Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and Institutional Quality - 3/5/24 

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 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

 OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

 NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING PROGRAM INTEGRITY 

AND INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY 

 SESSION 3, DAY 2, AFTERNOON

MARCH 5, 2024

On the 5th day of March 2024, the following 

meeting was held virtually, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 

p.m.
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P R O C E E D I N G S

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon everyone. 

Just a really brief update from the FMCS team. It's going 

to be about another five or so more minutes before we 

have the full committee reconvened. So, expect us to go 

live and resume discussion on state authorization at 

about 1:20 Eastern. But we want to give you a quick 

update. We'll be back soon. Welcome back everyone. Sorry 

about that fakeout. We were back mere seconds after I 

posted that quick update. We are back. Thank you for your 

patience in that brief delay we are going to resume 

discussion on state authorization. My name is Brady 

Roberts with FMCS. And I will turn it right back over to 

the committee for any questions they have that they want 

to pick up our afternoon session with. Yeah, Rob, go 

ahead.

MR. ANDERSON: In the spirit of making 

some progress and issues we've discussed so far, I would 

like to recommend or ask for a- about a 15-minute caucus 

with the Education Department and a number of negotiators 

around applicable state laws and education specific laws, 

non-state actors on boards, as well as the exemption 

piece we discussed. Trying to make some progress there 

and believe a side conversation might be helpful.

MR. ROBERTS: You said about 15 
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minutes?

MR. ANDERSON: 15 would be great.

MR. MARTIN: Can I address that before 

we- the Department does intend to call it- a caucus very 

soon, but- along those lines. So if you just wait until 

we get to that- and that- and then we'll see if that 

suffices for your needs?

MR. ANDERSON: Sure.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, great.

MR. MARTIN: Yeah. That'd be great.

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah. We can circle back 

to that. Anyone else have a question or a comment for the 

committee to kick us off?

MR. MARTIN: Let me just address, 

Brady, before we move on, the outstanding question ofhold on a second here. The outstanding question that we 

had before the break, which was with regards the removal 

of the language that was in (d)(1)(2) that was formerly I 

think it was romanette one. And that was the provide for 

a state-led process through which participating states 

can propose and collectively adopt, modify, or eliminate 

substantive policies of the agreement, including policies 

on state and institutional participation and the scope of 

reciprocity. Such a process, and such state adopted or 

modified policies cannot be overruled by any external 
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entity- entities that administer the agreement. And we 

had a question of why we- why we removed that text. So I 

want to respond to that. We did that in response to 

concerns we received about that text. And after 

consideration, we determined that we did not want the 

proposal to be specific to NC-SARA, we're codifying the 

process with respect to any organization where that might 

change. We also consider that removing that language and 

retaining what is in three, administered by an 

organization the governing body of such organization must 

consent- consist solely of representatives from state 

regulatory and licensing bodies, enforcement agencies, 

and attorneys general offices to be a middle ground 

between where we were asked to be from- you know, given 

what- the proposal we got from various negotiators. Thank 

you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. Any reactions 

or additional questions for Greg on that subject? Rob, 

we'll turn it over to you first, keeping in mind your 

original request, did you still want to call that brief 

caucus?

MR. ANDERSON: Please, if we could, 

yes.

MR. MARTIN: Well, we will. Let me 

just- I'll start with the Department's request for caucus 
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and see- well, certainly we don't preclude anybody from 

doing anything else but the Department would like to call 

a caucus with the following individuals from the private 

not-for-profit sector, Erika Linden and Scott Dolan and 

from state reps. Rob Anderson and John Ware. So we would 

like to propose or call that caucus rather.

MR. ROBERTS: If it's- more than 

happy, and then Rob, following the results of that 

caucus, we can obviously call for more. And Greg, you say 

about how long? Same timeframe, 10 to 15?

MR. MARTIN: Give us 20 minutes.

MR. ROBERTS: 20? Okay. We'll check 

back in 20.

MR. MARTIN: [Inaudible] come back 

faster.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, we canMS. MORELLI: Greg, that would include 

Dave and me as well.

MR. MARTIN: Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. I 

also, want to include, yes, David Musser and Denise 

Morelli. My mistake.

MR. ROBERTS: Gotcha.

MR. MARTIN: Thank you, Denise.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay.

MR. MARTIN: Thank you very much.
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MR. ROBERTS: I can set that up for 

you.

MR. MARTIN: Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Welcome back everyone, 

as we had that brief caucus. I'm going to turn it right 

over to the Department to Greg for a report-out.

MR. MARTIN: Thank you, Brady. And 

welcome back everybody. We did have a caucus with Erika 

Linden, Scott Dolan, John Ware, and Rob Anderson. And the 

purpose of that caucus was to see if there was any room 

for potential compromise here, which could lead us to 

consensus. So the Department has some proposed text that 

we discussed with those individuals. We want to put it in 

front of the entire committee and get people's responses 

to what we propose and people's reactions rather and then 

I'm going to have Vanessa put up on the screen that 

language so you can see the modifications there. But 

before we begin walking through it, I'm going to ask 

David Musser to just go over the- go over the concept 

briefly because I think it's important to know what thethe gist of what we're proposing here holistically before 

we actually walk through the language. So, David, do you 

want to give a brief overview of that?

MR. MUSSER: Yeah, absolutely. So we 

heard a number of concerns from negotiators about 
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eliminating the exemptions and the potential for that to 

be disruptive for states, for schools, for students, and 

potentially make it more challenging for schools to 

comply with various requirements. And the Department 

doesn't necessarily agree with that. However, 

acknowledging the concerns, we decided to offer some 

compromise language that we think strikes a balance 

between the Department's goal of ensuring that states 

oversee institutions with large presences in their 

states. And by that, I mean large enrollments in their 

states compared with other institutions, while 

eliminating much of the language that we had proposed 

around the- striking those- the opportunities for 

exemptions, both for physical- certain things at risk 

with respect to physical locations and nearly all of the 

things that we had proposed striking related to 

reciprocity. So that's the general approach. The idea 

would be that the Department- we are doing an analysis of 

NC-SARA data that is- actually goes down to the school 

level regarding how many students the schools enroll, the 

schools that are members of NC-SARA enrolls in each 

state. The Department's doing some analysis right now to 

determine what might be statistically valid thresholds to 

set in order to establish a threshold that addresses our 

concern about schools that have very large presences in 
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states where there is essentially a greater risk for the 

state and its students given that large presence, the 

possibility of closure, the quality of the instruction in 

that state, etc. In those cases, we would maintain the 

requirement that we currently have in the proposed text 

for schools that have students enrolled in a particular 

state over the threshold that we determine, we would 

require them to be directly authorized by the state as 

opposed to through reciprocity. But if they were 

authorized through reciprocity, it would mostly be status 

quo as to what- what's in the current regulations. So to 

make this a little clearer, we can go through the exact 

language that the Department has come up with so far. We 

did this somewhat quickly, so if there are things that 

you see in here that don't seem consistent with the 

approach that I just described, certainly we're open to 

feedback about that. But that's the general approach.

MR. MARTIN: Thanks, Dave. And here 

Vanessa has shown up on the screen here the proposed 

amendatory text changes. So this goes back to an 

institution described under 600.4, .5, or .6 as legally 

authorized in the state if the state requires the 

institution to comply with any applicable state 

authorization or licensure requirements, and all 

applicable state laws and regulations except as provided 
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under paragraph (d)(2) romanette two. And that's the 

reciprocity that we'll look at at the moment.

MR. MUSSER: Well, one second, though, 

I want toMR. MARTIN: We should make a 

clarification about the fact that- you want to make 

clarification about the brick and mortar part?

MR. MUSSER: Well, yeah, I just want 

to- every time- for each of these, I'd like to- I want to 

make sure that the intent is clear for what this change 

represents here. Here, we are essentially adding an 

exception to the general requirement that an institution 

comply with all applicable state authorization or 

licensure requirements. So anything that a state has 

determined applies will apply except as provided under 

paragraph (d)(2) romanette two, which is the reciprocity. 

So this means that if you are physically located in a 

state, you are required to comply with applicable state 

authorization or licensure requirements, or if you are 

directly authorized through [inaudible] for distance 

education either because you can't be covered by 

reciprocity or because you are above the threshold that 

we will set, you are also required to comply with any 

applicable state authorization or licensure requirements. 

The state could, of course, determine which things are 
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appropriate to require for schools that are offering 

distance education. I think we could scroll down now.

MR. MARTIN: And here we're under the 

reciprocity agreement. If an institution is authorized to 

offer distance education in another state under a state 

authorization reciprocity agreement as defined in 600.2, 

and you'll see the change here. Allow any member state of 

the agreement to enforce its own applicable general 

purpose state laws and regulations outside the initial 

approval for state authorization of distance education.

MR. MUSSER: And again, yeah, the 

intent here is to revert generally to status quo where 

the- if you- if a state is a member of a reciprocity 

agreement and a school is also participating in that 

reciprocity agreement, the state can agree as part of 

that agreement not to enforce certain laws and 

regulations, except for general purpose state laws and 

regulations. And then just some renumbering here. So 

here- sorry, not quite there. So here, as you can see, 

you know, we currently have 500 here. And we- our 

original thought was to look to other regulations where 

we set a threshold which, in fact, were the tier two 

requirements under cash management. We heard from 

negotiators that they were looking for a more substantive 

basis for a threshold if we were going to establish one. 
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The Department agrees with that, and that's- for that 

reason, we decided to go to the NC-SARA data and look to 

more supportable thresholds based on a statistical 

analysis that we're- that we're doing right now. So there 

may be a couple of options that we can put up here. We 

haven't landed on a specific number yet. Greg will 

explain the implications of that in just a second. But we

wanted to walk through with all of you, the committee, at 

least the approach here before we actually do the digging 

to get into the actual number.

MR. MARTIN: So, yes, as Dave pointed 

out, we don't- our purpose here is to show the proposed 

language. We don't have a number established yet. We are 

working on coming up with one that has some statistical 

validity. Dave is working on that as we speak, they're 

looking into that, but we wanted to put this up as a- asto at least explain the concept of where we hope to go 

with this. And before we- anything else we want to say 

about that, Dave? Because before we open this for 

discussion, I want to go back and look at the exemptionthe changes we made to the exemption language as well.

MR. MUSSER: No, nothing. Nothing else 

on this.

