Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and Institutional Quality – 1/9/24

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 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING PROGRAM INTEGRITY 

AND INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY

SESSION 1, DAY 2, MORNING

JANUARY 9, 2024

On the 9th day of January, 2024, the

following meeting was held virtually, from 10:00 a.m.

to 12:00 p.m.
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P R O C E E D I N G S

MR. WEATHERS: Hello everyone. Welcome 

back for session one, day two. I hope you had a good 

evening and morning thus far. I'm going to- my name is 

John Weathers. I'm with the FMCS facilitation team. I'll 

be your primary facilitator, along with my cofacilitator, Cindy Jeffries. I want to start with a roll 

call, and then we'll get going with the business of the 

day. So primary business officers from institutions of 

higher education, Joe Weglarz. Joe, are you here? I 

thought I saw you.

MR. ROBERTS: He is here, but he looks 

like he'sMR. WEGLARZ: Alright. I'm officially 

here.

MR. WEATHERS: Officially here. Thank 

you, Joe. And the alternate. Thank you, Joe. Alternate 

Dom Chase.

MR. CHASE: Present.

MR. WEATHERS: Excellent. Thank you. 

Primary Civil Rights Organizations and Consumer 

Advocates, Carolyn Fast.

MS. FAST: Good morning.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning, Carolyn. 

And as alternate, Magin Misael Sanchez. Magin, are you 
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here?

MR. SANCHEZ: I'm here. Good morning.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning, Magin. 

And primary for financial aid administrators, JoEllen 

Price.

MS. PRICE: Good morning. I'm here.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning, JoEllen. 

And alternate, Zack Goodwin.

MR. GOODWIN: Present and good 

morning.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning back. 

Primary Historically Black Colleges and Universities, 

Tribal Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving 

Institutions, Dr. Charles Prince. Are you here, sir?

DR. PRINCE: Present.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning, DC. And 

alternate D'Angelo Sands. I see your box.

MR. SANDS: Here. Thank you. Good 

morning.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you. Good 

morning. Primary Institutional Accrediting Agencies 

Recognized by the Secretary, Jamie Studley.

MS. STUDLEY: Good morning.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning, Jamie. 

And alternate, Michale McComis.
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MS. K. SMITH: He is here. He just got 

in though, but he is here.

MR. WEATHERS: Okay. Thank you, 

Krystil, I appreciate that. Primary Legal Assistant 

Organizations, Robyn Smith.

MS. R. SMITH: Hello, here.

MR. WEATHERS: Hello, Robyn. And 

alternate, Sophie Laing.

MS. LAING: Yeah. Good morning. 

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning, Sophie. 

Primary Private Nonprofit Institutions of Higher 

Education, Erika Linden.

MS. LINDEN: I'm here. Thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Erika. And 

alternate, Scott Dolan.

MR. DOLAN: Wrong button. Good morning 

everybody.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning, Scott. 

Gotta get your caffeine. Primary programmatic accrediting 

Agencies recognized by the Secretary to include State 

agencies recognized for the approval of nurse education, 

Laura Rasar King.

MS. RASAR-KING: Good morning.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning. And 

alternate, Amy Ackerson.
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MS. ACKERSON: I am here. Good 

morning.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning. Primary 

Proprietary Institutions of Higher Education, Jillian 

Klein.

MS. KLEIN: Good morning, everybody.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning. And 

alternate, David Cohen.

MR. COHEN: Good morning. I'm here. 

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you. And primary 

Public Four-Year Institutions of Higher Education, Jason 

Lorgan.

MR. LORGAN: Good morning.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning, Jason. 

And alternate, Alyssa Dobson.

MS. DOBSON: Good morning. I'm here.

MR. WEATHERS: Okay. Good morning, 

Alyssa. Hope you're feeling better. Primary Public TwoYear Institutions of Higher Education, Jo Alice Blondin. 

Jo, are you here?

MS. BLONDIN: Yes.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning, Jo. And 

alternate, Michael Cioce, are you here, sir?

MR. CIOCE: Good morning. Good 

morning. 
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MR. WEATHERS: Excellent. Primary 

State Attorneys General, Diana Hooley.

MS. HOOLEY: Good morning.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning, Diana. 

Primary, State Officials, including State higher 

education, executive officers, State authorizing agencies 

and State regulators of institutions of higher education. 

John Ware.

MR. WARE: Present. Good morning.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning. And 

alternate Robert Anderson.

MR. ANDERSON: I'm here. Good morning 

everyone.

MR. WEATHERS: Good morning. Primary 

students or borrowers, including currently enrolled 

borrowers or groups representing them. Jessica Morales.

MR. ROBERTS: She said she had to step 

away briefly, John. 

MR. WEATHERS: Okay, thank you, Brady 

I appreciate that. And alternate Emmett Blaney.

MR. BLANEY: I'm here.

MR. WEATHERS: I see you, Emmett. 

Thank you. And, primary US military service members, 

veterans, or groups representing them. 

MR. WEGLARZ: Oh, okay. Yeah. Kent 
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tried to call me. And did he call you?

MR. WEATHERS: Joe? Okay. Thank you, 

Joe. Let me restart. Let me reset. Primary US military 

service members, veterans, or groups representing them. 

Barmak Nassirian. Barmak, are you here, sir?

MR. NASSIRIAN: Yes, sir.

MR. WEATHERS: Okay. Thank you. And, 

the alternate Ashlynne Haycock-Lohmann.

MS. HAYCOCK-LOHMANN: I'm here.

MR. WEATHERS: Oh. Thank you. Alright, 

now that we're done with roll call- or we're not done 

with roll call, I'd like to recognize the Federal 

negotiator, Greg Martin. Greg, would you like to 

recognize your- the remaining of your team, Office of 

General Counsel?

MR. MARTIN: Sure. So, good morning, 

everybody. It's good to be back with you today. The 

remaining portion of the Federal team today is our other 

negotiator, David Musser, who will be taking 

responsibility for the discussion on distance education 

later this afternoon. And we also have Counsel Denise 

Morelli with us today as well. And I- Donna Mangold may 

be on, I don't know, but, she's- she'll take- she will be 

taking responsibility as OGC attorney when we get to 

accreditation. Thank you.
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MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Greg. 

Appreciate that. And before we get into the work of the 

day, I'd like to ask if there is any old business or 

housekeeping that we need to address before moving 

forward. Okay. Not seeing any. Greg, I will pass it off 

to you. I believe we're starting with State authorization 

this morning.

MR. MARTIN: We are, John, starting 

with State authorization. And I want to- I want to saycommend everybody on the discussion yesterday. I thought 

it was very well done. And we got- we finished on time or 

on schedule, which is not always something that happens 

during these events. So, I was really impressed by that. 

And, it was right at the edge, too. We didn't have a lot 

of time to spare, nor did we go over. So it was- you 

know, you just- you do these schedules and you have to do 

them, sort of just guessing, but it did work out well. 

And I want to thank everybody for their attention to, you 

know, the issues and the time and everything else. So we 

are moving into issue paper two, which is State 

authorization. And you can see here that, today's person 

running the display is my colleague Joe Massman, who also 

is within the Policy Development Group in the Office of 

Postsecondary Education. So he has brought up issue paper 

two, which is State authorization, complaint and 
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governance and State authorization. See the appropriate 

statutory site and the regulatory citations are 600.2 and 

600.9. I do want to acknowledge that, we received via 

FMCS a proposal from, I think Barmak and Carolyn. And we 

have looked at that and obviously we haven't had a lot of 

time to digest what is in there. When we walk through 

those sections today, Barmak and Carolyn, you're welcome 

to bring up the points that you have in that paper and 

discuss those within the context of the discussion of 

those sections, if you wish to do that, because I did 

want to give you the opportunity to make your case for 

those points as we go through it today. So we will be 

doing that. First of all, we- we'll look at a summary of 

the issues. Here we just have a discussion of the role 

that states along with the creditors and the Department 

play in the higher education accreditation process. And 

the Department proposes some changes to the current 

regulations regarding state approval and licensure, and 

State authorization reciprocity agreements. You'll see 

here, our concerns for state approval and licensure under 

600.2. The Department is concerned that existing State 

authorization regulations, which allow states to exempt 

certain institutions from state approval and licensure 

requirements if the institution is accredited by an 

accrediting agency, recognized by the Secretary, or if 
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the institution has been in operation for 20 years, do 

not ensure sufficient state oversight of those 

institutions. State exemptions of certain categories of 

institutions from approval could weaken the program 

integrity triad for institutions that want to participate 

in the Federal student aid programs, making students and 

taxpayers vulnerable. The Department would also- is also 

concerned that states may have limited complaint 

processes that rely upon other entities without 

monitoring by the applicable state itself. First- and 

next, we'll take a look at 600.2 and 600.9, which is 

State authorization reciprocity agreements. We note that 

states may participate in reciprocity agreements, and 

that is where two or more states enter into an agreement 

that authorizes the institution located and legally 

authorized in the state, covered by the agreement to 

provide postsecondary education through distance 

education or correspondence courses to students located 

in other states that are covered by the agreement. 

However, the Department is concerned that these 

agreements have shortcomings that fail to protect 

students and taxpayers and that reduce states oversight 

of institutions. Additionally, we are concerned that some 

states are deferring all or nearly all of their oversight 

responsibilities to other states and the governing bodies 
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that oversee these agreements for approval of educational 

institutions. The Department's concerns are primarily 

related to two areas, that is, complaints and governance. 

Current State authorization regulations require that 

states in which institutions are located have a process 

to review and appropriately act on complaints concerning 

the institution, including enforcing applicable laws. 

However, this means that states that have entered into a 

reciprocity agreement likely do not know about such 

complaints related to students in their state, and do not 

monitor if their students are protected by the agreement 

in which the state is participating. This makes it 

difficult for states to make informed decisions when 

entering into or renewing agreements. The Department is 

also concerned that the current reciprocity system is 

influenced by regulating entities that allow manipulation 

to avoid state rules and priorities, and prioritizes 

rather administrative convenience over student and 

taxpayer protection. For example, the National Council 

for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA), 

in partnership with regional compacts made up of states 

oversees the State authorization reciprocity agreements. 

However, the NC-SARA board is composed not just of state 

and regional compacts of states, but also representatives 

of accrediting agencies and other stakeholders. This 
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includes even institutions themselves. Furthermore, NCSARA's board under current policy has veto power over the 

proposed changes to SARA policy, potentially further 

stifling States' ability to improve consumer protections 

for SARA institutions. This means that the State role in 

program integrity triad is being overseen by entities 

other than just states, including the regulated 

institutions the agreements are supposed to govern. So 

let's take a look at our proposal here. We propose to 

amend regulations related to State authorization 

reciprocity agreements in 600.2 and 600.9, in two ways. 

The first is that we propose requiring reciprocity 

agreements to require institutions to have a system to 

report student complaints to the state in which the 

student resides. Such a system could be operated by the 

administrators of the reciprocity agreement, but the 

institution would be ultimately responsible for ensuring 

that the complaints reached their students' states. The 

Department is also interested in feedback on how to 

improve compliance and complaint reporting, including 

reporting to NC-SARA or similar entities overseeing a 

reciprocity agreement, the Department and the state where 

the institution is located, and the institution's 

accreditor. Secondly, we propose, that the Department 

regulations governing State authorization reciprocity 
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agreements require that governing board- that the 

governing board of any entity that oversees a State 

authorization reciprocity agreement only include 

representation from State employees, including regulatory 

bodies, enforcement agencies, attorneys general, 

licensing bodies, and members of the public. 

