey of all the
school districts in our state, and what we know is that all school
districts in the state of Texas, be they rural, urban, or suburban, have
shortages of speech language pathologists, with the primary shortage
being in the rural and the urban areas. And what we know is that we need
to do something to help attract students so that they choose the public
schools as their work setting. Based on the surveys that the Texas
Speech Language Hearing Association did in association with ASHA, we
know that providing loan forgiveness for students who choose to work in
the public schools will have an impact, that those students will choose
the public schools if, by having loan forgiveness attached to their
employment, we\'re going to\--which will help that shortage\--which
has­-gets into our federal laws, especially as we look at individuals
with disabilities who must be serviced in the schools. So, I\'m going to
do that. Several of my students are going to follow up with me. Those
are the other three. So, I\'ll let them talk about those
specific\--also, part of this federal Higher Education Act is
accreditation, and I just wanted to make public comments that ASHA,
again, the American Speech Language Hearing Association, does our
accreditation in what\--we feel that that\'s working well, that ASHA
serves as a means to ensure that all students graduating from an
accredited master\'s program are meeting similar standards do allow them
to reach certification upon completion of the national examination. And
so, we would just like to note that ASHA does service its purpose well
in terms of accreditation. And then, another issue that I just wanted to
talk on briefly is the issue of being\--having speech language
pathologists included in terms of teacher preparation. Again, going at
the shortage issue, and we definitely are a shortage profession, what we
know is that we\'re not always allowed to apply for programs,
professional preparation funds, and we want to make sure that, again, in
a shortage profession that impacts many people, that speech language
pathologists would be allowed the opportunity to apply for teacher
preparation grants\--or, in this case, preparation for speech language
pathologists. My comments. Thank you.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you.

**MS. PITCHER:** Hi, I'm Amy Pitcher, and I am currently a graduate
student here in the Communication, Sciences, Disorders Program. And I
also chose TCU as my undergraduate institution. That being said, I have
accrued a significant amount of loans, and if I had the option to work
in a school district over a children\'s hospital or that type of
setting, I would choose the school district if my loans were going to be
forgiven. And I know that several of my classmates would also choose
that, because-­we\'ve also been given graduate assistanceships here, but
it\'s not enough to cover the cost of tuition and housing and everything
else because of our case loads and that stuff. So, like Ms. Flahive
said, this is a two-year program, so I\'ve been in school now going on
my sixth year, so my sixth year of loan, and I have\--I would greatly
appreciate it\--

\[Laughter.\]

**MS. PITCHER:** \--if this would be an option for me to take. So, thank
you.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you.

**MS. GEORGE:** Hello. I\'m Candice George, and I am also a graduate
student in the Communication, Sciences, Disorders Program, which is
speech pathology, deaf education, and audiology­-we don\'t have audiology
here, but that would be encompassed in that part of it. I am a
first-year graduate student. I also did my undergraduate here at TCU, a
private school. Kind of what made me come to a private school for this
as far as, like, loans and stuff like that\--there is, like, a greater
opportunity for me to do undergraduate clinic here at TCU, which is what
attracted me to this school. It is more expensive, but I think it is a
good quality of education. I come in as a graduate student with a lot
more opportunities having done clinic and having participated in what
I\'m going to be doing in my chosen profession. And so, that\'s what
attracted to me to here. Needless to say, both my parents are teachers,
and so that doesn\'t go so well for a private school for education. And
so, they are also in the public school system. So, I\'ve seen that\--my
mother does special education, elementary school, which I know is
something that we would part of in servicing. So, I\'ve seen that, and
I\'ve seen the need that she does. She works with a classroom of
low-level autistic children. And so, I\'ve seen\--I\'ve visited with
them many times. I\'ve visited with their speech pathologists many times
and what they\'re working with that. So, I know the great need that
there is there. My dad is a high school teacher, so\--in a public school
in an urban area. So, I also know that\--I\'m from a rural area, so I
understand the need, the significant needs for those positions in that.
And having that background, I\--since I do know that, it is one of those
things that would attract me to going back to a school system and just
the experience that they\'ve had there to be able to impact student
lives. But with the loan forgiveness and being the opportunity for
that\--you know, they don\'t pay as well as some of the other places to
go, and if you\'re considering trying to get out of debt before you\'re
50, it wouldn\'t be just the best option to go to, even though I know
that there\'s an impact. The public schools service children starting
their third birthday, so, you\'re seeing kids that aren\'t actually in
school yet, and so there is a greater need for that. They cannot deny
someone who needs services in the public school system. So, your load is
varied. You\'re working with \"swallowing\" children, children with
language disorders, you know, your typical \"R\" children. They\'re the
ones that you think that\--the ones that generally people think that we
work with. And because of that, along with the preparation programs,
we\'re going to need to have that\--if we go into the public schools, to
have that for our education as far as continuing education and making
sure that we\'re up to date with that, because our field is so varied.
There is a lot going on with that, and we need to be up to date to be
able to provide those children with the best opportunities. And so,
that\--along with teachers that we would be included in helping to fund
that special education. And also, I\'d like to just continue to add that
we really like ASHA as our governing body; that\'s our national kind of
accreditation thing. It makes sure that each\--the standards that we
have to reach to be able to get our clinical competence is the same
across all states so that we know whenever we\--if we decide maybe not
to stay in Texas\--I\'m from Texas, so, more than, likely, I\'ll stay in
Texas, but I know there are a lot of other girls that\--we have one in
our program that\'s from Washington State. So, more than likely, she
might go back to Washington State, but she\--you know, she would
be\--knowing that graduating here and with ASHA standards that she has,
when she goes back to her state that she would already meet the
requirements to get her state certification to be able to practice
there. So, she\'s not having to worry about, \"If I move elsewhere,
because of\--you know, if I get married and my husband goes somewhere
else, or if there\'s another opportunity for me to work in a school
system elsewhere\"\--for her to go back to her family, that she\'ll be
able to get that\--to get that certification and start working
immediately rather than trying to find out what she still needs and how
to get all that together and it\'s just kind of a unifying body. It also
helps with, like, our research and things like that. So, I appreciate
that ASHA is there. And thank you for listening and I appreciate it.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you.