MR. MARTIN: So. Alright. So let's 

just go back and look at some of the other changes we 
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proposed under (a)(3) as part of this compromise as well. 

And going back to- let's make sure. So here's some of the 

changes we made here. If- you can see here, if the 

institution under the exceptions we put in here, we've 

removed the sunset language and added as for the 

exceptions, is a public institution backed by the full 

faith and credit of the state or a charter or statute, 

constitutional provision, or other action issued by an 

appropriate state agency or state entity establishes the 

institution by name as an educational institution and 

that we still have- we left in the state action exempt 

institution based on the institution being in operation 

on or before November 8th of 1965 without undergoing a 

change of ownership. And we have put back in the 

accreditation language here, which is- or left that 

rather, state exempts the institution based on the 

institution's accreditation by one or more accrediting 

agencies recognized by the Secretary, based on the 

institution's being in operation for at least 20 years, 

that we still have the expiration for that. So I think 

that covers all the changes that we proposed as part of 

this compromise. And we want to open the floor for 

discussion on this to get- and I think what I'd like to 

go with this is to get a feeling from people whether or 

not this is something that we think could ultimately lead 
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to compromise or- and consensus where you stand on this. 

Is this a nonstarter for you, or is this something you're 

amenable to now or could see yourself agreeing to with 

some changes? David, do you have anything else you want 

to say before we open the floor? Denise?

MR. MUSSER: Not for me.

MR. MARTIN: Okay, Brady, we can open

the floor for discussion.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, Greg. Yeah, any 

thoughts on the concept as it's been presented, 

obviously, having not seen the finalized language with 

the figures included? Barmak, go ahead.

MR. NASSIRIAN: So if we can put the 

text back up, if that's possible.

MR. MARTIN: Go ahead, Vanessa. 

Thanks.

MR. NASSIRIAN: And go to the first 

change that Dave talked about. The very first edit. I 

think the highlighted like teal language there should be 

(d) Arabic 1, romanette two.

MR. MUSSER: Yeah, I saw that just a 

second ago. Thank you, Barmak. So that's one more 

numbering change.

MR. NASSIRIAN: I'm gonna- so that's 

constructive contribution. Now, my critical contribution. 
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Obviously, this is a retreat from adequate protection for 

students. Again, I think students who are online are at 

greater risk than students who are in person. Exposing 

even a small number of students in a state to a greater 

risk from out-of-state institutions when everybody who's 

attending in person, the safer option arguably, gets 

greater protection is just inherently intellectually 

problematic for me. Having said that, obviously the 

number you pick will have a lot to do, and I'll be 

cynical here and say that I understand that whatever we 

do, institutions are very likely to co-opt it for their 

convenience. And therefore, if the number is really tiny, 

if the footprint of the institution is really tiny, I'm 

kind of ready to resign myself to it on the assumption 

that, you know, fraud and predatory behavior really only 

works at volume. You really aren't going to go defraud 

two people here, five people there and call it a 

business. Fraud works on steroids. So the number matters 

to me enormously. But I'm very uncomfortable with this 

construct, quite candidly. So that's one comment. The 

other change you made to the exemption language. You want 

to make sure that- I'm not certain that community 

colleges are necessarily covered by this. Now, I don't 

want to go as far as using the financial responsibility 

language the Department took this from, but you've edited 
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out, like local government agency. Some of these 

institutions are public, and they may be backed by the 

full faith and credit of a local government, not just the 

state. So that's just something to consider. I'm hopeful 

that the community college reps here are going to give us 

a good solution, but just speaking on their behalf in 

this case, I just want to make sure that we don't 

inadvertently exclude them from this exemption. And then 

on the issue of the privates, again, the concern has been 

expressed to me by some privates that that language of 

based on implies a- kind of a causal requirement but in 

the state that the state cites the higher ed act as the 

reason they're exempting, and it should be based on years 

of operation if the institution has been in continuous 

operation on or before November 8th. I can put that in 

the chat just for you to consider. It's just a somewhat 

attenuated way of saying the same thing without basing it 

on the causality of the state having to cite the- HEA as 

the reason or the date as the reason. So those are my 

preliminary comments. Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you, Barmak. 

Carolyn, we'll go to you next.

MS. FAST: Yes. Thank you for thinking 

through this proposal. This doesn't seem to be at a place 

where I could consider supporting this particular 
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compromise, however, and I just want to put that out 

there. My main concern is that losing all of the progress 

in protecting consumers in the language reciprocity 

agreements without even knowing what the number is going 

to be, is just- in terms of the threshold, gives me no 

reassurance that we've solved the problem. It's possible 

that the threshold could be anything and therefore 

entirely meaningless as a way of protecting consumers at 

schools that, you know, have a footprint in states. So 

this is sort of like that unknown makes it impossible tofor me to understand whether this would provide any 

protection that we're looking for students at a scale 

that- you know, that would be helpful and meaningful. So 

unfortunately, I don't see a way that I could support 

this proposal at all.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you, 

Carolyn. Robyn.

MS. R. SMITH: Yeah, I agree with 

Carolyn and Barmak. And I wanted to make a comment on 

specific language. I'm wondering if you could put up the 

section where you talk about outside of the initial 

approval for state authorization, I don't remember where 

it was. Sorry. Oh, that's it, that's it. Actually, that 

was it. You can roll back up. Sorry. Okay. So it's 

subsection- I think it's now little I. You say allow any 
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member of the state of the- member state of the agreement 

to enforce its own applicable general purpose state laws 

and regulations outside of the initial approval for state 

authorization. The problem with the initial approval, 

that last part of the sentence, is that states shouldn't 

have to be required to approve schools through a state 

authorization reciprocity agreement if, for example, the 

general purpose laws are violated, if they're engaging in 

some kind of fraud in violation of their UDAAP laws, they 

shouldn't still have to approve them. So I have a problem 

with that language and the way it's worded. The other 

part is that there are other types of non-general purpose 

laws that can apply to institutions that this would allow 

reciprocity agreements to waive. For example, there are 

new laws regarding private student loans and how they may 

be collected and when. And more and more institutions are 

making these private loans and arranging them. So I think 

the Department needs to be really careful about going 

down the path of just requiring only compliance with 

general purpose laws. And finally- and so yeah, I also 

cannot at this point, consent without more information.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Robyn. John, 

you're next.

MR. WARE: Yeah. I appreciate 

Department coming forward with this proposal. I think it 
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makes- from a state regulatory perspective, it makes a 

lot more sense because, you know, the biggest risk is 

obviously going to be the larger institutions. And I 

could envision a you know, an authorization process at 

the state level for those type of institutions where you 

know, states calculate the risk in terms of 

authorization, where we could say, we'll authorize you, 

you know, as long as your state has the following 

protections in place for consumers. If not, if it doesn't 

have bonds, tuition funds, or whatever consumer 

protections you deem important, then the state could put 

those in place on the larger institutions, I think again, 

I think that makes a lot more sense to me. And I 

appreciate the Department putting that proposal forward.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, John. 

Jillian.

MS. KLEIN: Thanks. I have several 

comments, so I'll try and get through them and hop back 

in line if I need to. The first is I want to ask a 

question back to Dave about the comment that you made as 

the setup here, and I would like to understand the data 

that you're using to sort of justify this approach. So I 

tried to jot down what you said. I think what you said 

was the Department has concerns about schools that have

very large presence in states where there is, quote, a 
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greater risk for the state given the large presence, the 

possibility of closure, and the quality of the 

instruction in that state. So can you provide the 

Department's data that they're using to indicate that 

online providers of education are providing low-quality 

instruction?

MR. MUSSER: So the data is 

essentially coming directly from NC-SARA. It's their data 

on- that are reported by members. So it's specifically 

about institutions that are members of NC-SARA and the 

number of students in each state. And we- excluding, at 

least in our analysis, excluding the students in the home 

state since that's not really an issue here. And yeah, I 

think if we could send it- send around the data that we 

were looking at for this and just to be sure people 

understand it.

MS. KLEIN: So NC-SARA has data that 

indicates that online providers are providing education 

that consists of lower quality instruction? That's what 

I'm asking because that was what your comment was, Dave. 

And so I'm trying to understand that comment as a 

rationale for this proposal.

MR. MUSSER: What we're saying is 

states should have the ability, if they choose, to focus 

attention on schools where they are- where they've 
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identified problems. And I may have spoken a little bitwithout enough care there. But the range of things that 

the Department is concerned about include academic 

quality, among many other things. The specific kinds of, 

for example, tuition refund policies the school may have 

and that is a direct- have a direct impact on students 

from a consumer protection perspective. The idea here is 

that we didn't- we left the language intact that would 

require a school to comply with all applicable state 

requirements if they are directly authorized by the 

state. So if the state believes that schools with large 

presences in their state that are operating in their 

state at scale want to apply for example a fee or a 

tuition recovery fund to protect their students and 

ensure that they have a little bit more oversight over 

schools, the states can do that, and schools will have to 

be subject to those requirements if they exceed- if their 

enrollment exceeds that threshold. So it's not- academic 

quality is one of the many, many things that the state 

might want to consider when it- when it's considering 

whether to take other action against the school, what 

requirements it might want to set for all the schools 

that exceed this threshold, etc.

MS. KLEIN: Okay. So I guess my 

follow-up comment would just be- so you guys, I'm not 
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opposed to the idea of coming up with the right triggers 

to require an institution to have to apply for, I guess, 

what we're calling direct authorization. I think the 

number- any number threshold is arbitrary, and I don't 

think it gets at where real risk lies. And let me give 

you an example. So- and these are illustrative numbers, 

right. But for example, pretend Capella University 

enrolled for the last ten years, 2,000 students in Texas 

without any problems, as opposed to an institution that 

is enrolling 50 students in Texas and gets into all sorts 

of trouble and has just started enrolling students there. 