Institutional representatives would be prohibited from 

serving on the governing board. Public members would be 

required to be independent from the institution and could 

include students, higher education experts, and 

advocates. We are interested in the committee's feedback 

on this proposal, and we are considering a minimum number 

or percentage of representatives from each group. So, we 

do have some questions for discussion. But before we go 

through those general questions of discussion, let's look 

at the actual regulatory changes themselves. And we will 

begin with 600.2 and look at that and then open the floor 

for discussion on the proposed changes to 600.2. Here is 

the definition of a State authorization reciprocity 

agreement. An agreement between two or more states that 

authorizes an institution located and legally authorized 

in a state covered by the agreement, to provide 

postsecondary education through distance education or 

correspondence courses to students located in other 

states by the agreement, and cannot prohibit any member 
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state of the agreement from enforcing its own general 

purpose state laws and regulations outside of the State 

authorization of distance education. Here is the 

additional text that we proposed to add. If a State 

authorization reciprocity agreement is administered by an 

organization, the governing body of such organization 

must consist solely of representatives from states, 

including regulatory bodies, enforcement agencies, 

attorneys general and licensing bodies, and members of 

the general public. Public members must be separate from 

and independent of states, institutions, accrediting 

agencies, and must not be a current or former employee 

of, member of the governing board, owner, or shareholder 

of, or consultant to an institution or program that is 

subject to the State authorization reciprocity agreement. 

Secondly, a current or former member of any trade 

association or member organization related to, affiliated 

with, or associated with an institution or program that 

is subject to the State authorization reciprocity 

agreement. Third, a current or former employee of or 

consultant to an accrediting agency that accredits an 

institution or program that is subject to the State 

authorization reciprocity agreement. Or finally, for a 

current or former employee or of member- a current or 

former employee or member of the program integrity triad 
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other than states, including the Department and 

accrediting agencies. There should be an or there instead 

of an of. Okay, so those- that's what's proposed under 

600.2. So if neither Denise nor Dave has anything to add 

to that, we will open the floor for discussion.

MR. WEATHERS: Okay, a couple quick 

things. It is my understanding that Emmett's going to be 

coming in for Jessica for student borrowers. Folks, a 

reminder that, comments or questions are, within three 

minute time limit. And also, please do not be redundant 

if something's already been spoken on. If you want to 

reiterate something or show affirmation of something, 

please do so in the chat. I am going to move to first, 

Carolyn Fast. Go ahead, Carolyn.

MS. FAST: Thank you. I want to start 

by saying thank you to the Department for looking at this 

important issue that affects a really large number of 

students across the nation who are enrolled in online 

programs that are located at schools located outside of 

their states. And I appreciate the attention to the issue 

of the governing board, which is really only an issue 

because, in NC-SARA, which is the National Council for 

the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement, which, at 

this point, all of the states except for California 

participate in the governing board has veto power over 
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through the new policy modification process over any 

changes, including, changes that would strengthen 

consumer protections. So, I think it's very important 

that in light of the fact that they- that the governing 

board has been given this kind of authority, that the 

governing board, is in fact, composed of representatives 

of member states because it's that authority to set 

consumer protection standards and standards for 

participation in the agreement is a regulatory- is 

regulatory decision-making, which should be reserved to 

the states, which are, of course, accountable to state 

lawmakers, state officials and state voters. I proposed 

some language on this, which would make a minor change to 

the proposed language, which, just to say- to be clear 

about, we support the Department's language here. But we 

have proposed language that would- just the only change 

that we have to this is to provide that the that members 

of the public who may be able to provide helpful 

perspectives and information could act as- in an 

advisory capacity because it seems that delegating 

authority to make decisions about consumer protection 

standards for regulated institutions should be reserved 

to the states in a state agreement. That is the change 

that we have proposed in the language that we have sent 

around on this topic, and I'd be happy to answer 
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questions if people have them about how that might work.

MR. WEATHERS: Okay. Thank you. If, 

you would like to put a question into the chat, you may 

do so. I'm going to make a note here that Rob Anderson is 

coming in for John Ware for state regulators. Welcome, 

Rob, and I will move on to Jo. Jo?

MS. BLONDIN: Hi, there. I would just 

like to ask the Department to give other examples besides 

NC-SARA. It seems like that's the example. So I would 

like to understand what the other agencies are or 

institutions that you're trying to address. Thank you.

MR. MARTIN: Well, NC-SARA is the 

primary purpose of the primary reciprocity entity that's 

in operation. I don't- we don't have any- the purpose of 

the regulation- regulatory changes is not to regulate a 

specific entity. It's to regulate the reciprocity 

agreements in general. So it would be any- understanding 

that NC-SARA, you know, might not be the only one in 

existence, either now or in the future, that the 

regulation would pertain to any of them. NC-SARA was 

mentioned as an example, but not as a regulated body per 

se. I don't know- I don't- as far as any other 

reciprocity entities out there, it is not something I'mthe existence of [inaudible] is not something I'm overly 

familiar with, obviously NC-SARA being the primary one. 
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But again, it's- this is not a- I don't think we- should 

not be looked at as a- as directed at one entity. Even if 

that entity happens to be the entity that has the 

majority of institutions or states, you know, covered.

MR. WEATHERS: Okay. Thank you, Greg. 

Moving on to Diana. Diana?

MS. HOOLEY: Good morning and thank 

you for the opportunity to speak on this issue. So I amjust one- so, our offices share the Department's concern. 

And that also that was just raised by Carolyn that the 

state authority is being delegated to non-state 

participants in these reciprocity agreements. We also 

remain concerned that preventing states from being able 

to enforce their own general and specific consumer 

protection statutes and regulations incentivizes a race 

to the bottom for bad actors who obtain authorization in 

states with least stringent authorization requirements 

and the fewest consumer protections. The original purpose 

of the state auth reciprocity agreements was to reduce 

the administrative burden of obtaining initial and 

reviewed authorizations on institutions operating online 

in numerous states, and we think that allowing states to 

enforce their own education-specific regulations does not 

frustrate this purpose, and furthermore, it allows states 

to retain their very important role in the triad. We're 
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therefore urging the Department to update these 

regulations to prohibit reciprocity agreements from 

preventing member States from enforcing their general and 

specific education and consumer protection statutes and 

regulations. With the respect to the changes that were 

proposed by the Department, we do support the 

Department's goal to have a system on reporting student 

complaints to state regulators such as higher education, 

as well as the state attorneys general and the state in 

which students reside. But note that there is a 

disconnect between requiring these complaints to be sent 

to the states and then also prohibiting their ability to 

enforce them with respect to the education specific 

statutes. So we think it's preferable also as a process 

point. I believe as it's written, it would be the 

complaints are to be forwarded by the institutions to the 

states and the states to the organization. I think it's 

preferable, or we think it's preferable for the 

administrator to retain- well, let me put it this way, 

for the institution to forward it to the administrator 

and the states. It ensures that the administrators or the 

administrators of the reciprocity agreements are put on 

notice. And it's also one less step. I think it just 

collapses the reporting requirement. And I- just in 

support of Carolyn's point about the governing boards, we 
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would also make the point that they should be comprised 

entirely of state actors, for the reasons that she 

already set forth. Thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Diana. 

Alright, moving on to Jillian Klein. Go ahead, Jillian.

MS. KLEIN: Morning. Sorry, I wasn't 

clear if we're just speaking- if you just wanted feedback 

right now on the governing board piece, or if we should 

also be- so before I start my comments, I just want to 

make sure I'm staying within the bounds.

MR. MARTIN: I would prefer. I mean, 

obviously people can talk about whatever they want, but 

got to jump in and say stop. I would prefer we discuss 

that first, the 600.2 changes. We will have plenty of 

time to discuss the other changes, so if you could, 

that's a good point, Jillian. Try to direct your comments 

to what we're discussing currently.

MS. KLEIN: Perfect. So, I guess I 

would just say at a high level, both on the Department's 

proposal and I'm sorry, I haven't had a ton of time to 

look at Carolyn's, so I hope- I don't know if we can 

revisit it maybe after lunch also in more detail, if 

there's questions just so we as negotiators and also our 

constituents have an opportunity to look at it in more 

detail. But I- you know, I am- I don't have a ton of 
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heartburn about a proposal that would limit the makeup of 

a board- of a sort of decision-making board at a place 

like NC-SARA to just states, but I don't- that's not 

exactly what I'm reading. So I'm reading states, but also 

general public, which the general public piece, it 

appears to be written in a way that could be a bit 

political. And so. I think a counter proposal for me 

would be, yes, let's talk about if there's a way to move 

forward with it just being states. But I- in the 

narrative, there's language about higher education 

experts and advocates and students. And I would say those 

entities in general, I don't think are independent. 

You're not going to find a student that doesn't have a 

feeling about the institution they went to or the 

institution they live by, or the college football team 

that they like. And I think on the Higher Education 

Experts and Advocates piece, I think we can give lots of 

examples, honestly, across the political spectrum of 

people that feel strongly in that space that are not 

necessarily state authorizers. And so I just would 

strongly encourage the Department to reconsider the way 

this is written, that if you want to move forward with 

something that largely sort of limits the public from 

being part of the decision-making and oversight process 

for an organization like NC-SARA, it should really be in 
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a very small box that does sort of exclude the rest of 

the voices. The other thing that I'll say, just on 

Carolyn's proposal, I think I noticed this, I, would also 

suggest maybe thinking about a compromise if you want to 

have sort of an advisory board or a separate board that's 

providing insight into NC-SARA. I do think that there's a 

ton of expertise that comes from institutions and other 

higher education stakeholders. And so, would just like to 

think more critically about ways that those voices can be 

part of sort of advising into NC-SARA, in general, if 

there's sort of a separate non-governing voice that's 

helping provide context into NC-SARA. I hope that made 

sense.

MR. WEATHERS: I think Greg's going to 

reply to that. Go ahead, Greg. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, I wanted to ask, 

either Barmak or Carolyn to clarify what their proposal 

is and how it differs from what we have here as far as 

the role of students in the public, just so- just to make 

it clear to everybody, I'm not going to talk for them. 

I'll let one of them clarify that.

MS. FAST: Sure, absolutely. And in 

fact, if it is at all possible to share the language on 

the screen, that might be helpful. But, essentially, Iwe agreed entirely with what Jillian was saying, which is 
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that there could be a role that could be helpful for 

people other than state agencies to provide, but not in a 

decision-making capacity. In terms of the regulation, 

what we were- what we proposed was that the governing 

body would be comprised solely of representatives from 

state agencies as set out in the Department's language, 

but that if they wanted, if- obviously it would be at the 

discretion of the organization, if they wanted to, they 

could have members of the public or whoever they want be 

in some sort of advisory capacity to share their, you 

know, special knowledge of the issues. And that would 

certainly be a good idea. I don't know that we need a reg 

about it. But what we are concerned about is delegating 

a- essentially state regulatory authority to non-state 

actors because that both constrains states and 

inappropriately provides potentially unaccountable or 

conflicted people with decision-making power over 

regulated institutions.

