UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY 

 May 18, 2021 

Robyn Bitner 

Counsel 

National Student Legal Defense Network 

1015 15th St. NW, Suite 600 

Washington, DC 20005 

Dear Ms. Bitner: 

On September 5, 2018, the National Student Legal Defense Network (NSLDN) submitted a 

Petition for Correction and Disclosure (“petition”) in connection with the U.S. Department of 

Education’s (“Department’s”) August 14, 2018 notice of proposed rulemaking on gainful 

employment. 1 Consistent with the Department’s Information Quality Act (“IQA”) guidelines, 

we responded to your petition through the public comment process, and included our 

response in the preamble to the final rule, issued on July 1, 2019, which rescinded the 

prior regulations on gainful employment.2 On July 31, 2019, NSLDN submitted its 

Information Quality Request Appeal (“appeal”), asking that the Department rescind both its 

2018 notice of proposed rulemaking and its 2019 final rule. 3 This letter constitutes the 

Department’s response to NSLDN’s appeal. 

Pursuant to the IQA and OMB guidance, the Department has issued guidelines identifying 

the process for affected persons to request correction of information disseminated by the 

Department. The Department’s guidelines provide that requests about information on 

which the Department has sought public comment will be responded to through the public 

comment process. They further provide that the Department may choose to provide an 

earlier response if the Department in its discretion deems it appropriate to do so and if 

doing so will not delay issuance of the final action in the matter. Neither the IQA nor OMB 

guidance, nor Department guidelines, provide a mechanism for rescinding a final rule once 

it has been issued. To the contrary, the Department is legally obligated to conduct 

negotiated rulemaking and notice and comment requirements prior to proposing any 

changes to the Code of Federal Regulations with respect to Federal student financial aid 

programs, including with respect to regulations on the subject of gainful employment. 

The Department therefore is unable to grant NSLDN the relief that it requests in its appeal 

through this response. However, the Department notes that since the Department 

published the 2019 final rule rescinding the gainful employment regulations, Joseph R. 

Biden Jr. was elected as President of the United States and Dr. Miguel Cardona was 

confirmed as the Secretary of Education. The new leadership at the Department is 

reviewing and plans to revisit its policies relating to gainful employment in the future, as 

our resources and competing priorities permit, both with regard to the data and 

information considered in rescinding the gainful employment regulations and more broadly. 

Any such process will comport with applicable negotiated rulemaking and notice and 

comment requirements. 

We appreciate your interest in this matter. If you have any other questions, please feel free 

to contact my office. 

1 https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/iq/exhibit-b-sudent-defense-petition-with-exhibits.pdf. 2

 84 FR 31392 (July 1, 2019). The regulations became effective July 1, 2020. 

3 https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/iq/appeal-of-iqa-challenge.pdf. 
 

 

 

 Sincerely, 

 Julie Margetta Morgan 

Delegated the authority to perform the 

functions and duties of the Under Secretary 

Senior Advisor 

Office of the Under Secretary 

400 MARYLAND AVE. SW, WASHINGTON, DC 20202 

www.ed.gov