I just think there is a way to be sort of more precise in 

how we get at the risk here in a way that creates the 

least amount of work for state authorizers who are going 

to have to do this work and also protects in the right 

way students and taxpayer funds. And so I would suggest 

the Department- and I think this is hard, right, to my 

comment yesterday, like we're running out of time and I'm 

happy to put something in writing as a proposal and come 

back again. I don't know if we're extending the state 

authorization topic beyond today. But ways to think 

about, you know, is there like a plus or minus enrollment 

percentage within a state that would count as a trigger 

for when a student or when an institution would have to 

apply for direct authorization, for example, in that 
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state, or something else that makes more sense from sort 

of a risk perspective that could maybe help us get to 

consensus, or we could look at some of the sort of 

closure triggers in general that I think have been widely 

accepted by this Department and others in terms of like 

composite scores- please, i know there are negotiators 

that hate that, or adverse actions or actions by a state

or Federal agency against an institution that could 

instead be used as triggers for direct authorization, 

instead, again, of pointing to a number. And here's where 

I'll agree with Barmak and Carolyn and everybody else 

that like, it's very hard for us as negotiators to 

respond to this proposal when there's no actual- like we 

don't know what we're responding to because there's not 

an actual number that's in there. And I think that sort 

of points to the arbitrary nature of it. So I guess it 

would be helpful for people to come back with a different 

proposal or what's sort of- how do we think about the end 

game here in general?

MR. MARTIN: Well, it is true that we 

are getting- you know, we are getting to the end, close 

to the end and the time for any additional proposals is 

fading away, obviously. I mean, the concept of a numberMS. MORELLI: I think if- Jillian, ifI think if you have a suggestion, you should come back 
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with it because I don't think we contemplated a consensus 

vote until we came up with the number proposal anyway. So 

if there's members that want to come up with some 

language, we are under time constraint though. I mean, 

we're talking has to be like probably tomorrow so that we 

can- a vote can be done on Thursday if that's where we 

push it off to. But I think we have to know there's going 

to be some kind of proposals coming in to push the- you 

know, in addition to the number.

MR. MARTIN: You know, can I ask, are 

you amenable to any number, Jillian? Or is it the concept 

itself of having a threshold, is that a nonstarter for 

you?

MS. KLEIN: Well, I think to my 

comment, I don't view- I understand everybody's 

perspective, so no disrespect meant at all. But I think 

if you're going to use a number which feels a bit 

arbitrary, there are better ways to use it. For example, 

a sort of plus or minus enrollment within a stateMS. MORELLI: What do you mean by 

that?

MS. KLEIN: Like did the- if the 

institution increased or decreased enrollment of students 

in that state by 15% in a year, that they would be 

subject to direct authorization, or at the point where an 
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institution crossed a threshold, whether that's 500 or 

1,000 or 100 or whatever number you come up with that 

that, for the first time, that that institution would be 

subject to direct authorization for, I don't know, three 

years, five years, I'm not sure, but I'm just trying to.

MS. MORELLI: Well, I'mMS. KLEIN: I recognize that there are 

instances where institutions have been enrolling larger 

number of students in a particular state for literally, 

literally decades now without any issues. And so trying 

to be more specific about how we get at the risk 

conversation without casting this really broad net that 

is- I think is unnecessary in some ways.

MS. MORELLI: I just think that you 

should put forward whatever you think we should consider.

MR. ROBERTS: And I would just say 

briefly, just based on the conversation that I'm 

overhearing, it's- it probably makes the most sense to 

delay a consensus check until- I mean, at least until 

tomorrow, if not until Thursday. And so I guess I would 

just say, you know, any negotiators that are hearing the 

conversation or submitting questions or offering 

feedback, and they're not quite comfortable with the 

concept as it's being proposed, and they think that they 

might be able to offer a different one, if you're able to 
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commit that to writing and send that around or send that 

to us so we can send it around. I think we hopefully will 

still have time to consider everything before taking that 

consensus check if that- and that's to the entire 

negotiating committee. Obviously, hearing today that 

there's at least one concept that has a little bit more 

refining that needs to take place vis a vis the figures 

that are, you know, still to be determined. Okay on that? 

Okay. Diana.

MS. HOOLEY: Thank you. Yes, I mean, I 

agree with the concerns that were raised by Carolyn and 

Barmak and Robyn. I would be very- it would be very 

difficult for me to- you know, for us to be able to 

support a proposal that doesn't include the states being 

able to enforce applicable state laws. I think that I 

don't know that there is a number that would give me the 

comfort that this- I'm not saying that there isn't, I 

just don't know what it would be. And I think the example 

of, you know, if it's 50 students, you know, that's 

enough students, you know, that if there's fraud going 

on, you know, that we should be able to you know, act on 

that. So I don't know what that minimum number is. And 

again, I think that we did make a lot of progress on the 

proposal leading up to this. And it looked- you know, it 

looked like we would be able to, you know, support some 
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of the earlier language. But as it's written right now, 

the- with or- you know, certainly without the number, I 

wouldn't be able to support it. And with the number, I 

don't know that it would make sense. So I- you know, 

we'll see what gets proposed. But again, our concern here 

is if there is fraud going on in our states, we should be 

able to investigate that and enforce it. Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Diana. The 

last hand that I see up at least for now, is Jamie's. If 

it's okay with everyone, let's take Jamie's comment, and 

then we can move to cash management to at least begin 

that discussion today. So, Jamie, take it away.

MS. STUDLEY: My question goes to the 

exemptions that the Department is or is not willing to 

revise about. I really appreciate your sending around the 

state authorization response document three that we just 

received. And in the flurry of papers, I went to the very 

last line. The question was, what are the problems the 

Department is trying to solve that were not resolved 

after the 2010 version of 600.9? And- which I believe 

goes to the exemptions for the 20 years and accrediting 

agencies. The Department said, the Department has seen 

examples of abuses, such as misrepresentation that should 

fall under state authority and enforcement, but do not. 

To my mind, these are two different things. One, the 
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authorization slash exemption is the entry point. It's 

the beginning of the relationship with the institution or 

the recognition of a long-standing relationship. The 

fact- the continuing monitoring by both the state and the 

accrediting agency, once an institution is in operation 

and in this case authorized by a state, remains in 

effect. So, to my mind, issues like misrepresentation 

that are covered by general consumer protection laws 

remain the authority of the state to enforce. They alsowithin the scope of the accrediting authority, we have a 

role to play there as well. So the Department's- what 

seems like the main reason not to allow the exemption, I 

think is just not accurate. It's not what happens. 

Authorization- the exemption is the starting point of the 

connection and then the state, thank you attorneys 

general, and consumer protection agencies then continue 

to have all the responsibility and authority to deal with 

misrepresentations that might happen. I think anybody's 

trying to duck that, it's a continuing requirement to 

satisfy the laws and the accrediting standards. So to my 

mind, if that's the Department's reason, it would be very 

logical to go back and look at that exemption. Same thing 

for the 20 years. It doesn't mean, and now you're home 

free. It means okay, you start, you're in, and now we 

monitor you under whatever set of laws we- the Department 
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ends up promulgating and allowing the states to enforce. 

That's a separate question. The consumer protection laws 

would always apply, and therefore you don't have tothat's not the place to worry about it. It's the 

continuing monitoring responsibility that we all have.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Jamie. 

Alright, Erika, do you want to be the super last final 

comment on-? Okay, and then we will move to cash 

management, okay.

MS. LINDEN: Yes. And I'll be quick. 

Can you share what that proposed language is for us to 

have tangibly to look at?

MR. ROBERTS: This is the Department 

you're asking for this from?

MS. LINDEN: Yes.

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah.

MS. LINDEN: The things that you had 

up on the screen for this last would be great. Thank you.

MR. MARTIN: Yes, we'll share that.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Greg, do you 

want to take a- just a quick five just to get everything 

set? 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, we're going to take 

a- let's take a break till 2:30 if that's seems okay.

MR. ROBERTS: 2:30? Okay.
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MR. MARTIN: Yeah.

MR. ROBERTS: We will take a break and 

then we'll have an hour discussion on cash management and 

then move right along to public comment.

MR. MARTIN: Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Welcome back 

everyone as we transition the discussion over to cash 

management. Just to tee us off, Greg, I'll turn it right 

over to you to introduce the issue.

MR. MARTIN: I see Emmett has his hand 

up. So you might want toMR. ROBERTS: Oh yeah, Emmett, go 

ahead.

MR. BLANEY: Yeah, I was just hoping 

to ask for a brief caucus with just myself, my primary 

Jessica, and the Department for, like, five to seven 

minutes.

MR. ROBERTS: Five to seven minutes. 

Do you know who from the Department you'll be requesting?

MR. BLANEY: Let's see who's here. 

Looks like Greg and Denise and Dave. I don't know if 

anyone else is on, but ifMS. MORELLI: What is the topic, 

Emmett? Is it cash management?

MR. BLANEY: It is cash management.
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MS. MORELLI: Then that's the three of 

us.

MR. MARTIN: Okay. That's us.

MR. BLANEY: So, you three.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, so seven 

minutes. I'll check in in about five. Alright, sounds 

good. I will create that room right now. Alright. Welcome 

back, everyone from that brief caucus. Emmett, I'll turn 

it right over to you for a report-out.

MR. BLANEY: Yeah. Just wanted to make 

sure that the Department kind of understood the context 

behind one of the cash management proposals that myself 

and Jessi had submitted previously. Nothing to report out 

other than, you know, looking forward to contributing to 

the discussion on cash management. So, thanks.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Thank you so 

much. I want to just briefly note that we're about 45 

minutes from public comment. So, folks, if you do have an 

assigned slot, please feel free to log on about 15 

minutes beforehand. Sophie is at the table for legal aid 

organizations, and DC is at the table on behalf of HBCUs. 

So, Greg, I'll turn it over to you.

MR. MARTIN: Thank you, Brady, and 

welcome back everybody. Let's- we're going to move into a 

discussion of cash management, which we'll spend the rest 
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of the day on today and then pick up- pick back up again 

with tomorrow. So I'll have Vanessa pull the documents up 

and we'll start right from the beginning. We will walk 

through this section by section with, for the most part, 

discussion on each section, except for the first one 

here, just kind of a pro forma change. So, if you can 

just arrow down a little bit here, Vanessa, to the change 

in- right there, (g)(4), and this has to do with student 

eligibility. So you can see here the general [inaudible 

01:49:09] students are eligible to receive Title IV HEA 

program assistance if the student either meets all of the 

requirements in paragraph A through M. That's student 

eligibility collectively of this section or meets the 

requirements of paragraph N of this section as follows. 