MR. MARTIN: Thank you, Carolyn.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Carolyn. 

Anything else to address on that? I'm going to move on to 

Rob. Rob, go ahead. 

MR. ANDERSON: Well, thank you. This 

is a strange position to be in as the NC-SARA board chair 

and clearly in a position that I would not have that 
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would this be adopted. But nevertheless, I will speak. 

You know, it has been a process over the past decade with 

what is SARA, this reciprocity agreement and its creation 

and the bringing on of 49 states within what is a statedriven reciprocity process. And I completely agree, 

states have to be front and center, and there are voices 

of those that have to be heard through this. And so 

what's happened is we have four regional compacts that 

have come together and helped develop what we have as 

SARA now. So they're the four major entities who 

represent the states. They created a 501C3 and NC-SARA to 

run the process has a staff, a lot of expertise there to 

carry out a lot of the conditions of this agreement, as 

well as some of the complaint processes which we continue 

to work on, and I can speak to more later. But as with 

many boards, we have people that come on, they'll put 

their specific day hat aside to provide expertise through 

a variety of lenses. So when I look at our board right 

now, there are 20 representatives there, board of 

directors, and I see 11 of these positions as having the 

state interests at heart as kind of their primary lens, 

including me. I wouldn't be eligible to be on this board, 

even though I've worked at three SHEEO agencies for 

senior level positions for well over a decade. And I've, 

you know, been at, what's considered a trade shop now, I 
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guess, for six and a half years. But I also worked on a 

campus as an instructor and administrator for seven 

years. So I think by what's been put forward, it would 

limit a lot of expertise and lens that is very, very 

important moving forward. I think we've spoken pretty 

clearly as a board in the last year of balancing that 

SARA is the reciprocity agreement. NC-SARA serves these 

endeavors, but it's the states as represented through the 

different regional consortiums are the ones who put forth 

the policy. And you're right, in the new structure, you 

know, brand new, we just came up with, this policy to try 

to better codify and create a coherent process. What 

we've done is policies run up through the regionals, and 

once they agree on them, they come to the board for final 

approval, which is a board of directors of a 501C3. You 

would want that to take place. You know, there's never an 

absolute, but I can't see where we would veto something 

that has worked through the process of our policy process 

with the regional compacts. And we joke about that as a 

board. As you know, it would have to be something that's 

illegal, that we're going to kick it back so that they 

can reconsider. So that's the structure where we are. I 

think state interests are represented all along the way 

in recreating this. I don't know that we have a single 

board member who would be able to maintain a position on 
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that board and having served on it for four years, I know 

that they've put the best interests of students through 

states and institutions who serve them at the center of 

this. So I'll leave it there for now. But that's my 

observations.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Rob, I 

appreciate that. Okay, we're moving on to Robyn. Go 

ahead, Robyn.

MS. R. SMITH: Morning, everyone. I 

want to thank the Department. I think this proposal is 

incredibly important. And one reason that I think that is 

that the Higher Education Act does require State 

authorization. The primary purpose, or one of the primary 

purposes of which is consumer protection. It doesn't 

allow states on its face to delegate authority to private 

entities or private organizations to make the decisions 

about whether a state may be authorized or to protect 

students. And so I think the current regulation itself is 

questionable in its legality, because it does something 

that I don't think the statute itself allows. And 

certainly was not intended by Congress. So I appreciate 

the proposal. I want to make a couple of observations 

about the language. The Department says that the State 

authorization reciprocity agreement must be administered, 

but it doesn't really say what administered is. I believe 
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Barmak and Carolyn's proposal is- addresses this issue by 

being clear that it is the states that must make final 

decisions on whether or not a state is either permitted 

into the compact or whether a- an institution itself is 

approved, or maybe reapproved, or their permission to 

participate is revoked. Right now, under NC-SARA, those 

kinds of decisions may be overturned by the state 

compacts, which I would note to the Department are also 

private nonprofit organizations. They are not state 

organizations. They are composed of private individuals. 

Some have state agencies on them, but the vast majority 

of people on those are employees, teachers, industry 

institutions, all kinds of folks. They are not government 

organizations. So those decisions may be overturned by 

the compacts themselves and NC-SARA's board. In addition, 

the terms of the agreements, whatever it may be, should 

also be finally decided by the states themselves, not the 

compacts, not any private individuals. This should be 

primarily a government oversight function. That was the 

intention of the Higher Education Act. And I like 

Jillian's idea of an advisory board. I think, you know, 

Rob makes a good point as well, that it's very important 

to have experts advising government bodies when possible. 

And I think that includes both the consumer protection 

and student side, which is not represented on the NC-SARA 
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board, as well as of course, industry schools, 

accreditors. Right now, the Bureau for Private 

Postsecondary Education in California has that kind of 

advisory board comprised of different individuals. And I 

think that that's an example the Department can look to 

that works extremely well for ensuring that they haveand a voice and input into the oversight and regulation 

of schools. Thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Robyn. Next 

we're going to move on to Barmak.

MR. NASSIRIAN: One procedural note 

before I make my comment, and that is that the proposal 

you see is the work of Carolyn. I don't want to take- the 

ancient Greek word for blame and credit is the same, so 

whether she gets blamed or gets credit, it belongs 99% to 

her. I certainly support and endorse her effort, but it's 

been referred to as a joint project and she did all the 

heavy lifting. So just my procedural note. A couple of 

couple of comments. Folks, you know, sometimes ubiquity 

of a bad practice makes it feel normal. It is not normal 

for banks to regulate themselves. We wouldn't tolerate 

auto companies setting safety standards in a governmental 

capacity. They should be consulted. Obviously, members of 

any industry should be consulted in any regulatory 

exercise, but they shouldn't call the shots. And the fact 
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that we have, at least at the moment, one reciprocity 

agreement, where that is the case where institutions that 

are supposed to be the objects of State authorization are 

engaged in cross-border authorization of each other, is 

really as questionable as putting banks in charge of 

banking regulations. It's bizarre. It is outright illegal 

in my perspective when you look at the statutory text and 

what the Department is doing is entirely correct. I would 

say you really want to make sure that this- that the 

function does not get adulterated just because of the 

gobbledygook about internet and distance education and 

somehow some metaphysical transformation takes place 

where we tolerate the idea of institutions essentially 

rubber stamping each other. That's one observation. One 

other point I want to make at the appropriate time. I'm 

just flagging it at the moment. It is not just a matter 

of looking at governance and complaint systems. There are 

significant policy questions that really deserve at least 

a little bit of discussion in this preliminary round 

before we come back maybe with some language for the 

second round. And I would appreciate an opportunity to at 

least put those on the agenda. Thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Barmak, and 

thank you for the knowledge on blame and credit. I'm 

going to give you credit for that next time I use it. 
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Regardless. Erika, you're next.

MS. LINDEN: Thank you for the 

opportunity to speak on this. As a representative of 

private nonprofit institutions, my- I think there's a 

general concern about, well, what's the alternative? And, 

feasibility of having- not having a reciprocity 

arrangement for being able to provide service to students 

in multiple states is, I think, a really legitimate issue 

that we need to consider. Obviously, we want to do it at 

a high quality. Obviously, we want to do it within the 

control of our states. But I have some concerns that 

we're trying to take away some powers of the state. And 

it's the relationship between the state and the 

institutions that we need to focus on as well. The states 

have all voluntarily agreed to be part of SARA and thereNC-SARA. And there must be a good reason for the states 

to have wanted to do that. So I just want to- us to be 

cautious about making significant changes to this process 

because I think it will be very, very disruptive. And if 

I may also just ask a question. Several people talked 

about having the governing board for a reciprocity 

arrangement limited to state actors. Can someone just 

define for me who a state actor is and who it is not? 

That would just be really helpful for me to have a better 

understanding, because I certainly do believe our state 
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should, be, providing the oversight in this area. Thank 

you.

MS. FAST: Can I respond to that?

MR. MARTIN: I'm okay. Go ahead.

MR. WEATHERS: Yes, go ahead, Carolyn.

MS. FAST: Would it be possible, and I 

apologize if this is a pain, but is it possible to get 

the language up from my proposal? Proposal that I sent 

around- proposal two, because then it'll show- I'll be 

able to show the language that the Department is using to 

define what is a representative of a state and also show 

the language that I proposed? Would that be possible? 

Okay. If you could scroll down. Super. Thank you so much. 

Scroll down to the second proposal. Yep. Perfect. And 

then right there. Okay so this- the red language is the 

Department's language. The blue language was my language, 

my proposed language. So under this, the- a state or 

representative of a state is defined as including so it 

doesn't say limited to regulatory bodies, enforcement 

agencies, attorneys general and licensing bodies. So 

those are different state agencies involved in oversight 

or enforcement. I added the word offices just because I 

thought it was- added clarity because it looked like it 

was just attorneys general. Could you also scroll down to 

the next proposal, if you don't mind? Okay. Thanks. And 
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then, the issue is governing boards. But in theory, a 

reciprocity agreement could delegate authority to another 

type of body or committee or board or whatever to make 

the same kind of decisions. So I think it would be 

important to have language that goes beyond governing 

boards and says that a reciprocity agreement cannot 

delegate authority to set standards or make 

determinations related to eligibility for state or 

institutional participation to any individual who's not a 

representative of a member state agency or to any entity 

not exclusively composed of representatives. Because, you 

know, we're talking about the governing board here, but 

there could theoretically be any entity. And in fact, the 

NC-SARA policy manual actually gives some kind of 

limited, decision-making power to the NC-SARA president 

who does not have to be a state representative in terms 

of vetoing states decisions related to probationary 

status, which is called provisional status. And the 

citation is included in this proposal.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Carolyn.

MS. LINDEN: Could I follow up my 

question just on a clarification there in terms of that 

definition of state actors? In our state, our governor 

appoints individuals as commissioners to the state 

agency. Are they public or are they state actors? They 
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are legislators. They are representatives of consumer 

protection agencies. They are- they have another full 

time job, but they've been appointed by the governor as a 

commissioner. Is that a state actor or not? Thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Erika. Greg, 

go ahead. It looks like you've got a response. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, I think we would 

have to consider the specifics of that. As written, going 

back to, you know, Carolyn's point about what the 

Department's language says here, we've said including, 

you know, regulatory bodies, enforcement agencies, 

attorneys general and licensing bodies, as part of the 

state. We also included the members of the general 

public, which under Carolyn's proposal, would not be part 

of the actual board itself, but I- as accepted- as 

proposed rather, this is limited to, you know, these 

groups that we've indicated here are entities employed by 

the state enforcement agencies, attorneys general, 

actually acting for the state. I don't know- and in 

appointing commissioners that, you know, could be, you 

know, say extra state entities, I would have some 

reservations about that, but it'd be something we'd have 

to think about. I see my colleague Denise Morelli has her 

hand raised, so, let's [inaudible] wouldn't mind calling.

MS. MORELLI: I think it would just be 
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helpful for the Department, Erika, if you would just give 

us specifics, if you- to what those commissioners do so 

that we would be able to answer that question by the next 

session.

MS. LINDEN: Well, and I guess I can 

certainly try and do that. It's not as critical to me as 

that particular example. I'm just trying to understand 

the limitation. 