**MS. STERLING:** Hi, my name is Christyne Sterling, and I am also a
graduate student here at TCU. I am on my second year, along with Amy.
And I did choose to go to TCU for my undergrad. So, like the other two
girls who have spoken, we all have a good amount of loans, or a good
amount of education that we have paid for. And to have a little bit of
help with that would be great. And I know there were a couple of us who
have decided to possibly to go into the hospitals because we see more
financial stability that way, but if we had the chance to get our loans
forgiven by going into the school district, I know a majority of us
would probably shift where we would like to continue working, or we
would like to go. And so, getting money towards our education would
really help, and would really help get more SLPs into\--going into
education and going into the school districts. Also, with what Candice
was saying, with ASHA being our governing body, I will be moving around,
and it is nice to know that I have a stable base. My education, once I
get my certification, will be set and I will not have to jump through
hoops whether I go to North Dakota or whether I go to Louisiana, or if I
get a chance to stay here in Texas. So, it would be\--it was very
helpful to have ASHA there and handling all of our accreditation. And I
believe that\'s it. Thank you.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you.

\[Brief recess at 12:29.\]

\[On the record at 12:52.\]

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Okay. We have another speaker, Camille Reinhardt.

**MS. REINHARDT:** Hi. I\'m here representing ASHA, and I just wanted to
say that, to become an SLP and to become certified, we have to go to
school for six years, and you don\'t have a choice in the matter: You
have to get your master\'s. And so, I really think that we need loan
forgiveness if we work in an educational setting, just like teachers do,
that we should qualify for loan forgiveness as well as them, because
we\'re going into the educational field, we have to go for six years,
and have six years\' worth of loans by the time we\'re done. And I
really need the forgiveness for that. And that\'s all. Thank you.

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Thank you very much. That\'s all the speakers we have
scheduled up to this point in time. It\'s getting close to twenty
minutes before noon, about twenty-two minutes before noon right now
according to my watch. I think we will maybe officially break for lunch
at maybe fifteen minutes to noon and come back at\--officially at 1:15
to see what we have. So, our official lunch break will run from, then,
quarter to twelve until 1:15. That should give everyone a chance
to\--who wants to come back, and to have adequate time. Thank you very
much.

**AFTERNOON SESSION**

**\[1:22 p.m.\]**

**MR. KERRIGAN:** Not that it is of much interest, but for those who are
interested, our session here is officially opened again after lunch. At
this time, we have no one signed up for the afternoon session, so we
will be waiting to see who does sign up. But we are officially open at
this point in time for the rest of the hearing. Thank you.

\[No testimony.\]

**MR. KERRIGAN:** All right. The first hearing that we\'ve held here
will come to a close at this point in time, and I want to thank
everybody for coming, and good luck.

\[Whereupon, the public hearing concluded at 4:00 p.m.\]