And you- we see here that we have made a modification 

here; is not liable for a grant or Federal Perkins loan 

overpayment for which the student has not made 

satisfactory repayment arrangements with the school or 

the Department. The student receives a grant or federal 

Perkins Loan overpayment if the student received a grant 

or Federal loan, or Federal Perkins Loan payments that 

exceeded the amount that he or she would be able to 

receive. Of course, no one is receiving any Federal loan 

payments anymore. Or if the student withdraws that 

exceeded the amount he or she was entitled to receive for 
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non-institutional charges. So this is just a conforming 

change. We will be discussing overpayments when we get to 

the end of this paper, which is in what we've changed 

that text in 668 167. So I- if anybody wants to say 

anything about this here, they're welcome to do so, 

although we'll be discussing this topic at the end of the 

paper when we do overpayments in general and repayments. 

But I don't want to preclude any comments if there are 

any.

MR. ROBERTS: Any specific feedback on 

this section or Greg and team move on? Not seeing 

anything immediately, Greg, I would say keep going.

MR. MARTIN: Okay. And just want to 

point out again that we will be discussing this topic 

just not at this point, but that could change if 

necessary. So the first, the next thing I want to go to 

then is, I believe in 164, 668.164, crediting a student's 

account. And we are in (c), crediting a student's ledger 

account. And you can see here that we have- I'm just 

going back to the basics here. The institution may credit 

the student's ledger account with Title IV HEA program 

funds to pay for allowable charges that are associated 

with the current payment period. And will be given what 

those allowable charges are, tuition fees institutionally 

provided food and housing, conforming to the new statute, 
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getting rid of an old favorite of mine, room and board. 

Assess the student for the payment period or as provided 

in paragraph (c) of this section, the prorated amount of 

those charges if the institution's debts- debits rather 

the student's ledger account for more than the charges 

associated with the payment period. So to change here 

going back to what we had done earlier, an institution 

may only include the costs of books and supplies as part 

of tuition and fees if the student is confined- is a 

confined or incarcerated individual, as defined in 34 CFR 

600.2, where we have that definition. So essentially 

removing the we had retained that the institution may 

demonstrate that there was a compelling health or safety 

reason. We had eliminated that. And we are putting back 

in that that the student is a- is confined or 

incarcerated. We don't believe with respect to the health 

or safety reasons that it's necessary to retain that. We 

haven't seen all that many instances where that's 

occurred. And in thinking about that provision, we see it 

more as providing an opportunity for a loophole than it 

would be addressing any real concerns. We have seen 

instances where some schools would try to, as a matter of 

health and safety, say, for instance, that, you know, 

it's a matter- as a matter of health and safety, you need 

to have a particular brand of something or could use this 
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provision to unnecessarily constrain students in what 

they can purchase. So we again, have eliminated that. 

Let's move on to the next change. Yes, which is the cash 

value of meals. This is under (b), any funds. Allocated 

for cash value meal plans for recipients of Title IV 

program funds must be fully utilized for the benefit of 

respective students. And here is the change. No 

institution may retain any unused cash value meal plan, 

and any remaining balance at the end of the payment 

period must be returned to the student as soon as 

possible, but no later than 14 days after the end of the 

payment period. School may not be- is not required to pay 

a remaining balance that is less than $1. So we see here 

when a student- with a student's written authorization 

under 668.165 (b)(1) romanette 2B, which is under 

authorizations, the institution may retain the unused 

cash value of the meal plan through the earlier of the 

end of the academic year, or 14 days after the end of the 

payment period in which the student ceases enrollment at 

the institution or apply any unused cash value meal plan 

funds to unpaid allowable charges. I want to stop there 

with the meal plans and open it up for discussion on that 

portion, please.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. I saw a few 

hands go up and then come down. I do just want to note, 
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and I neglected to mention this earlier. Dom Chase is in 

on behalf of business officers. So apologies for missing 

you Dom, but welcome. Barmak, go ahead.

MR. NASSIRIAN: The question on- let's 

see, it's 164, 164(c)(1) romanette 1A. The text reads, an 

institution may only include costs of books and supplies. 

Do you mean the verb include? Or do you mean auto bill? 

Because if- you know, if an institution wants to charge, 

I don't know, $5,000 tuition and give away books, is the 

Department going to get into the details of how they came 

up with that tuition amount, and then judge whether the 

books may or may not be included? I think what you really 

want to do is change this to automatically bill the cost 

of books and supplies, not including tuition, because the 

institution have the right to give stuff away for free as 

part of their tuition, I would hope.

MR. MARTIN: Yes. An institution does 

have that- they can certainly give things away for free, 

although I think it is a legitimate question. You know, 

it- we do- well, we do expect that it wouldn't be used to 

game, you know- saying that giving away things for free 

as far as like as gaming the provision in order to fold 

the costs, to actually fold the costs of books and 

supplies into tuition. When we say include in tuition and 

fees, that's the current- the current structure allows 
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schools to- I wouldn't know if I call it automatically 

bill, but certainly because the student, even under the 

current rules, does have an opt-out provision. So I don't 

know if- but it does allow for a school to bill tuition 

and fees and build those books and supplies charges all 

at once as part of the program cost. But this- what this 

essentially does is eliminate that. The school would 

still be allowed to offer books and supplies under- even 

under inclusive access for that. But as a matter of it 

being just included in tuition and fees for which the 

institution does not need to seek the student's 

authorization for tuition fees and for room and board 

charges- I'm sorry, meals and housing charges, that arethose can be- those are institutional charges for which 

the school does not have to seek authorization from the 

student. So what we're doing here is taking away that 

authority for books and supplies they cannot be part of 

tuition fees. And now making it such that the student has 

to- would have to give his or her authorization in order 

to do that. David, did you want to make a- David or 

Denise, do you want to make a comment here?

MS. MORELLI: I just want to ask. I 

think Barmak's just suggest- you're not arguing about the 

principle. I think you're suggesting that we need a 

language change to get to what we want. And you're 
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suggesting auto-bill? That's kind of a weirdMR. MARTIN: I'm not sure we have the 

concept of auto-bill, though. I don't- I'm not sure 

that's going to work.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Bill- to bill students 

for the cost of books and supplies. I think include is a 

problematic construct here, candidly. You don't want to 

get into an analysis of components of tuition here.

MS. MORELLI: I understand.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Yeah. 

MR. MARTIN: How about this? Barmak, 

the language that- Dave Musser's got some text he sent 

me. An institution may not require students to pay for 

institutionally provided books and supplies, including as 

part of tuition and fees. Would that be-? 

MR. NASSIRIAN: Yeah.

MR. MARTIN: Sways your concerns?

MR. NASSIRIAN: Yes. Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: And thank all of you. 

Alyssa Dobson's coming in for public four-year 

institutions. But first Jillian, you're up.

MS. KLEIN: Yeah, sorry for the dumb 

question, and I swear I must have missed this, but so the 

addition or change to the student is a confined or 

incarcerated individual. Can you- I don't understand why- 
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can you just talk about that change and the rationale 

behind it? I'm sorry.

MR. MUSSER: Yeah, weMR. MARTIN: Yeah. Well, confinedthose students have no- those students really have no 

option to purchase elsewhere. Dave, did you want to make 

a-? 

MR. ROBERTS: I can put a little bit 

more context behind this one. We had a great comment last 

time that the approach that we were creating was actually 

inconsistent with requirements that we had included in 

the regulations for confined or incarcerated individuals, 

which essentially says that we- that schools have to 

include books and supplies in those students' tuition and 

fees because there's generally no way for them to obtain 

those materials on their own. And even if there were, 

there are some distinct and unique risks to allowing them 

to do that in that setting. And therefore we are- we 

require schools to- you know, they could charge them 

separately, but they ultimately- the school has to be the 

one that charges them and directly for the materials. So 

we are essentially just accommodating that here. 

MS. KLEIN: Got it, thanks. The 

context is super helpful.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Thank you. 
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Magin is in on behalf of civil rights organizations and 

consumer advocates. But first, Dom, go ahead.

MR. CHASE: Yeah. Thank you, Greg. 

Greg, I think the encouragement of it being a part of 

tuition is inflationary on pricing in nature as it 

becomes a component of something else. And I think that 

the separate discrete fee is what- what is an advantage 

of the programs as the language currently allows. One of 

the things we've been talking about here is the 

procurement of Microsoft Office Suite licenses for our 

students, which certainly an individual consumer could go 

out and get a license for access to Microsoft Office, 

Word, Outlook, etc. as an individual, but the 

institution, to ensure that the students have- are 

equipped with the right tools in order to be successful, 

purchases those at volume on behalf of the students so 

they're able to be successful from the first day of 

class. The health and safety is a significant issue for 

us. We have welding programs where students need oxygen 

tanks and our PPE, as we saw during the pandemic, PPE is 

not the same across the board. Some are certified and 

effective and some are not. As for the current 

regulations, they were adopted in fall of 2015 and took 

effect in July of 2016. Over the last eight years, the 

regulations have benefited students in multiple ways, but 
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most notably in two respects; leveraging the volume 

purchasing power of institutions to lower the actual cost 

to students for books and supplies, and ensuring that 

students have books and supplies on the first day of 

class, which study after study has shown to improve 

academic achievement. The Department and others have 

expressed concern throughout this process regarding 

transparency of costs, the ease for students to opt out, 

and ensuring students who opt out receive those funds. 

Without explanation, the Department has rejected 

reasonable proposals from the entire institutional 

community. The institutional community's proposals would 

both preserve the benefits of the current regulations, 

while also enhancing protections to students through 

clearer pricing disclosures, more frequent and accessible 

opt-out processes, and ensuring that students who opt out 

from inclusive access programs receive monetary credit. 

The Department has doubled down on its position over the 

course of this negotiation, and proposes to address 

reported bad acts by dismantling the entirety of the 

regulations in lieu of ensuring compliance with the 

existing regulations. The very predictable result will be 

fewer students participating in inclusive access programs 

to the extent they remain viable at all. That means 

lessening the purchasing power of institutions to get 
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below market pricing for books and supplies, thereby 

increasing costs for students and fewer students being 

fully prepared with books and supplies on day one of 

their courses.