MS. MORELLI: Right. And I- yeah, I 

just think for us to have an idea of what other roles 

might be out there besides the ones that we've listed or 

that Carolyn listed, so that just we know. So if there's 

anybody that's in the state that has other entities that 

might fit into the same categories, we would just- I 

would like us to be aware of that.

MS. LINDEN: I'll do my best.

MS. MORELLI: Thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Denise. And, 

yeah, Erika, you could, send that question to your FMCS 

facilitators or put that into the chat. Thank you. Moving 

on. DC, thank you for your patience, sir. You're next. 

DR. PRINCE: Yeah, no problem. As long 

as we get the answers that we're looking for. The 

question I have, the first question I have is, why 

wouldn't the Department of- I mean, let me ask the first 
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question. What is the Department's authority here based 

on its statutes and regulations to actually go after, in 

essence, because that's what it looks like, like if 

you're going after NC-SARA, what regulatory- I mean, what 

statutory authority do you have to do that?

MR. MARTIN: First of all, I want to 

make it very clear that we're not going after anybody. I 

mean, I think that's a- that's an important point to 

make. The Department is not singling out any one entity. 

The regulations we did in our- we don't in our 

regulations mention NC-SARA. We did in the introductory 

remarks because NC-SARA happens to be the biggest player 

in the field. So, but in doing that, we were not 

suggesting that, that this is a, you know, a problem 

indicative of NC-SARA and understanding that, you know, 

regulations are meant to go forward. And there could in 

the future be other- you know, there may well be other 

entities out there which would be covered by this as 

well. We- our authority- and I think I could yield to 

Denise about statutory authority, but, we- state 

authorization is part of the triad that- you know, 

through which we oversee participation in the program so 

that the Department does have a strong interest and a 

strong statutory link to this and ensuring that states 

are fulfilling their responsibilities in providing that 
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oversight and that those responsibilities are not being 

shifted off to other entities, including through these 

agreements. So I think that, you know, we do have a 

strong statutory authority to do that here. And I want to 

reiterate that the proposal here to strengthen these 

regulations is to ensure that that works properly, not to 

target any group. We certainly are not trying to do away 

with the reciprocity agreements or anything of the like. 

And nothing we have proposed here would do that. I would 

ask, my colleague, Denise, do you have any to add to that 

from a perspective of statutory authority?

MS. MORELLI: No. And just again, like 

you said this- the regulations geared towards the general 

concept and it just happens to be that NC-SARA is the 

body at the- at this point in time, but it will cover 

anybody in the future. But our authority is basically our 

authority that there has to be State authorization for 

institutions to be participants in Title IV program. And 

the rest of this stems from that to make sure that, as 

Greg said, that the states are meeting their obligation 

in the triad and not abdicating the responsibilities. So 

that's the focus of this [inaudible].

DR. PRINCE: My follow up question is 

to the Department. If- since NC-SARA is the only one, 

that's- I think that's my interpretation that you're 
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going after NC-SARA, that's your example, it sounds like 

from the group. They're the only ones. However, the 

question then becomes, have you received any other 

request or know of any other activity happening across 

the country that would replicate or subvert or begin to 

develop another sort of NC-SARA, but be called something 

else that would do similar things in this particular way?

MS. MORELLI: I'm not aware of any. If 

any of the members of the committee are, they can 

certainly speak up, but I'm not aware of any.

MR. MUSSER: I'm also not aware of 

any. 

DR. PRINCE: The other question I have 

is why not give this authoritative or regulatory power to 

your accreditation agencies? And require your 

accreditation agencies across the different regions where 

this might be a problem or needs to be reviewed, or 

something of that nature. Why not give it to them versus, 

in essence, trying to build something like this for an 

organization to do?

MR. MARTIN: I'll- because, and let me 

lower my hand here. As I said before, that the oversight 

of the programs is broken down into three entities. 

That's the Department, the accreditors and accreditation 

agencies, and state. So there's three distinct entities. 
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They each have their own role to play. That's in the 

statute. That's also in regulation. Nothing the 

Department would do whatever. We would not- we don't seek 

to take away the role of any of these three entities. Our 

position is that each is- each has its place in the 

integrity triad and we want to make certain that each is 

functioning. We- so it would be- we do not believe it 

would be appropriate to take the function of the state, 

which is State authorization to take any of that intomove it over to accrediting agencies, which is not to 

disparage accrediting agencies. They have their own- they 

have their own parts of this to oversee, as does the 

Department. So we- likewise we would not take what states 

are responsible for and move it to the Department either. 

So there are these three entities. Each has its own 

place. And we would- it would not be appropriate to say 

that those functions which are to be carried out by the 

State would be moved to an accreditation agency, either 

through our regulations or through some type of 

reciprocity agreement.

DR. PRINCE: And my last questionMR. MARTIN: Denise, did you want to 

say something there?

DR. PRINCE: She's on mute.

MS. MORELLI: I did it again. I keep 
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hitting that button twice. The states and the accreditors 

have different roles, and I can't speak to everything 

that they do, but they're different. They look at 

different things. So you would want to make sure that 

everything is covered. Your creditors look at the quality 

of education and various things. States deal a lot with 

consumer protection laws and other elements of their 

authorization and their oversight. So I think that's why 

the statute was- Congress wrote the statute the way it 

was. So there's different specialties that each of the 

parts of the triad perform. And that's why it needs to be 

done independently. And all three have to be done in 

order for it to work the way it needs to be.

DR. PRINCE: And is the intent- and my 

last question is the intent of this- these proposal 

changes while you are built, you are using NC-SARA, which 

only deals with distance education. How does this then 

apply to brick and mortar institutions who might do this, 

as well as independent private institutions? Because I'm 

getting a lot of emails from private institutions saying 

that you're now, by this particular regulation, you are 

now adding more state oversight on private independent 

institutions. And we're supposed to be independent for a 

reason. But then the stipulation, particularly as it's 

interpreted, is not- is moving away from just distance 
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education, but also might be doing this for brick and 

mortars, and that might have an additional nightmare of 

more oversight authorization and processes that, 

particularly privates, in my space, and I know the 

private- and Erika that- who's also representing 

privates, might have to go through in addition to with 

more fees and finances having to pay for this. So is 

there some sort of confidence you can give that this is 

only specific to distance education? Or is there an 

intent, either now or in the future, year or two, to say 

that actually we are expanding this to any sort of type 

of educational offering, regardless of the institution 

status?

MR. MARTIN: John, I see my colleague 

Dave Musser has his hand up. Could you refer that to him?

MR. WEATHERS: Yeah, go ahead, Dave. 

MR. MUSSER: Yeah. Thanks, Greg. So, 

DC, those are good questions. I want to be careful here 

that we keep within the bounds of the discussion on, 

first, State authorization reciprocity agreements, which, 

to answer your question, are specifically about distance 

education. The concept of a board is intended to ensure 

that the oversight of distance education programs is 

carried out by states and representatives of states. And 

that's really our focus here is on distance education 
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with this particular issue. Now there's a different 

question on the issue paper about certain kinds of 

exemptions for institutions which may apply to physical 

locations and institutions that are not offering distance 

education. But I want to make sure we deal with that 

topic when we get to it. So if you have questions or 

issues on that topic, let's just save them for a little 

bit until we get to that.

DR. PRINCE: I'm happy to save that. 

And I know that part of your statement was your concerns 

around the board vetoing sets of policies that come out 

from- that the board could veto policies. And I know Rob 

from SHEEO made a comment to say that as chair, he has 

not seen that happen. While I trust his word, do you have 

any evidence from minutes or of the like? Because there 

seems to be an assumption that there's too much power and 

not enough collaboration or things to come through to 

change this, for such a system to even demonstrate that 

that is not what this organization is doing. Because I'd 

hate for this to be approved with the assumption that NCSARA itself is being a bad actor of its own kind, and 

that's kind of the interpretation we're getting from the 

reading. So I know you can speak to it, but can you 

provide evidence to it? And you're not on trial. So I'm 

not trying to be the prosecuting attorney either.
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MR. MARTIN: I don't have any. Maybe 

some of my colleagues can help with that. I don't have 

any- you know, I don't have minutes of board meetings. 

And to know, you know, the extent to which anybody on the 

NC-SARA board did something like that. But I want to beI think I want to be very careful here to reiterate again 

that our intention in proposing these rules is not to 

identify any NC-SARA or any like organization as a bad 

actor or an entity that certainly with the Departmentwhere the Department identifies bad actors, our goal is 

to, you know, to generally, if there's a bad actor out 

there, our intention is to eliminate a bad actor from 

participation in the programs. That- that's a- that's an 

oversight compliance function that we do. We do not 

consider reciprocity agreements to be facilitating bad 

actors. We're not saying that NC-SARA has done anything 

improper, according to the current regulations. We- these 

proposed rules simply identify areas of weakness in the 

oversight structure. And this is in our intention to 

close those. And in doing so, we are not disparaging anythe actions of any organization, including NC-SARA. I 

just want to make that very clear. 

DR. PRINCE: I think it was more so 

not- just to say that if we're going to go after 

governance and define- and use a proposal defined by 
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someone else's governance is there- you know, is there 

evidence to say that that is a bad practice, right? That 

we're seeing it holistically done in a number of 

different ways that we should be addressing it in by some 

of these proposals? That's all I'm asking. So I hate to 

get into the hypotheticals that, well, that doesn't look 

right. Well, how do you know it doesn't look right? Have 

they actually done it? Has it been a problem? Has it 

stopped something from happening that the Department 

feels it should have changed itself, as any institution 

or organization would be evaluated by. But I think my 

three minutes are up. So thanks, Greg, and the team, I 

appreciate it.

MR. WEATHERS: DC, you have an 

incredible sense of time, so I appreciate that selfawareness. Let me move on to Robyn. Robyn?

MS. R. SMITH: Okay, great. Thank you. 

I just want to address a couple things. First of all, I 

think Erika, Erika's right. I think there was a SHEEO 

study that shows that there are all different kinds of 

state agencies and state agency structures and people 

making decisions in states. But the issue, the reality 

is, is that all state agencies have state employees that 

administer their programs. So the Department could draft 

something. I think it was Barmak noted this, that could-
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they- that requiring that it be a state employee that's 

designated on any kind of organization that administers 

the reciprocity agreements? The second issue I want to 

raise is just because NC-SARA is the only sort of option 

now doesn't mean we can't- that there isn't a possibility 

for some other kind of option, for oversight, for 

example. And I know this is very complex, but for 

example, states could enter MOUs with each other where 

they agree to accept the approval of other states, but 

continue to administer their own consumer protection laws 

or some subset of those. So I think we just need to think 

outside the box and realize that there are other options 

out there. And we shouldn't continue to keep an 

authorization regulation in place that allows for 

students to be at high-risk of being subjected to fraud 

and low quality programs just because we only have one 

option currently. I think the important point here is 

that there is a Higher Education Act with a State 

authorization requirement. The focus of all of our 

discussion should always be students and ensuring high 

quality education and consumer protection for students. 

And that, I think, which is the purpose of the State 

authorization requirement. Thanks.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Robyn. And I 

wanted to make a couple quick, administrative notes. 
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First, John is, back in for state regulators, and also, 

Jesse is back in for student borrowers. Hello, Jesse. 