MR. MARTIN: So I can address some of 

those. But before I do that, I'd like to put up- Vanessa, 

could you put the rule back- the applicable language back 

up, please? And I would like to look at one more section 

I think we need to look at before to look at this- to 

discuss this under romanette two, the amount incurred by 

the student. Could you go there? There it is. Thank you, 

Vanessa. So other allowable charges here, the amount ofincurred by the student for the payment period for 

purchasing books, supplies, and other educationallyrelated goods and services provided by the institution 

for which the institution obtains the student's or 

parent's authorization under 668.165(b), provided that 

for each payment period, the institution individually 

discloses the cost of such books, supplies, and other 

educationally-related goods and services to the student 

prior to any authorization being signed, and the student 

or parent chooses to purchase those books- those 

materials provided by the institution, and the 

institution makes those books or supplies available to 

students at or below competitive market rates. And I 
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think the salient language for me is where we say that 

where the institution or parent chooses to purchase those 

materials provided by the institution. In composing these 

rules, I would counter that the Department has not in any 

way precluded schools from offering books and supplies to 

students. And I would argue that if the- if what the 

institution is providing is obviously head and shoulders 

above what students may be able to obtain on the open 

market, that most students would opt for taking thattaking what the school is offering. So in proposing this, 

we are simply making it such that the student has to 

agree to purchase those books and materials from the 

institution. As far as the provision on health and safety 

goes, we- although we've removed that exception, it's 

still possible for schools to- in determining what books 

and supplies students must have, using your example of 

welding- welding supplies, it's possible for the school 

to mandate the quality of materials the institution must 

have. I mean, the student must have, must purchase, such 

that the student would not be able to- would not be 

allowed to use inferior grade materials in the class. I 

understand that institutions would like to, for the sake 

of ease, include this in tuition and fees and have 

students have this- it's certainly- how do I want to say 

it? Faster for the school to do this or than this- than 
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the other way. But we believe that there's a compelling 

need to give the students choice, and I don't accept that 

we are precluding anything in offering these rules.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Thank you both. 

Alyssa, we'll turn to you next.

MS. DOBSON: Hi. So it seems like 

we're talking about two different sections, and I'm going 

to comment briefly on both of those. The cash value of 

meal plans and then the book issue. But I think it's 

important to introduce the concept that some institutions 

actually bundle their meal swipes with the- what we- most 

of us would call flex plans, which would be the cash 

value component, meaning that those dollars don't 

necessarily equate to the a dollar for dollar directly, 

meaning the student's benefit. So like a contemporary 

example would be, you know, you bundle your home and your 

auto insurance and you save money. So these students 

actually- are actually receiving higher flex amounts 

because they're bundled with the swipes. So I think an 

unintended consequence of changing this, where we have to 

then refund those in any dollar-per-dollar world where 

they're not necessarily mathematically the same would 

mean that we would all change. Students would lose out on 

that benefit. Essentially meal plans would become more 

expensive. And I was glad to see that you did introduce a 
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de minimis amount. I do think a dollar is not necessarily 

enough. The burden of issuing checks for between $1 and, 

say, $5 and then chasing that money around is not 

necessarily worth the dollar that it is to even a very 

poor student for- I'm not sure that they would even cash 

the checks. And then we have the obligation of refunding 

those to a different source. And finally, with regard to 

the inclusive access regulations you know, from the- the 

students and other folks that we've heard from have 

clearly indicated that when they're being unfairly 

charged or charged more than they could be in the private 

market, that they're dealing with an institution who is 

not conforming to regulation now, meaning they're out of 

compliance currently. And so I just- it's kind of a 

rhetorical question, but what makes you think if you 

change the regulation that they're going to follow it 

later if they're not following it now? There are lots and 

lots of students who benefit greatly from inclusive 

access programs, including at my institution and others 

in the four-year public sphere. And, you know, changing 

the regulation to combat bad actors generally isn't going 

to work. I would maybe suggest putting something in the 

audit guide, the audit book that would require evaluation 

of inclusive access programs while leaving the regulation 

as it was in hopes to target the bad actors and not 
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everybody, including the students who also benefit from 

those programs. Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Alyssa. 

MR. MARTIN: I want to address the 

meal plan. I'll address the meal plan issue, you know, in 

saying that our, you know, the impetus for doing this 

has, you know, with the cash value of meal plan is thatand I- certainly where there's cash value but the school 

offers more in the way of the student can purchase than 

the actual cash value, I would applaud that. But I think 

we have to go back to the reason why we proposed this to 

begin with, which is that when there is actual cash 

remaining on a student's account, it's- I think one hardpressed to suggest that it's- that it is in any way a 

good or positive thing for an institution to really be 

able to sweep that money back. That is- you know, 

there's- I can't view that in any other way than that is 

actual cash value money that that is student money that 

is there that, you know- and I can see that it may 

require some accounting and changes of schools. It may 

present some inconvenience to institutions. But I, we see 

it as pretty clear-cut. That is, you know, that is- and 

we have made a distinction here between meal swipes the 

students have paid for in advance and actual cash value, 

that where that exists is simply- is not- it's just- 
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simply is not acceptable from our perspective to go in at 

the end of the semester or whatever and just sweep that 

money back. So that's I guess, where we are with that. As 

far as inclusive access goes, again, I reiterate that 

we're not precluding any of these plans. I still ask the 

question that if what the institution is offering is 

obviously a great benefit to students, why then students 

wouldn't want to provide their authorization for the 

school to provide this? We've made that- we've made 

provision for that in the regulation where with the 

authorization so we can go ahead and do that. Okay, thank 

you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. Magin, go 

ahead.

MS. SANCHEZ: I want to talk about 

textbooks, but just quickly on the meal plans, I think, 

again, it's a reminder that it's the student's money. And 

I think that point goes to, you know, not to beat a dead 

horse, but the important of- the importance of including 

the value of the meal plans, the meals themselves, right? 

Outside of that, also, in terms of the incarcerated 

student provisions, I did want to emphasize [inaudible] 

something was brought up by constituents on this, the 

importance to offer guidance in terms of- for 

institutions to offer transparency in terms of billing 
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that takes place, right. Even if that's the only option 

for institutions to provide for textbooks, there should 

still be some type of clarity in how those institutions 

make those decisions. Oftentimes, students are left in 

the dark in terms of how their Pell grants are used. So 

I'm not sure that necessarily would be in the regulation 

itself, but for the Department to keep that in mind.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Magin. 

Jillian, go ahead.

MS. KLEIN: Thanks. So I want to raise 

again the issue that I raised in February. And I know 

Jamie had an example of this as well, and I think 

surprised everybody, Barmak even sort of agreed with what

we were saying. Which is, I have concerns about the 

continued elimination of the language. It's on page three 

or it was on page three, number two, romanette one, which 

says the institution documents on- or it said, the 

institution documents on a current basis that the 

bookstore supplies, including digital or electronic 

materials, are not available elsewhere or accessible by 

students enrolled in that program from sources other than 

those provided by- provided or authorized by the 

institution. And I am hearing loud and clear that if 

something is available more cheaply through an 

institution, students should be willing to go that route. 
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And I understand that. But that doesn't work with the 

examples that I provided and Jamie provided in terms of 

what this looks like in institutions in real life. So I 

provided the example of my institutions curating content 

from across several different books or publishers or 

resources and sort of pulling them into one book or 

resource for our students so that they don't have to buy 

12 different books, they just buy one that contains all 

of the chapters or competencies that we would expect them 

to be able to master for a particular course that they're 

enrolled in. I think Jamie gave the example of faculty 

members who sometimes create their own content and bundle 

it together and provide it to students in support of a 

class that they're offering. And in both of those 

examples, there is no way for me to use the language that 

you are proposing that would require me to demonstrate 

that I'm offering it to a student below market price, 

because there's no- the thing that I'm talking about 

doesn't exist anywhere. So I guess I would like to hear 

from the Department. I think I've sent a couple of 

proposals that reinstate that language. I- how can I- how 

can we have a conversation about this, or what can we do 

to be helpful in this way? Because I do think that the 

way that it's used by institutions is actually an 

advantage to students in terms of not having to buy 12 
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books if an institution can sort of bundle them together 

in a way that's more efficient for students, but would 

love to hear from the Department, sort of where we can go 

on this.

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, I can understand 

that, you know, institutions, professors, instructors in 

designing their course materials have integrated 

articles, excerpts from books, you know, whatever into 

materials that they want to include in the- you know, for 

the course. And I think, you know, we always- you have to 

balance that off against, again, giving students- what 

this does is give students the choice to either authorize 

that or not to. It is a- I do concede that under the 

current regulations, there is an opt-out provision for 

students to opt out of doing it. And every student has to 

be given that option. But the way we are viewing it here 

is that, you know, for students to spend their money on 

these course materials, they should agree to opt into 

that decision. As far as the fare, where we say the 

institution must make books and supplies available to 

students at below or competitive market rates, I think, 

and maybe I'll ask Dave to opine here, but where the 

school- if it- if it's material that clearly has no 

equivalency, you know, out there in the market, you're 

right, there might not be something which has an 
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equivalent to it. I think where possible you need to do 

this. And even where that material is very specific to 

your school, I- we still argue that the student would 

have to make the choice to opt into that. But David, do 

you want to make a comment here?

MR. MUSSER: Yeah, I think the 

Department actually does recognize that this is a kind of 

a tricky part of the rules. You know, I think one of our 

goals is to allow institutions to provide materials to 

students that the institution obtained at little to no 

cost. For example, open educational resources. If a 

professor goes into their own textbooks and pulls out 

things that they want to pull together for the student, 

again, they didn't spend a dollar on any of the- of those 

books, but they- that they are still pulling it all 

together to provide to the student for virtually nothing. 

I think the Department would be interested in suggestions 

from negotiators. And if I'm remembering correctly, this 

was something that- this was where Barmak was in 

agreement last time that these kinds of materialsMS. KLEIN: Say it again, everybody 

needs to hear it again.

MR. MUSSER: Well, this is my 

recollection, so Barmak, correct me if you think I'm 

wrong here, but these kinds of materials where there 
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really isn't a cost to the institution, I think if youso going back to the Department's concern here, you know, 

the- one of the things that's difficult with this, with 

the existing reg is that the transparency- and this is 

something that you guys have all brought up as well, is 

non-existent currently. And I know negotiators for 

schools have offered options to show- to give more 

transparency toward, you know, the amount that the books 

actually cost them and that they're costing students. But 

even then, the ultimate question, I think, is how much 

did it cost the institution to get the materials? And if 

it cost the institution almost nothing, I think the 

Department is open, and I'll look to my colleagues here, 

open to language that will- allows the school to then 

transfer those non-cost materials to students in a 

seamless way. And that may not be represented in the 

current regulatory language. And we've just- it's 

something that we've been thinking about and that I 

haven't quite seen how to get to. So if folks have 

suggestions about that, I think we would be open to them. 

But it is something that, you know, our main concern are 

cases where, you know, the institution is providing 

materials to students. Yes, there's a requirement that it 

be at or below market rates. How do we know that that's 

really true, how- what is the institution's analysis for 
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doing that, etc.? But when it's- when the institution 

gets it for nothing, well, there's no analysis to do 

because there's nothing to compare it to. And we know 

that it's- they're getting it for the lowest possible 

price. So I guess if you guys do have options on that 

front, we'd be interested.

MS. KLEIN: So, I guess I'll say I 

think there's a couple. So I've only provided two 

examples. One of them, obviously was Jamie's. My example 

is slightly different than that, which is the scenario 

where we are curating chapters or yeah, chapters from 

particular- from a lot of different books, from 12 

different books and bringing them together as we build, 

for example, our competency-based education courses, 

though I don't believe this is specific just to CBE in a 

way that creates a brand new, not available anywhere else 

material for students that we obviously are paying for as 

we're putting together a compilation of 12 chapters. So 

it doesn't fit into what you're saying, but also there is 

no way for me to price match or price compare because 

this book doesn't exist anywhere else. So I don't know, 

that's where I'm looking for either. I'm happy- I mean, I 

can come back to you again and resubmit what we already 

submitted. I want this exercise to be fruitful, though, 

if the Department is serious about trying to figure out a 
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way to solve- or legitimate concerns like this one. But I 

guess I'm struggling a bit with this example, and I think 

there are probably a lot of other ones that are similar 

to, but not exactly the same as this one, and how the 

Department would suggest that institutions would be able 

to adhere to this requirement that we compare to the 

price on the market when there is actually no- there is 

no way to do that.

MR. MARTIN: Well, I think there has 

to be. I mean, we say here the institution makes those 

books and supplies available to students at or below 

competitive market rates. So where you- what you've just 

discussed, you know, would, under these rules obviously 

still require the students- the authorization. As far as 

the competitive market rates goes, you would be required 

to make it. I think an effort to look for that- if there 

is no- if there's nothing- if there truly is not- if 

there's nothing to compare it to, then I don't- then I 

would ask my colleagues to weigh in. If there truly is 

nothing to compare it to, then I think that you've done 

your job. However, I- we do have to point out that- and I 

not for a moment suggested that you would do this at all,

Jillian, but I don't want to go too far in saying- in 

offering people an option to game it by saying, well, you 

know clearly what I have here, there's no comparable- 
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there's nothing comparable on the market, therefore I can 

I can charge whatever I want. But in the instance you 

pointed out where, you know, you've bundled those 

particular materials into one thing and specific to that 

class, yes, I would concede that it might not be 

something out there you can directly compare it to. And 

maybe we can address that in the preamble language.

MS. KLEIN: No, please don't address 

it in the preamble. Please address it in actual 

regulatory text. That's a terrible idea. 

MR. MARTIN: Well, I don't know that I 

can offer- I mean, I don't know that I can offer- we can 

offer, you know, what you want there, you know, as far as 

the regulatory text. 

MS. MORELLI: IMR. ROBERTS: Denise, did you want to 

weigh in?

MS. MORELLI: Well, I want to ask 

Jillian a clarifying question or the other negotiators. 

How widespread is this? Because you're talking about your 

competency-based, which is your institutions, your chain 

of institutions does that. But how widespread is it in 

terms of institutions across the Title IV realm, that 

they pull from a bunch of different books and put into a 

book that's not available? I think we need- the 
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Department would like to know that or need to know that 

in terms of crafting any kind of additions to this. I'm 

not saying we're open to that, but I think we need to 

know what we're talking about, what we're dealing with 

out there. I don't know, Alyssa, maybe your constituency 

can tell me this. Is it- and different- this is different 

than when one professor has, you know. 

MS. DOBSON: No, yes, we do that in 

the Pennsylvania State system of higher ed. I won't say 

it's every class, but it's not uncommon to, you know, 

usually from the same publisher but a few different 

chapters from different books, bundle that and price it 

reasonably like, for instance, at my institution it would 

be somewhere around $25 or $30. It's not- which is 

unheard of in the realm of textbooks. But yes, we do 

that. Maybe not anymore. We do that currently.

MR. ROBERTS: Anyone else want to 

weigh in on this particular element? Alyssa, your hand is 

up next, so I would turn it over to you. I do just want 

to briefly remind the folks that have signed up for 

public comment to please start logging on so we can 

transition to that part of our day in a timely fashion. 

But, Alyssa, please go ahead.

MS. DOBSON: Yeah. So I just think a 

little bit more elaboration on this whole opting in 
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versus opting out. You know, we have a pretty fairly 

robust inclusive access program here at Slippery Rock and 

within the state system in Pennsylvania and some of my 

neighboring states as well. Opt-in won't work out because 

opting out doesn't necessarily work either. So I see most 

and I mean most- the last time I ran statistics was, 

granted, a few years ago, but 98% of my students ended up 

fully in the inclusive access program, and those who did 

opt out ended up very quickly once they realized that 

they couldn't find those materials elsewhere at a lower 

price, trying to opt back in. And then I do think it's 

important to introduce the concept, you know, kits and 

other equipment is not necessarily just a proprietary 

exercise. So the largest school in my system has found a 

way to purchase- this is such a strange example, but I 

think it helps frame the issue, clay at a much reduced 

price, and then they can offer that to their art students 

annually at half of what it would cost them to go to the 

cheapest outlet store, which they don't want them to use 

outlet anyway. But if we had to do an opt-in for that, 

students don't understand and they just see this charge 

that they can opt out of, and it's very tempting and easy 

to opt out of that charge. And then when the class 

starts, now it's too late for them to opt into that 

program. Opt-out still works. Most of the reputable 
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schools who operate within this realm have at least a 

two-week period for the student to opt out, so if they 

find that the book or the supplies or whatever it may be 

are not meeting their needs or were too expensive, they 

can still opt out even after they've had the chance to 

utilize the material or review the material. The reason 

that we can offer it at such a low price is because we 

have the opt-out versus opt-in scenario that helps the 

inclusive access program work.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you, Alyssa. 

Emmett, go ahead.

MR. BLANEY: Yeah, thank you. I think 

it's a little- it paints students in a naive light to say 

that we're going to just immediately opt out of something 

because there's a button that says opt out. So I just 

wanted to respond to that and also say that, again, in 

that scenario, I would encourage folks who have schools 

that have opt-in to encourage students to opt in. That 

seems a little repetitive, but yeah, the opt-in/opt-out, 

neither working feels a little confusing for me, but if 

it- if the prices are truly better for a student to opt 

in to a school's program, like we are going to do it- and 

so I find it funny to say that opt-in won't work at the 

same time as you're saying, but it's saving students so 

much money to have this inclusive access program. Then I 
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would- like I will be lining up for your inclusive access 

program, opting into it if it is truly saving so much 

money. And then I just wanted to call attention to a 

letter. We had it sent out to all the negotiators today. 

The Department had already received it. Hundreds of 

students and student organizations have signed on to the 

letter, you know, detailing the actual data behind 

inclusive access programs. And the last thing I'll say on 

that is I think someone said in the chat, Barmak maybe, 

that comparing book prices to market rates is not 

effective, because even as some of folks, who on the 

other end of the spectrum of this argument have pointed 

out, you know, textbook prices have been steadily 

increasing market rates, and it's because textbook 

publishing companies can increase their prices. And so if 

we're comparing them to the market price, it doesn't 

quite make sense, because if they can artificially 

inflate the price, that means they can artificially 

create savings. So sorry if that was a little off the 

cuff, but just wanted to reiterate that again, if- I hear 

the argument being but this saves students money, this 

saves students money, this saves students money, and I 

appreciate the Department saying it is students money. So 

I would put those two things forward and say that if it 

does save students money, we will opt into it. I guess 
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that's my comment.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Emmett. Joe, 

who's back for business officers, please go ahead.

MR. WEGLARZ: Good afternoon everyone. 

So my discussion is regarding the meal plans. So I guess 

I'm just trying to figure out the history of how this 

whole topic got to where we are today with it. So I don't 

know if folks in the Department, do you have data to what 

dollar amount is being lost on the students' behalf? 

Because I know at Marist, and we're a traditional fouryear private school with an enrollment of around 6,000 

students, this issue never comes up. Alright? So, it 

could be maybe, you know, we're a unique institution, 

which I really don't think we are regarding this meal 

plan policy. You know, we do offer six or seven meal 

plans. So the students are not being forced into a meal 

plan that they cannot take full advantage of throughout 

the semester or throughout the year. And then the second 

part of my discussion is if this does go into play, where 

we need to refund dollar amounts for unused meal plan 

usage, I mean, what do you folks- I mean, theunfortunately, the vendors, alright, the dining services 

vendors, I'm sure they include some of these dollars as 

part of their revenue projection. So what are they going 

to do? They're just going to increase future costs for
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the institution, which will pass it off to the students. 

And we're just sort of doing, I think, around the circle 

here. So I would be very interested, though, in, you 

know, what has brought this up for negotiated rulemaking, 

this subject matter.

MR. MARTIN: Well, I can say that we 

don't retain data on, you know, on the amount of cash 

value meal plans that exists in institutions. So we don't 

have that. We are generally aware that the practice 

exists of sweeping, you know, sweeping dollars back to 

the institution. And I think that, you know, even if it 

is not- and currently there's nothing that prohibits it, 

so I wouldn't I wouldn't say it's a- an area of anecessarily an area of abuse because there's no lobbying 

rule being abused right now. However, conceptually, we 

have a problem with it. I- and I- where I can- I can 

accept your point where I purchased- you know, I 

purchased a certain number of meal swipes on the 

traditional, you know, meal plans, such as I had in 

1980s, where you purchase a certain number of swipes and 

there's a certain number of meals where, you know, 

obviously, I- the cafeteria or the- at that time, that 

was all it was, it was cafeteria has to prepare to make 

that number of meals because that is the potential being 

purchased. But where there's- just whether it's cash on- 
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you know, whether it's true cash sitting there, it's 

student cash and you know, and it may have come- and it 

may be the result of money that students have borrowed 

that they're going to have to repay. The idea that I 

just- I guess I'm having a difficult time seeing how it's 

in any way defensible or irrespective of what the 

prevalence of this is, how it's in any way defensible to 

say that, well, just the money exists there, it belongs 

to the student. It would have been optimal if they'd 

spent it on these other services that are offered, but 

they didn't. So we're just going to take it back. I just, 

I- I'm having a difficult time grasping how that's 

something that can be- that we can think could be a good 

thing that we shouldn't address. SoMR. WEGLARZ: I think part of that is, 

you know, educating the student, right? So, you know, 

it's getting them ready for the real world when it comes 

to managing their personal finances. Now, I know I'm 

going out of the scope a little here, but they know at 

any time to what availability they have on their meal 

plan. So it's not like the institutions are hiding this 

from them. So I think it's- you know, some of the 

responsibility. I'm not saying all of it, alright, goes 

into students' behalf, but it also goes on the 

institution educating the students to how they manage 
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their meal plans.