Welcome. John, you're next. 

MR. WARE: Appreciate it. Yeah, so I 

am a state employee, so I think I would be eligible to 

serve on the SARA board under the current proposal. And 

just a matter of historical context on the reciprocity 

agreements, I've been in state regulation for 25 years, 

over 25 years, and I was actually involved with the 

Council of State Governments, the Presidents Forum, on 

the original drafting of the reciprocity agreement back 

in 2010, 2011. So I have a lot of thoughts on reciprocity 

in general, but I think it's important for people to 

remember the historical context that back before the 

reciprocity agreement, there were approximately 35 states 

or so that didn't regulate any distance out- you know, 

distance ed coming in from out of state at all. So there 

was actually a minority of states that were actively 

involved in regulation and oversight of out of state 

distance ed, entities. So, you know, my concern is if 

reciprocity goes away, I think there's a suggestion here 

that reciprocity is actually bad and hurting thing, that 

if reciprocity goes to away, we're going to revert back 

to where we were, you know, 15 years ago, which is going 

to result in less regulation and oversight for students 
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because, fewer- you know, not- as I said, a minority of 

states, actually, prior to reciprocity, actually 

regulated, out of state distance ed providers. So one of 

the impetus for regulators to support reciprocity was we 

felt at the time- and there were a lot of mostly state 

regulators involved in the drafting of the original 

reciprocity agreements that, you know, it would be- it 

would improve the situation and give better oversight, 

than had existed prior to reciprocity. So I just want to 

point that out. And as I said, I have other comments on 

it, but- and couple comments on the on the makeup of the, 

you know, the, the SARA board. One, just in response to 

Barmak's comment, actually, at the state level, the 

oversight of individuals and professions, it's very 

common to have the actual people in the profession 

involved in that oversight. And I'll just give you an 

example. We have a lot of attorneys I know on this 

committee, attorneys are regulated by attorneys at the 

state level, the bar association, the bar disciplinary 

committee. Those are all attorneys. Nurses are regulated 

by nurses. Doctors are regulated by doctors. So, again, 

the regulation and oversight of entities has 

historically, at least at the state level, involved the 

actual people that are subject to that oversight. So I 

don't think the- I get to that to say, I don't think that 
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the makeup of the SARA board is necessarily something 

unusual as compared to what is currently going on in 

terms of, certainly for professional regulation, but I 

think also in terms of regulation of even other entities 

outside of the professions, certainly again, at the state 

level. And then the final comment I'll make, just as to 

the public members and the proposed language, I think is 

so restrictive that it's going to really eliminate, you 

know, 95% of the people that have any working knowledge 

of higher education or regulation. And just as an 

example, you know, if you worked in the cafeteria at the 

university you attended 25 years ago, you would be 

ineligible to serve. So that's what I'll say. Thanks.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, John. And, 

I'd like just- before Greg, I'd just like to remind 

people to be aware of the three-minute time limit. And, 

we're trying to give you a 30-second heads up on that, 

Greg, I think you had your hand up to respond. Go ahead, 

Greg.

MR. MARTIN: Yeah. I just want to 

make- I think the debate is fantastic, and I fully 

understand that there is a difference of opinion here 

about what's being proposed by the Department. And also, 

some of the additional proposals we had from Carolyn. 

However, I want to make it very clear that nothing the 
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Department has proposed here would eliminate reciprocity 

agreements. It's not the Department's intention to do 

that. I also want to make it very clear that the 

Department does not view reciprocity agreements 

pejoratively, or any entities that administer them. This 

is an attempt to strengthen State authorization rules. 

So, I mean, you could compare it- we might compare it to 

distance education, which we'll get into later on this 

afternoon. The Department is not seeking to do away with 

distance education, nor does the Department feel that 

distance education is bad. We feel it's very beneficial 

in many ways, but that does not mean we don't seek to 

regulate it appropriately. And that's- and I would say 

that the same thing applies here. So I just- again, I've 

got no problem with the discussion on this or 

disagreement with what the Department proposes, but I 

think we all need to be mindful of exactly what the 

Department is proposing. Where are we proposing 

elimination of reciprocity agreements? I think that that 

would be a legitimate subject for debate. But we are- we 

clearly are not, nor do we have any intention of doing 

so.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Greg. 

Jillian, your next. Thank you for your patience.

MS. KLEIN: Yeah. Sorry. I should have 
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asked this before. Just one question. I think this is to 

the Department, because I think it originally came from 

your red line. The term licensing bodies, can you explain 

to me what exactly that is and how that's different from 

regulatory bodies or the rest of the group? I'm assuming 

that's not like a professional licensing body, but if you 

could just maybe provide more color, that'd be helpful.

MR. MARTIN: I could give the example 

of states that have- like a lot of states, for instance, 

have licensing bodies for- an example might be for 

cosmetology-type programs or- there are licensing bodies 

for that for various different types of programs. States 

do have, in addition to, maybe state regulators, they do 

have established licensing bodies to review maybe certain 

sorts of institutions. But I would- Dave- David works in 

compliance, so, I would defer to him if he has any other 

examples he wants to point out there.

MR. MUSSER: I think that's a good 

example. You know, licensing bodies, in- at least in the 

Department's language here are intended to refer to 

either a state agency that has the authority to regulate 

the licensure of certain professions, or, the components 

of this- of the state that are empowered to do something 

similar. It may not be an agency per se. But we're not, 

for example, we're not talking about a professional 
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organization alone. That sets its own rules for the 

profession. What we're talking about is an organization 

that actually has state authority to oversee a particular 

profession in that state.

MS. KLEIN: So that was the answer I 

wasn't hoping for. I guess I'm curious- I'm struggling a 

bit with how, for example, a cosmetology board in a state 

would be germane to this topic that we're talking about 

in terms of sort of state oversight in general. So I 

think I was fine with like regulatory bodies, enforcement 

agencies, and attorneys general. But I justrespectfully, like, I don't think it makes sense to 

include what you're speaking of in terms of professional 

licensing boards to be- or bodies to be included on this 

list. So this is just my general feedback on that.

MR. MARTIN: I would just add that I 

think that when you look at this list, first of all, the 

list is, if we look at the actual red line text, I think, 

Carolyn may have alluded this earlier, we say- when we 

say must- the main language must consist solely of 

representatives from the states so that is the 

restrictive line or the prescriptive language. Then, we 

go on to say including regulatory bodies, enforcement 

agencies, attorneys general, and licensing bodies. So I 

think when we move on to that, those are, may include but 
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not- that's not an exhaustive list. That's basically 

trying to clarify that what we're referring to here are 

if you look at the route there that it's- that it is 

representatives from states, so that- that's what we 

should be primarily focusing on. Because the language is 

written does not provide a prescriptive list. 

MS. KLEIN: But that, as you defined 

it, is actually industry. So I guess I don't feel likeso now I'm more confused probably than I was before, 

which I guess you're going to hear me say that like 20 

times this week, but that feels, sort of at odds a bit to 

me with what I thought you were trying to do, which was 

really limit this to sort of state authorizing authority. 

But if you're including sort of industry folks in this, 

then I feel like that's not in alignment with what I 

think we've been talking about for the last hour. So, 

again, my- I would just suggest to the Department that 

they would- that you would strike that licensing body. 

MR. MARTIN: Okay, cool. We'll take it 

under advisement. 

MR. WEATHERS: I think Dave has somesomething additional to add to that. Go ahead, Dave.

MR. MUSSER: It got covered in that 

discussion.

MR. WEATHERS: Okay. Alright. Great. 
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Thank you, Jillian. Next we have Jamie.

MS. STUDLEY: I simply want to pick up 

the baton from John Ware and underscore the point that he 

was making when he ran out of time in this relay race of 

discussion. If the language that goes forward builds on 

the Department's version, proposed version, I think his 

concern is very fair that public member- that the 

definition of public members is unduly restrictive and 

could stand in the way of securing willing service from 

people who have the knowledge and motivation that would 

be needed to carry out these important responsibilities. 

I've been thinking of examples, but his was perfect. If 

you worked for the college cafeteria 25 years ago, you 

might not be able to serve as a public member, even if 

all of your other professional activities since were 

consistent with the needs of a public seat. So I think 

this notion here and it arises elsewhere of eternal 

barriers, is something that we should think about very 

carefully. Are they needed for the purpose? My concern is 

that they're overbroad, not necessary, and could make a 

difficult task of finding appropriate representatives 

even more difficult unnecessarily. Thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Jamie. 

Alright, moving on. Carolyn, you're next.

MS. FAST: Yeah, I think that it is a 
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valid point that people who are not state representatives 

might have useful information and perspectives to share. 

And that is why it would make sense to include such 

experienced people as in an advisory capacity. The only 

concern is when decision-making power is provided to nonstate actors, that is the concern. And I think it can be 

addressed by having people serve, you know, in an 

advisory capacity and perhaps that language about public 

members could be, you know, opened up a little bit if 

we're talking about it in an advisory capacity as opposed 

to in a decision-making, you know, capacity.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Carolyn. 

Barmak.

MR. NASSIRIAN: I share Carolyn's 

views on this, but, I kept thinking about DC's very 

thoughtful, contextual questions, which I think is 

important for us to answer. I know the members of this 

committee know the answers to these questions, but I want 

to make sure that- because DC mentioned that he was being 

inundated by inquiries from colleagues and from the 

outside. It's important to understand the Higher 

Education Act has a program integrity triad with a 

temporal sequence that says an entity must first- becomes 

a university when it's authorized by its state, then it 

becomes accredited by an accreditor recognized by the 
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Secretary of Education as a reliable authority. And then 

the final step to become eligible for Title IV involves 

the Department of Education certification program 

participation requirement. These are three distinct 

mandatory requirements under Federal Law for 

participation as a college or university, or a recognized 

educational institution in Title IV. They need to be 

separate and when it comes to State authorization and 

this issue of whether you're private, public, your instate, out of state, I want to make it very clear. 

Private institutions have to be authorized by their 

state, just like anybody else. To become a university, 

you have to be authorized. If a private institution were 

to set up shop across the state line from where its main 

campus is, as we have in Washington, D.C., multiple 

institutions that set up physical locations out of their 

primary state in Washington, D.C., guess what? You're 

subjecting yourself to the jurisdiction of Washington, 

D.C., and you need to be authorized by Washington, D.C. 

The question we're answering here today, folks, is what 

happens in the age of the internet when you don't have to 

leave the state of Michigan, the state of Minnesota, or 

the state of California to reach out and enroll somebody 

in Washington, D.C. That's the question. Now, the 

Department would be within its absolute right, and it 
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did, in fact, at one point contemplate this to say, hey, 

delivering education across state lines is no different 

than leasing a building and setting up shop in that out 

of state location and you need to go hat in hand to the 

50 states in order to be separately authorized by each of 

them. That would be within the meaning of current law. 

The Department is extending some additional consideration 

by allowing reciprocity arrangements to create some 

administrative convenience for institutions. So nobody is 

attempting to impose anything new on anybody. If 

anything, we're accommodating institutional concerns. 

This is for the benefit of the public that may not fully 

grasp what we're doing here with the triad. Thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Barmak. 