MR. MARTIN: Yes. And I can see that 

students do have to learn- you know, do have to learn 

responsibility. I think everybody would agree with that. 

However, I still think that we're- you know, and it's 

Department's position that where there's value there, 

where there's cash value, that, you know, giving that 

back to the student is the right thing to do, even if it 

does involve some degree of administrative burden on 

schools. I don't know that I would accept the idea that, 

well, you know, you put this money down here. You know, 

you should be aware of the fact if you don't spend it, 

you lose it. I don't- that to me is not- doesn't go in 

the realm of responsibility. I mean responsibility, I can 

understand if you say, you know, the school, I'm 

enrolling for a semester and I'm paying for that 

semester. And I understand that if I decide to withdraw I 

may get some of it back, but, you know, but there are 

costs of school entailed. I will not get all of it back. 

That's the- I agree with you there. That's part of 

learning to be an adult. However, with this, I just- we 

just see it as, you know, cash value sitting there. If 

you're not going- if it's not going to be used, then it 

should be returned. I'll leave it at that.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. Thank you 
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both. If it's okay, Scott, Jason, and Emmett, we're 

gonna- I don't think we're gonna have time for a full 

debrief with your comments. So we'll pick back up the 

three of you as we resume the cash management discussion 

tomorrow. We are seeing some folks in the waiting room 

for public comment. So, again, if folks did receive a 

confirmation email, please start logging in with the name 

that you registered under. And as we mentioned today, 

feel free to keep submitting language obviously as 

quickly as possible so that we can have a chance to 

distribute it and consider it as we eventually move to 

consensus checks tomorrow and Thursday. Denise?

MS. MORELLI: I just wanted to say 

that Donna Mangold is going to be replacing me for the 

public commentMR. ROBERTS: Oh great.

MS. MORELLI: -period.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, we'll see you 

tomorrow. Thank you. Alright, I believe- Greg, anything 

from you?

MR. MARTIN: No. I think we can move

right to public comment.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, Krystil, who 

are we hearing from first?

MS. K. SMITH: So our first speaker is 
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James Caras, who is from Catalyst Education. And James, 

if you can turn on your camera or unmute. James? Italright, he'sMR. ROBERTS: [Inaudible 02:35:33]

MR. CARAS: Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: There we go. Welcome to 

public comment. If you're comfortable, feel free to turn 

on your camera so that we can see you. You'll have three 

minutes to address the committee, and you'll be given a

30-second heads up when your time is about to expire, and 

you may begin. 

MR. CARAS: Thank you. I am James 

Caras, the CEO of Catalyst Education. I recently 

submitted a letter signed by a coalition of 10 digital 

courseware entrepreneurs voicing support of this 

negotiating rulemaking process and united in opposition 

to inclusive access and equitable access programs as they 

exist today. At a minimum, we are strongly in favor of 

changing these programs to opt-in. The higher education 

market is shifting to digital learning and courseware. 

The courseware IA & EA program simply increases the 

overall cost of students, deprive the market of the 

transparency needed to fairly assess the value of digital 

learning solutions, force students into an expensive 

middleman retailer, and stifle the innovation needed to 
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help our learners compete in the 21st century. I'd like 

to provide some specifics. After adoption by faculty, the 

bookstore is often notified and contacts us about the 

university's IA & EA program. We give them our typical 

$40 product price, and they tell us the price students 

will pay after the 30 to 40% bookstore markup, plus the 

10% markup for the EA and IA program for typical markup 

of 40 to 50%. Because of this, the instructor often wants 

to bypass the bookstore, but is told that we will be 

unable to integrate with the university learning 

management system if we do not enroll in the program. 

This is a key requirement for most faculty. We are 

therefore forced to provide our product through a single, 

expensive monopoly on campus at a higher cost to the 

student. We always have provided codes to bookstores for 

them to sell, left to their own purchasing power and 

decisions. Eighty-five percent of the students that buy 

our products purchased directly from us to avoid the 

bookstore market. However, with the mandatory enrollment 

and opt-out policies of the EA & IA programs, purchasing 

behavior is flipped, with over 90% of students 

essentially driven into making a bookstore purchase at a 

much higher cost. In this case, students are paying for 

an unnecessary fee with no benefit to them. Cloud-based 

digital learning products do not need to be shipped, 
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stored, put on shelves or distributed by a physical 

store. For those that espouse, day one access is a 

significant benefit of these programs. Note that 

innovative ad tech providers invented this concept, have 

been providing it for over a decade, with the bookstores 

and publishers just now catching up. I'd be happy to 

document specific examples of the aforementioned cost 

markup and shift in buying behavior. Just this week, an 

instructor at the University of Ohio adopted our platform 

at a $50 student price. This led to a cascade of 

communication demands from the bookstore that increased 

that price 56% to $78 because of these programs.

MR. WAGNER: You have 30 seconds 

remaining.

MR. CARAS: The faculty, under 

pressure from the university and bookstore, and a desire 

to have grades flow easily into the university's LMS, 

relented. That's a perfect example. Thank you for your 

time.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment, James. We appreciate it. Alright, Krystil, I 

think we can welcome our next speaker.

MS. K. SMITH: Next, we have Jude 

Kiah, who is from Texas Christian University. And Jude is 

in the room.
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MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, Jude, 

can you hear me? If you just want to come off mute. 

Excellent. Welcome to public comment. You'll have three 

minutes to address the committee with a 30-second headsup. Feel free to take it away.

DR. KIAH: My name is Dr. Jude Kiah. 

I'm assistant vice chancellor at Texas Christian 

University of Student Affairs, and I have built three 

inclusive access- we called it something different when 

we did it at three different universities. Having been a 

first-generation student, very poor, I could not afford 

books. That's what drove me to want to build these 

programs. In every one of the cases, it was at least a 

50% reduction in cost. And there was something I listened 

to earlier that I decided to spend the rest of my time 

trying to help you understand. The difference between 

opt-in and opt-out has nothing to do with consumer 

choice. It has to do with the content provider. Content 

provider for publishers that control over 95% of the 

market. They have decided to push the cost of books 

because of their perceived inelastic nature, meaning that 

students are forced to buy them just from them. They are 

currently violating Federal policy by going directly to 

faculty and getting them to go beyond the bookstore. Andbut we allow them to do that because of the inactivity. 
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What I would tell you is that in an opt-out process, it 

allows- it forces the providers to remove the premium 

that they have added into the books in order to make up 

the difference that they have lost over the last 15 or 20 

years to disintermediation. This has been true at every 

one of the places I have built it, and in every one of 

the cases, it's been a 50% reduction in cost. I 

specifically spoke to one of the major- not even a week 

ago, and they told me specifically that they would not 

participate in these programs as opt-in, only as opt-out. 

So it's not about the student and it's not about the 

faculty. It's about speaking to the purveyors of the 

content that an opt-out program is serious and does allow 

the reduction in cost that is necessary. To give you one 

example, I negotiated one book that was going to be given 

to all of our freshmen, 1,800 of them at the school I was 

at. The retail cost of that book was $81. We negotiated 

it down to $47. Why? Because those 1,800 were in an optout situation. I agree with the committee, and to the 

speaker earlier who talked about the difference between 

the responsibility and how we want, you know, opt-in to 

be more- or opt-out to be more responsible, I agree that 

there's a clear and better way to handle the opt-in and 

opt-out. But I want to be incredibly clear that the 

difference is not about the consumer perception. It's 
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entirely about the purveyors, which are the four major 

publishers that control most of the market.

MR. WAGNER: You have 30 seconds 

remaining.

DR. KIAH: I'm good.

MR. ROBERTS: Great. Thank you, Dr. 

Kiah, we appreciate your comment. Have a good rest of 

your day. Krystil, who can we welcome next?

MS. K. SMITH: Our next speaker is 

Laurie Murdoch from Pikens Technical College. Laurie 

should be in the room.

MS. MURDOCH: I am.

MR. ROBERTS: Welcome, Laurie, hi.

MS. MURDOCH: Hi.

MR. ROBERTS: Welcome to public 

comment. You have three minutes to address the committee 

with a 30-second heads-up and the floor is yours.

MS. MURDOCH: Thank you so much for 

having me. Hello, everyone. My name is Laurie Murdoch. 

I'm the assistant director of cosmetology occupations at 

a public technical college in Aurora, Colorado. 

Throughout my career in various states, I've had the 

opportunity to witness the impact of different education 

systems on our students. And I'm here today to address 

the Department's proposal to remove asynchronous distance 
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education. In 2021, the guidance on distance education 

was clear and effective. However, the recent decision to 

question the effectiveness of distance education on trade 

programs in 2024 is kind of concerning. Distance 

education has proven to be highly effective for modern 

students, whether they are studying cosmetology, welding, 

nursing, commercial diving, or many of the other 

programs. It allows our students to learn at their own 

pace, leverage the learning methodologies that they are 

familiar with. I feel it's really crucial to understand 

that distance education is typically part of a hybrid 

program, where students combine on-site learning with 

theoretical components that they study online, and this 

flexibility is really essential for our many 

nontraditional students who juggle many, many 

responsibilities. So instead of eliminating this valuable 

educational method, I urge the Department to explore 

alternative solutions. Schools should be allowed to 

showcase their monitoring mechanisms for student 

progress. Please do not remove this definition merely to 

ease regulation burdens. We need to find effective ways 

to regulate while ensuring students have access to 

opportunities for career development. So my ask is that 

we all work together to support our students in accessing 

promising career paths that can enhance their lives. 
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Thank you so much for your time, I appreciate it.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Laurie. We 

appreciate your comment.