Alright, well, it doesn't look like there's any 

additional commentary or questions as it relates to 

600.2. Greg, I'll pass it back over to you.

MR. MARTIN: Thanks, John. Thank you 

all for that discussion. We will move on to 600.9 State 

Authorization and the proposed changes there. And if we 

look at the language the Department proposes to add, we 

would go to page six. This- where the red line text is. 

And under three, read from that. The State Authorization 

Reciprocity Agreement must include a process for 

communicating information received on complaints 
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regarding institutions or programs subject to the State 

reciprocity agreement to the state in which the student 

is located at the time of the student's initial 

enrollment, as determined in accordance with paragraph 

(c)(2) of this section. If a State authorization 

reciprocity agreement is administered by an organization, 

the agreement must require that complaints received by 

states from institutions subject to the state reciprocity 

agreement are communicated to the organization. The 

organization must make information received on complaints

public at least annually, including but not limited to, 

the number and type of complaints by the institution that 

is subject to the state reciprocity agreement. And if 

there are no comments from Denise Or David, I'll open the 

floor for discussion on that.

MR. WEATHERS: Seeing no additional 

comments from Denise or Dave, I will move on to Carolyn. 

Go ahead, Carolyn.

MS. FAST: Thank you. I am in support 

of the Department's proposal here. But I think that there 

are some additional concerns about complaints that should 

be addressed, and this is a perfect opportunity to do so 

since the issue of complaints is already being raised. I 

wonder if I could bother the facilitators to provide us 

on the screen my proposal related to complaints so that 
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people could look at it while I'm talking. Would that be 

okay?

MR. MARTIN: That'd be fine.

MS. FAST: Thank you so much. Could 

you scroll down to the one that relates to complaints, 

which I think is the last one, 4, I think? Super. Okay. 

So I just- we felt that it would be important to add 

language that a State authorization reciprocity agreement 

must permit member states to, at the state's discretion, 

accept, investigate, or resolve complaints about an 

institution of higher education that have not yet been 

submitted to a resolve by the institution of higher 

education. And the reason for that is that the current 

situation is that SARA member states who received 

complaints related to SARA programs, are, it appears from 

the SARA policy manual, not supposed to accept them or 

investigate them or resolve them unless the student has 

first exhausted the- whatever they can through their own 

school. That is, you know, sort of fine as long as states 

can, if they want to, accept, investigate, or resolve the 

complaint so that, you know, they can get information 

about what's happening at a regulated school. Because 

otherwise, you know, consumer complaints I know from 

being at the New York Attorney General's office are a 

very helpful way for state oversight agencies to 
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understand what's going on at the school and to identify 

patterns. And sometimes one complaint is enough to 

understand that there's a problem and creating hurdles 

for students to go through, or situations where state 

oversight agencies may not get timely or any notification 

about a complaint doesn't seem to be useful. And of 

course, states have discretion to do- to handle 

complaints however they want. But, you know, currently, 

the SARA policy manual is written in such a way that it 

appears to limit states' discretion on this matter, which 

we think is a big problem. So that is why we have 

suggested this language be added.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Carolyn. I'm 

going to move on to John. Go ahead, John.

MR. WARE: Thank you. Again, I'm a 

state regulator who, you know, directly handles 

complaints, student complaints, so, for many institutions 

in my state, and I'm a little concerned about the 

proposed language. You know, as- I mean, to get 

information about complaints when there's not really 

much, you know, you can do about them, I'm not sure 

that's going to be particularly helpful, I guess, I mean, 

it might be helpful if, you know, there was, a big 

problem somewhere, but typically, I think, you know, 

regulators talk to one another. I think this the proposal 
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kind of presupposes that there's not conversations going 

on. So I know when we've had issues with other states, we 

reach out to the regulators. And that process actually 

happens quite frequently. I think it would be better if 

we're going to share information that we share 

information about adverse actions, or, you know, specific 

things that are done in response to complaints. I think 

the vast majority of complaints don't really result in 

any type of specific disciplinary action. And typically 

they're very student specific. So you're just working 

with this particular student to resolve those issues. So, 

but again, like my recommendation would be to share, if 

we're going to share information, it would be more 

specific to adverse actions or things that state 

responses- that state official responses states- take in 

response to the actual complaints.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, John. Next 

we have Barmak.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Yeah, I want to 

obviously support Carolyn's point. I do take the comment 

John just made very seriously. I don't know that final 

adverse action is the only actionable, but certainly 

there has to be a threshold of concern below final 

adverse action that would be sufficiently alarming or 

sufficient consequence to be worth sharing just for 
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purpose, if nothing else, of situational awareness. I 

want to also take the- this particular topic as an 

illustration of one of the really critical missing 

elements that maybe the Department and the negotiators 

can contemplate between now and the next meeting. And 

that is that there is a sort of a bizarre Hegelian 

synthesis going on here. If the state of Ohio has a scope 

of responsibility for things that happen in the state of 

Ohio, shouldn't the fact that suddenly we go nationwide 

require more resources at the state of Ohio? And, you 

know, one of the things that is happening with this- with 

any kind of a reciprocity agreement, is that we need to 

be mindful of how we allocate responsibility for 

oversight. My concern is that we will write a lot of nice 

words compliant with the framework that the feds may set 

up, and then fail to realize that this is actually a lot 

more work, unless we can come up with some mechanism by 

which the states can allocate primary responsibility to 

particular state actors within that reciprocity framework 

to ensure that things don't fall through the cracks. I 

mean, I'm just trying to figure out where does all the 

extra- alleged extra work go if everybody is in charge of 

every institution? I'm afraid nobody's in charge of any 

institution outside of their own state. So that's a 

missing element that I would encourage us to conceptually 
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think about as we move on to the second round of these 

conversations. And we may offer some language on that. 

Thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Barmak. And 

as usual, if you do have any language that you'd like to 

propose, do so to your FMCS facilitators. Next I have 

Robyn. Go ahead, Robyn.

MS. R. SMITH: Sure. Thanks. I think I 

support, you know, Carolyn and Barack's- I'm sorry, 

Barmak's proposal. From the legal aid perspective, we see 

the state complaint process is extremely important, and 

we- and students really need to be able to file directly 

with the states rather than being required to go through 

some kind of State authorization organization or other 

state before they can have their complaints looked at and 

investigated and followed up on by a state agency. In the 

past, we've had clients who have been retaliated against 

by schools for going to the state agency. We have a case 

right now where there is a school that is sending cease 

and desist letters to students who file complaints with 

the state agency, threatening to sue them if they 

continue to do so. Other kinds of retaliation include 

turning off people's access to the login programs, 

through which they get their materials and interact with 

the school. Harassment and making it difficult for 
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students to get into clinical programs. So there are 

often also very serious, both taxpayer sort of oversight 

issues, financial issues and serious problems going on at 

schools that won't be resolved through a- that need to be 

resolved fairly quickly and looked at quickly. So again, 

students need to be able to go straight to the state 

agency with complaints if they have issues and that is 

why a state reciprocity agreement should not be allowed 

that requires state- that complaints to go through a 

school first.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Robyn. I'd 

like to make an administrative note that Rob Anderson is 

coming in for John Ware for state regulators. Welcome, 

Rob. And moving on. Next is Jillian. Go ahead, Jillian.

MS. KLEIN: Yeah. Is it- can I ask Rob 

a question? I'm sorry. Just from an NC-SARA perspective. 

Is that allowed?

MR. WEATHERS: I think for the sake of 

conversation. Sure, go ahead.

MS. KLEIN: Okay. Thank you. Rob, can 

you explain how this proposal that the Department is 

laying out from a complaint perspective differs from the 

current state process at NC-SARA on complaints?

MR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I'll do my best 

Jillian. You know, I think overall it meets the spirit of 
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what we're trying to do that's already in place. And you 

can go to our website and you kind of see the process and 

the way it rolls out. But there do need to be tighter 

mechanisms around student complaints and how they're 

communicated. And we have to continue to really develop, 

you know, what's an ecosystem of reciprocity? Many states 

individually are currently working on these processes, 

and that there is an acknowledgment that it has to be 

tightened. You know, currently we do collect these and I 

believe that they're shared to member states quarterly. 

But it's also important to note that, you know, there are 

2400 degree-granting SARA-participating institutions, but 

1800 that do not participate or aren't eligible. So 

there's this whole other group as well, and beyond 

talking about SARA institutions. But SARA institutions, 

we do have a process. It does need to be bolstered within 

states. And we have to continue to build this ecosystem. 

But when you have a reciprocity agreement with 49 states, 

I think we're heading in the right direction on that 

front and we do have a process. 

MS. KLEIN: Yeah, thanks. I mean, I 

think that's helpful because I think when I read the 

Department's proposal on this specific- to the 

Department-specific proposal, it read a lot like my 

understanding of what I thought NC-SARA sort of had 
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already created from a complaint perspective. So, I- I've 

just- some- the question is sort of like, and I think 

we've talked about this already, like, are we solving for 

NC-SARA? Are we solving for sort of reciprocity 

agreements broadly? But I just want to make sure that 

there is an actual existing issue that we're solving for 

if we're going to be sort of writing language that 

dictates what sort of a private reciprocity agreement can 

be doing. That said, from a specific perspective, I just 

have a question about what the Department's- who does the 

Department intend to be providing this reporting? I mean, 

is that an institutional requirement? Is it a state 

requirement? I feel like the language is not clear on 

with whom the to-do lies in terms of any sort of 

complaint reporting that they'd be looking for.

MR. MARTIN: Well, I mean, you know, 

as written, we're saying that the reciprocity agreement 

has to have a process for communicating the information 

received on complaints received- rather, information 

received on complaints regarding institutions and 

programs to the state reciprocity agreements. So it's, 

you know, it would be complaints basically forwarded to 

any entity involved in the reciprocity agreement that is 

making certain that it gets to the state that the state 

is located in, at the initial enrollment. So however that 
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would function. So whatever process the student, 

whatever, you know, whether it's a complaint to the 

reciprocity organization or a given state, that it gets 

back to the state in which the student is considered to 

be located in at the time of enrollment. I hope thatDavid, you want to you want to elaborate on that or? I 

think it's intentionally broad to try to cover any 

conduit through which the complaint comes through. 

MR. MUSSER: Yeah, I think that's what 

I was going to say, Greg. The idea is that, you know, we 

want to ensure that the complaints reach the student's 

home state. How that happens is not really expressed in 

the rules. It could be through the reciprocity agreement 

organization. It could be directly from the institution 

to the other state. We didn't specify.

MS. KLEIN: So your intention is to 

say that the reciprocity agreement has to have a 

mechanism by which that takes place, not to be 

prescriptive about the way that that happens.

MR. MUSSER: Right.

MR. MARTIN: Currently, yes.

MS. KLEIN: Thanks.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Jillian. I'd 

like to make an administrative note that D'Angelo Sands 

is coming in for DC. Welcome, D'Angelo. And next I have 
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Diana. Go ahead, Diana.

MS. HOOLEY: Thank you. I have a 

similar, I think, question to Jillian as far the intent 

of when we're saying the complaints have to be presented 

to the State, is there an idea that it would be like one 

particular agency or I don't know if there was any intent 

behind that or if the idea is the agreement would have to 

specify that it's going to go to the regulators versus 

the AGs. That's my first question. And then I have more 

after that.

MR. MARTIN: I can't speak for 

Jillian's proposal, but I can speak from the Department's 

perspective, we're not prescriptive in that regard. We 

just simply say that the agreement has to have that. I 

mean, we're- you know, if people feel that if- that there 

is a need to discuss further language in that regard, 

we'd be willing to do that. But our proposal is- does not 

have that. But if Jillian's is something- I've looked at 

Jillian's, but not in great detail, so I would yield to 

her if hers has any.

MS. KLEIN: It's Carolyn's, just FYI, 

but I [inaudible].

MR. MARTIN: Oh, I'm sorry, not 

Jillian's, it's Carolyn's. It's 99% Carolyn's and 1% 

Barmak. I'll definitely remember that. Yeah, it's 
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Carolyn's, yes.

MS. HOOLEY: Thank you. And then, 

yeah, I wanted to just also support Carolyn's proposal 

here regarding the complaint process. And also Barmak's 

concerns that he raised as well. I get also that perhaps 

there should be some sort of de minimis concern, on the 

types of complaints. So, you know, that's something that 

we'd have to give some thought to. But I think it's a 

fair point. Because as everyone knows, there's- there are 

some like resource constraints that we all face. But at 

the same time, I think that, you know, we do want this 

information. We being the state AGs offices, you know, 

again, in order to best fulfill our role as the triad, 

and in order to ensure that the- you know, these programs 

are operating in the best interests of the students. So, 

thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: I think Dave would like 

to respond to that. Go ahead, Dave.

MR. MUSSER: Thanks. Yeah, I just 

wanted to clarify. I think that, first, everything that 

Greg said is correct. You know, states have a variety of 

ways of receiving and acting upon complaints from 

students about institutions. And we don't want to be 

prescriptive about how states decide to do that, as long 

as it's a state entity that is ultimately taking and 
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acting on those complaints. I think the idea here was to 

ensure that whichever that office is in the state, and by 

the way, it might not be the same for distance ed 

complaints versus complaints about institutions 

physically located in the state, that that is the office 

that receives complaints from the students in other 

states and therefore is able to act on them.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Dave. 

Alright. Moving on. Rob Anderson. Go ahead, Rob.

MR. ANDERSON: Yeah. Thanks, John. And 

I'll keep this brief because I think we just covered 

several of these items, but we do have concerns on what 

further specificity of the types of complaints, because 

we think that's a big issue. And particularly when you 

look at SARA versus non-SARA institutions in these 

agreements, we think we have a pretty good process that 

is continuing to develop. But there are concerns about 

what is left out in States' ability to kind of deal with 

that and to have the staffing to deal with it. And I want 

to echo what Barmak said earlier regarding states being 

in charge of states and making sure that there's 

specificity around some of these processes of who owns 

what to make sure that the work is getting done and that 

states have resources to get it done. You know, one 

reason reciprocity agreements are popular in certain 
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instances, and this one is growing so largely, is because 

of staffing constraints and creating these processes that 

allow students and institutions and states to be better 

served in the lens that we view it through. Obviously, 

continuous improvement is needed on that front. But we 

think the basis is strong. 49 states have signed on most 

of this through legislation. They've operated largely 

through these compacts. And there's been a counterpoint 

made about are they really state actors or not? And while 

I can understand some of that, these compacts were very 

close to with their states and in many cases are within 

the legislation of those states to be a part of these 

compacts. They are closely intertwined. There's tight 

accountability there. So I just wanted to make that 

point. Thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Rob. Moving 

on, we have Robyn. Go ahead, Robyn. 

MS. R. SMITH: Sure, thank you. While 

I think it's important for obviously to make sure that 

complaints are shared amongst states, I think that the 

requirement is meaningless if the home state or the state 

where the student is located doesn't have the power to 

actually do something on behalf of the student or 

investigate or take action against a serious problem. And 

so for that reason, I support Barmak and Carolyn's 
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proposal. And I would note that NC-SARA, while it does 

share information, the distant state or the state where 

the student is located doesn't have any authority or 

ability to do anything on behalf of that student. It's 

important to know that the vast majority of issues, 

especially with for-profit schools, are not addressed 

through Attorney General actions. They're not addressed 

through the Department actions or private lawsuits. They 

are addressed by complaints made to state agencies and 

being addressed through that process. This is the primary 

means by which students can voice issues, raise them, and 

get relief for what's going on with them at their 

schools. For example, state agencies, some of them can 

order the school to pay a refund to a student and can 

also then take action to make sure that whatever's going 

on in the school is rectified. So it's very important to 

back up an information sharing sort of proposal with one 

that ensures that the state agency in the student's state 

has the ability to do something on behalf of the student.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Robyn. 

Moving on, next we have Carolyn. Go ahead, Carolyn.

MS. FAST: Thank you. Thank you, 

Robyn. I think that raises some- a couple of important 

points. One is that we want the state to have discretion 

to act when they want to resolve a complaint. And 
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secondly, that we want the state to be able to take 

action beyond merely resolving an individual complaint. 

But actually, if they need to, take action to address a 

consumer protection issue that is affecting a student in 

their state. Currently, the SARA agreement requires 

member states as a condition of joining to waive their 

ability to enforce education-specific or sector-specific 

laws that they have chosen to put in place to protect 

students in their state. And so that is a concern of ours 

that, states should, at their discretion, be able to 

develop and implement and then go ahead and enforce 

consumer protection. So that is also one of the proposals 

that I have circulated that would essentially be a return 

to language that was agreed to under the Obama 

Administration version of rulemaking that would permitthat would essentially say that states can continue to 

join reciprocity agreements, but that the agreements 

should, other than the- should not require states to 

waive all of these education specific consumer protection 

rules. And this would allow the reciprocity agreements to 

continue to exist for the purpose of waiving the barriers 

to entry for the schools that are related to, you know, 

paying fees, filling out applications for authorization 

and all the different states, and meeting the 

requirements that relate to State authorization, all the 
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different states that they would like to operate in while 

still preserving states ability to, at their own 

discretion, enforce things that otherwise they would not 

be permitted to under the current system. And there's a 

little bit more detail about that in my proposal.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Carolyn. 

Diana.

MS. HOOLEY: Thank you. Yes. And I 

noted this at the outset of the session this morning, but 

that is also- you know, we would- we support that change 

as well. The states need to be able to enforce their 

education-specific statutes and regulations, especially 

in order to make, as I said, sharing of the information, 

meaningful participation, you know, in the governing 

board, meaningful, like it has to be- it's not enough 

that we just know about this information. We have to be 

able to act on it in the best interests of the consumer. 

So I just wanted to lend support to that change as well. 

It's something that we have as states pushed for a number 

of times, and still believe that that is the best way to 

protect consumers in these arrangements. Thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Diana. And I 

see that Scott Dolan will be coming in for Erika. 

Welcome, Scott. And next I have Robyn. Go ahead, Robyn.

MS. R. SMITH: Yeah, sorry, I forgot 
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to mention one other thing. I think we need to be very 

careful about going down the path of sort of saying only 

certain types of complaints should be shared or referred. 

Students have- they don't know the laws. They have a very 

difficult time, I think, formulating complaints and often 

the state agency, and I served as a former attorney with 

the Attorney General's office, so have dealt with a lot 

of complaints. Often, they don't know how to put the 

problems that they're having in their complaints. And so 

often you don't really know what the complaint is about 

until you talk to the consumer and start investigating. 

So I would be very cautious about sort of being 

prescriptive, at least at the Department level, about 

what types of complaints get referred around.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Robyn. Next 

I have Jillian. Go ahead, Jillian.

MS. KLEIN: Thanks. I just wanted to 

respond to Carolyn's comment on her proposal that would 

insert the education- I'm sorry, I don't have the 

language in front of me. Education-specific phrase into 

the segment. And I just want to remind everybody that, 

and I know the Department remembers this, you probably 

have PTSD. You guys negotiated part of this recently as 

you talked about administrative capability and 

certification procedures. And if you read through the 
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preamble in terms of where the Department landed on the 

requirements related to consumer protection laws for 

distance programs, and I'll read it back to you, when you 

limited the changes that haven't even gone into effectby the way, they go into effect in July, around what 

distance programs need to adhere to, you limited it to 

closure, recruitment, and misrepresentation. And you end 

up stripping out misrepresentation later. But, you talk 

about how the Department believes that these are thequote, the biggest sources of taxpayer liabilities 

generated by institutional activities, related to 

distance programs that are operating across state lines. 

So I guess my recommendation, because you just did this 

work, you wrote these final rules, pushed them out the 

door. They haven't even gone into effect yet. We don't 

know how or to what extent these changes already are 

going to curb some of the concerns that I think Carolyn 

and other folks have with respect to reciprocity, how 

reciprocity agreements are operating for programs that 

are offered across state lines. But I would just strongly 

urge the Department to implement these rules that you 

already wrote, see if it- if these are in fact, sort of 

the largest areas that have consumer issues, and then 

consider revising them again in a future rulemaking if 

that's the case, because I think at this point, we're 
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talking about- you know, Carolyn's proposal would be like 

making changes to in-flight rules that haven't even gone 

into effect yet. So I just ask that we consider that 

process as we think about this proposal.

MR. WEATHERS: Caught me on mute. 

Thank you, Jillian. And next, I see that we have John. Go 

ahead, John.

MR. WARE: Yeah. Just follow up on a 

few of the comments. I would just note that participation 

in these reciprocity agreements is voluntary. So, in most 

states, in order to enter the- I know in Ohio, we, passed 

a specific law, Ohio Revised Code, section 33-32.171 that 

authorized participation in reciprocity agreements and 

many other states did the same thing and certainly 

states, if they wanted to enforce their own rules and 

regulations, kind of go back to the pre-reciprocity 

period, they could opt out of the reciprocity agreement 

at any time. So it isn't a mandatory thing that states 

enter into reciprocity. And you know, again, the 

suggestion that this is all new, you know, because 

distance ed and everything is really- I don't think it's 

accurate from our perspective. I mean, we've been dealing 

with distance ed schools, one of the first three schools 

my board approved back in 1971 when it was created, was a 

correspondence school. And we've had many large- that 
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school and back in the 70s enrolled over 30,000 students. 

And in many cases, states are the same where they've been 

regulating correspondence schools, distance education for 

a long time. So, yes, some of this is new, the online, 

the internet, you know, the participation of many public 

institutions and some of the nonprofits, which wasn't 

going on 20, 25 years ago was new. But, you know, at 

least from the regulatory level, we've been dealing with 

distance ed and correspondence schools for a long time. 

And I think, you know, state regulators have a lot of 

experience dealing with those issues. And there's a lot 

of rules and regulations on the books. And my other final 

thought, this is just kind of rambling is that, we also 

have a lot of unaccredited, non-Title IV correspondence 

schools that- actually the largest school we have in Ohio 

that does distance ed is an unaccredited non-Title IV 

school. So again we have to regulate that school. And 

again, other states are in the same position. Thanks.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, John. Next 

we have Scott. Go ahead, Scott.

MR. DOLAN: Yeah. Thanks so much, 

John. I just want to follow up, in addition to John's 

comments, just there around the importance of recognizing 

that states joined these reciprocity agreements through 

legislative action or when it was signed by the governor 
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or through administrative action in these states. So 

they're volunteering to participate in these reciprocity 

agreements. I'm getting a little bit confused as a 

somewhat new negotiator around which language we're 

responding to here. Is it the Department's language or is 

it the recently introduced language from Carolyn and 

Barmak, or just Carolyn? In particular, I think there are 

some concerns that we have as private nonprofit 

institutions about the complexity that, might come from 

the changes in the fast proposal. In particular, limiting 

it only to, the waiving of initial renewed authorization. 

Later in the paragraph in the notes from Carolyn, there's 

a change that makes it so that all state laws are 

applicable to any institution, which I think was 

supported by the State Attorney General constituency as 

well. We see this as fundamentally negating the vast 

majority of the state and institutional benefits of State 

authorization reciprocity. And it's a real challenge if 

we move in this direction. The increased cost and 

complexity that that was caused for institutions as well 

as states really kind of undermining the voluntary State 

authorization agreement that states have entered into. 

So, we say oversight would vary, pretty fundamentally. 

And this would make it difficult for students to 

understand which oversight is applying to them. Whereas 
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SARA provides uniform oversight and protects all students 

regardless of the state where they are located. We're in 

agreement that there are opportunities for us to tighten 

up complaint processes, including, maybe, focusing on 

what reporting on types of complaints, but have some 

concerns about the recently proposed legislation. And I 

don't know if the Department has had an opportunity to 

review it or could comment, but would also be helpful to 

hear where the Department stands on the recently added 

language from Carolyn Fast.

MR. WEATHERS: I see Greg has his hand 

up, so I'll let Greg respond to that. And just as a 

reminder, we are under ten minutes to our scheduled lunch 

break. Just a reminder. Go ahead, Greg. Thank you.

MR. MARTIN: Thanks, John. And to 

Scott's question, I think that, yeah, when these 

discussions come up, it can get a little complicated, but 

I want to be clear that, the- what the Department's 

proposed is what you see in front of you in the issue 

paper that we provided. And this is not in any way to 

preclude or cut off discussion about any aspect of this. 

What we are proposing here that you see in front of you 

currently, obviously, Carolyn's proposal does have some 

differences and a big one being the language providesurrounding education-specific- enforcement of education-
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specific laws. Currently, the Department is not proposing 

that. I just want to be clear that currently we're not 

proposing that. That's Carolyn's alternative. But I think 

that as we engage in these discussions, if people have, 

much as if people have, you know, verbally you want to 

share dissenting opinions, or share something that they 

want to add or feel should be there, I didn't want to 

preclude that just because someone had placed it into 

writing. But I want to be careful to point out that 

currently this is the Department's proposal. As far as 

the Department's position on Ms. Fast's proposal, 

currently, we are not taking a position on those 

additional changes. We will take them under consideration 

and we will seek comment from the committee on those. But 

right now, the Department is not taking a position on 

whether or not we would amend what we are proposing to 

include. That, or anything else will just come from the 

table at this point. So I hope that clarifies things. 

Thank you.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Greg. 

Administrative note, Magin is coming in for Carolyn. 

Welcome, Magin. And I will pass it off to Barmak.

MR. NASSIRIAN: A couple of quick 

points, one, with regard to Jillian's observation that a 

prior rule- negotiated rulemaking did, in fact, produce 
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certain limitations on what reciprocity agreements may be 

able to prohibit the states from enforcing. That one, I 

think, Carolyn and I are jointly to blame for or 

responsible can be credited for. I don't think that 

should prejudice the conversation here. That was within 

the context of Federal certification requirements. 

That's- you know, we were limited in terms of scope of 

what we could get done there. Here we're directly 

addressing State authorization. And I do not think that 

the fact that we took partial action in a prior 

rulemaking should in any way prejudice the merits of the 

conversation around what ought to be done now directly on 

the topic, just for what it's worth. The second 

observation with regard to the fact that the states have 

voluntarily joined the reciprocity agreement, the states 

are free to do what they want to do. That's no- you know, 

we live- you know, that is the meaning of Federalism, is 

that you have divided sovereignty, and the states can 

operate within the scope of their lawful authority and 

the feds within theirs. The issue is not whether the 

states did or didn't pass legislation to do X, Y, or Z. 

The question is whether the Federal government can accept 

what the states did, and the Federal government has clear 

authority to do that. And I want to make sure that this 

notion that the states voluntarily joined should also be 
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understood the other way around. Nobody's forcing any 

institution to go through a reciprocity agreement, folks. 

If you don't like the terms of a reciprocity agreement 

and you think there's a better deal to be had directly by 

going to another state, go for it. Nobody is prohibiting 

anybody from doing that. So the voluntary thing cuts both 

ways. The feds have the authority to define what is 

acceptable to them in this regard. And we're attempting 

to see what the proper terms are for doing that. Thank 

you.

MR. WEATHERS: And Magin, you will be 

our last commenter before our lunch break. Go ahead.

MR. SANCHEZ: There's great power 

here, being the only person in between y'all and lunch, 

so I'll try to be brief. I think- I'll try. But I think 

very important though I did want to second and, from a 

civil rights perspective, support Carolyn and Barmak's 

proposal in large part because when I'm thinking of this 

from the perspective of, you know, first-generation, 

students of color, in terms of- I want to be- a lot of 

them who I work with, I want to be able to tell them, if 

you have a bad actor in an institution, right, there's 

someone you can go to. If there's a playwright in that 

someone being the state has the ability to enforce your 

state laws for it [inaudible] that there's a protection 
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in place for these students. I think it's very important 

to take that consideration because a lot of these 

students, right, particularly when we're thinking of 

first-generation students, they don't have the resources 

to be able to go about and dealing with this issue. I 

think also, you know, incarcerated students, for example, 

that may be very limited to the people that they can go 

to with complaints. And so I think super important to be 

able to have this process and set forth further 

protection.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you very much. 

Appreciate that. Is there anything, Greg, before we break 

for lunch? Okay. We're scheduled for a one-hour lunch. It 

is currently noon Eastern Standard Time. We'll be back at 

1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I look forward to seeing 

you then. Thank you.

 
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Zoom Chat Transcript

Program Integrity and Institutional Quality- Session 1, Day 2, 

Morning, January 9, 2024 

*Chat was copied as presented, as a result minor typos or grammatical 

errors may be present.

From P. JoEllen Price, Financial Aid Administrators to Everyone:

Good morning.

From P, DC, HBCUs, TCUs, MSIs to Everyone:

Fred

From Krystil Smith | FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

Naming convention reminder - P or A for Primary or alternate, 

your name, the group you are representing.

From P, DC, HBCUs, TCUs, MSIs to Everyone:

Reacted to "Naming convention re..." with ���

From P- John Ware, State Regulator to Everyone:

I'm going to defer to my alternate Rob Anderson who has some 

comments on this specific governing board issue.

From P - Carolyn Fast, Consumer/Civil Rights to Everyone:

Would it be possible to share the language I proposed on 

governing board on the screen?

From P - Carolyn Fast, Consumer/Civil Rights to Everyone:

There are no other reciprocity agreements other than NC-SARA.

From P - Carolyn Fast, Consumer/Civil Rights to Everyone:

49 states are members

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Or the student complaint process.....agreed, Jillian.

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofits to Everyone:

Agree with Jillian

From P - Carolyn Fast, Consumer/Civil Rights to Everyone:

I agree with Jillian that Board should be composed of state 

agencies only.

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Agreed

From A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

Most states went through legislation to become members.

From A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

It might be worth noting that public institution employees are 

considered state employees in most states.

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "It might be worth ..." with ���

From P- Barmak Nassirian, Vets to Everyone:

To avoid over-politicizing the process, only state employees 

should be eligible

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofits to Everyone:

Well said, John. The pre-reciprocity history is important to keep 
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in mind.

From P, Laura Rasar King, Specialized Accreditors to Everyone:

Agree with Jamie and John

From A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

Reacted to "Agree with Jamie and..." with ���

From P Jamie Studley- Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

I understand Carolyn's suggestion to change the role of public 

representatives. I was speaking only to the overbreadth of the ED 

proposal defining public members if the ED framing goes forward.

From A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

SARA institutions are authorized.

From P, DC, HBCUs, TCUs, MSIs to Everyone:

@A, Rob Anderson, State Officials I wanted to follow-up on the 

minutes you have that shows NC-SARA doesn't veto policy when its in 

the best interest of consumers, students, their parents, etc.

From A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

I'll work with staff to get that. We have had one no vote. It was 

unanimous and based on a technical issue regarding redlining of 

language.

From P- John Ware, State Regulator to Everyone:

I am going to defer to my alternate Rob Anderson who has some 

thoughts on this issue as well.

From P, DC, HBCUs, TCUs, MSIs to Everyone:

@P - Carolyn Fast, Consumer/Civil Rights Is there a possibility 

to add language on this one, to also report out on those complaints 

(anonymously)? Or provide a list of general complaints with answers 

for public consumption?

From P - Carolyn Fast, Consumer/Civil Rights to Everyone:

Reacted to "@P - Carolyn Fast, C..." with ���

From P, DC, HBCUs, TCUs, MSIs to Everyone:

@John Weathers, FMCS Facilitator I have to step away and @A -

D'Angelo Sands - HBCUs, TCUs, MSIs my alternate will be on camera.

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofits to Everyone:

What if students moves? Is state of initial enrollment relevant?

From P Jamie Studley- Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

Definitional question for ED to consider: (3) says complaints 

reported to state in which the student is located at the time of 

initial enrollment, while the proposal on p2 refers to the state where 

the student resides. Greg just used the located language. 

Consistency/clarification.

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Shouldn't the complaint reported to state in which the student 

resides at the time of enrollment? Makes more sense to me.

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

current enrollment

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofits to Everyone:

Carolyn's language re: education-specific consumer protection 

laws would effectively negate the benefits of reciprocity agreement.

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofits to Everyone:

Scott Dolan will step in for private nonprofits.

From P, Jessi Morales, Student/Borrower to Everyone:

On Robyn's comment: There have been instances where a number of 
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veteran students were complaining about access to certain items that 

seemed to be surface level complaints and ended up being a pattern at 

a specific school and program. So yes, agreed!

From A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

Regarding Jilian's earlier question:

From A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

4.5c

If a person bringing a complaint is not satisfied with the 

outcome of the institutional process for handling complaints, the 

complaint (except for complaints about grades or student conduct 

violations) may be appealed, within two years of the incident about 

which the complaint is made, to the SARA Portal Entity in the home 

state of the institution against which the complaint has been lodged. 

That SARA State Portal Entity shall notify the SARA State Portal 

Entity for the state in which the student is located of receipt of 

that appealed complaint. The resolution of the complaint by the 

institution’s home state SARA State Portal Entity, through its SARA 

complaint resolution process, will be final, except for complaints 

that fall under the provision “g” below.

From A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

And 4.5a

a. Complaints against an institution operating under SARA 

policies go first through the institution’s own procedures for 

resolution of grievances. Allegations of criminal offenses or alleged 

violations of a state’s general-purpose laws may be made directly to 

the relevant state agencies.

From P - Carolyn Fast, Consumer/Civil Rights to Everyone:

My alternate, Magin Sanchez, is coming to the table to comment.