MS. K. SMITH: Alright. Our next 

speaker is Karen McClellan from Purdue University. And 

Karen is in the room.

MR. ROBERTS: Welcome, Karen. Good 

afternoon. Welcome to public comment. You'll have three 

minutes to address the committee with a 30-second headsup, and the floor is all yours.

MS. MCCLELLAN: Alright. Thank you. My 

name is Karen McClellan. I'm a senior lecturer at Purdue 

University Fort Wayne. Purdue Fort Wayne is a regional 

campus of Purdue University in the city of Fort Wayne, 

serving the Northeast Indiana region. We have 

approximately 10,000 students. I've taught over 30 years 

in the Department of Biology. I teach allied health and 

nursing students, and a majority of my students are 

nontraditional students that juggle work, school, and 

family. Many of my students are also first-generation 

college students. I'm here today to share my support for 

the affordable access programs, like ones that have 

benefited our students at Purdue Fort Wayne. Before these 

access programs, many of my students could not afford 

their textbooks and would wait many weeks into the 
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semester before they were able to have the financial 

capacity to purchase their textbooks. They'd be waiting 

for that next paycheck. Many students attempted to 

complete coursework without using a textbook. I've used 

access program for nearly ten years. I've seen an 

increase in the success of students because of having day 

one access to their course materials. Students have been 

supportive of the ease of access to their textbook and 

the lower prices of textbooks when using these access 

programs. I am concerned that the regulation under 

consideration could make it harder for my students to 

afford their books, and it would also impact our 

students' retention and completion of not only their 

coursework, but of their degree. The Department’s 

proposed regulations would take away the option for 

Purdue University Fort Wayne or any school to implement 

an opt-out program. Opt-out still preserves student 

choice, but at the same time, it decreases prices because 

it permits bulk buying that we do not think will occur if 

student- if schools are restricted to an opt-in only 

program. That's why it's critical to preserve for 

universities the option of implementing opt-out programs. 

It's my understanding that compromise language has been 

offered to ensure transparency and disclosure, but any 

such proposal has not been reflected on the Department's 
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latest text. The DOE continues to reject opt-out despite 

the impact that it will have on prices. I strongly 

encourage you to vote no on the Department's proposed 

language and to work to keep affordable access programs. 

These programs can continue to help keep textbook prices 

low and help ensure students like mine have the materials 

they need to be successful on the first day of class. 

Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Karen. 

Krystil, you're on mute, but who are we welcoming next?

MS. K. SMITH: Sorry. Our next speaker 

is Jessi Stafford from Texas Appleseed. And Jessi should 

be in the room, yes.

MS. STAFFORD: Yes. Hello. My name is 

Jessi Stafford, and I'm a senior research analyst at 

Texas Appleseed, a public policy organization based in 

Austin. I authored the report, Withholding Higher 

Education How Current Transcript Policies at Texas 

Colleges Derail Educational Aspirations and Job 

Opportunities for Texans to determine the impact of 

withholding college transcripts on current and former 

students. Today, I want to discuss how the findings of my 

research relate to return to Title IV. When a student

withdraws in the institution, initiates a return to Title 

IV, they are faced with consequences beyond simply owing 
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a debt. In my research, I sampled 12 higher education 

institutions across the state, half of which were 

community colleges and the other half public 

universities. The sample included schools with high and 

low enrollment and ensured diversity in the geographical 

location. First, I encountered issues in obtaining clear 

and consistent data. All universities were excluded from 

the report due to issues with data quality. Therefore, 

the report focused on the six community colleges. Even 

among the data we obtained, it was inconsistent and in 

most cases the request was only partially fulfilled. This 

highlights the need for data collection to be a priority. 

I found that most debts belong to individuals no longer 

enrolled in the institution, transcript withholding 

policies disproportionately harmed Black students, and 

most debts are more than five years old. Across the six 

colleges, there were nearly 55,000 debts, totaling nearly 

$32 million. Individuals no longer enrolled in the 

institution held 83% of debt, preventing them from 

accessing the transcript, meaning they can't claim credit 

for completed courses if they wish to return to school. I 

requested data related to the category of these debts, 

and one college reported that 11% of debt is due to 

return to Title IV. We speculate this might be inaccurate 

as the college reported tuition as the leading debt 
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causing a transcript hold. Institutional policies require 

students to pay tuition before enrolling, suggesting 

these funds were subject to return to Title IV and 

individual was left owing the institution a tuition debt. 

As the committee negotiates rules around R2T4, I urge the 

committee to consider additional consequences students 

face after accruing these debts and put safeguards in 

place to ensure an unpaid balance has no further 

consequences beyond repayment, such as transcript 

withholding. New rules adopted by the Department will 

prevent institutions from withholding transcripts for 

terms in which the student received Title IV funds and 

the balance of the terms was paid in full go into effect 

on July 1st. This is not a total ban on the practice and 

does not ensure students can access transcripts following 

a R2T4. In the report, we provide the following 

recommendations. Ban institutions from withholding 

college transcripts for unpaid debt. Require consistent 

data reporting, particularly regarding which debts 

resulted from a R2T4. [30 seconds] As you consider rules 

regarding return to Title IV, ensure that consequences 

such as transcript withholding cannot further burden 

borrowers.

MR. ROBERTS: Great. Thank you so much 

for your comment, Jessi.
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MS. K. SMITH: Alright. Our next 

speaker is Amanda Sacoto-Dunbar. Amanda is representing 

herself, and Amanda is in the room.

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, Amanda, 

can you hear me? You might need to come off of mute.

MS. K. SMITH: Yeah, you're on mute 

now, Amanda.

MS. SACOTO-DUNBAR: Can you hear me 

now?

MR. ROBERTS: We can. Yes, welcome.

MS. SACOTO-DUNBAR: I apologize. It's 

been a day. No. Hello? Okay. I'll just quickly jump into 

it. Hello. My name is Amanda Sacoto-Dunbar. While I was 

in the Army, I decided to go to school. I completed a 

bachelor's and a master's degree while I was just getting 

out of the military, all in criminal justice, without any 

issues. I knew what a good education was. In 2020, during 

the dawn of COVID-19 pandemic, I decided to go back to 

school for nursing. I enrolled at Herzing University and 

planned to attend through the VA's VRAP program, which 

paid for veterans like me to go back to school. However, 

I ended up leaving after a short time because the school 

was clearly subpar compared to my past experiences in 

higher education. From the start, there were many red 

flags. Herzing misled me at first about which campus I 
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could use the VRAP benefits at, so I was not able to use 

the benefits and actually ended up in $4,000 of debt to 

them. I applied to the Tampa campus as that is where I 

live, in Tampa. The school told me I could only use it at 

the Orlando campus at the time, but they said if I 

enrolled in the Orlando campus, I could then transfer to 

the Tampa campus and keep utilizing the VRAP benefits. I 

followed the school's guidance, and they were wrong. I 

was not able to use the VRAP benefits at the Tampa 

campus. The school told me I would need to pay out of 

pocket at that point. Things from there- that was just a 

big- the beginning of it. Things went from bad to worse 

when I started my next semester in person on campus, one 

of my teachers was a complete disaster. Her classes often 

ended only within 30 minutes, even though the classes 

were allotted at least a two-hour slot. Once, after I had 

missed one of the important labs, a cardiovascular lab, 

because of a health emergency, I asked the teacher to 

make it up for the prep materials before conducting the 

makeup lab. She refused to meet with me, give me any 

guidance, any readings, videos, or any resources to that 

matter. During the semester, many students left, and 

eventually only ten remained in the class out of the 

beginning 40. Several other students and I filed 

complaints with the administration, but the dean and the 
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advisors that we complained to either ignored us or sent 

us to dead ends. This experience was the last straw for 

me at that point, and I decided to withdraw. I am now in 

debt of $4,000 because of Herzing, and to Herzing. I'm 

here today to make sure that this experience does not 

happen to another veteran or student. Thank you for your 

time and listening to me.

MR. ROBERTS: Of course. Thank you so 

much for your comment, Amanda, and have a great rest of 

your day.

MS. SACOTO-DUNBAR: You too.

MS. K. SMITH: Alright. Our next 

speaker is David Thibodeau. David is representing 

himself. David should be in the room.

MR. THIBODEAU: Good afternoon. Yeah, 

my name is Dave Thibodeau, and in 2008, a few years after 

my service in the Army National Guard, I enrolled in 

DeVry University in the Game and Simulation Programming 

online program. I saw advertisements that made it look 

like a good school and a good program, and I couldn't 

have been more wrong. I graduated from DeVry after five 

years, and in all that time, I never had a real-time 

conversation or interaction with a single teacher. Not in 

a group or one-on-one. The way the courses were taught 

was totally ineffective. We would be assigned a bunch of 
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stuff to read, and we were required to provide just two 

comments per week on an online discussion board. 

Occasionally we were given assignments to complete, but 

the teachers never gave us valid feedback on the 

assignments. While I did graduate and get my degree, it 

has not helped me at all. If anything, it's had the 

opposite effect. I've had potential employers kind of 

scoff at a degree from DeVry. I currently work in IT 

customer support, which is what I did before attending 

DeVry. No job I ever had, including the job I have now 

requires a college degree. Unfortunately, I used up all 

of my GI Bill and have $86,000 in student loans, 

including interest for my degree. The low quality of the 

education I experienced should not have been possible. It 

was not worth almost $100,000 in debt in my GI Bill. 

Please consider rules that ensure that this won't happen 

to other people. Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment, David. We appreciate it.

MS. K. SMITH: So our next speaker is 

Michael Brophy. He is from Hilbert College, and Michael 

is in the room.

MR. ROBERTS: Welcome, Michael. 

Welcome to public comment. You'll have three minutes to 

address the committee. You'll be given a 30-second heads-
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up. And the floor is yours.

MR. BROPHY: Thank you. It's great to 

be with all of you today, and good afternoon. I'm Michael 

Brophy. I have the honor and privilege of serving as the 

president of Hilbert College, which is located in the 

Southtowns of Buffalo, New York. Our enrollment is a 

significant number of Pell recipients students, both 

urban poor and rural poor as well, given our location. 

And so over the years, we noticed they had a real need to 

be provided upfront before the first day of class with 

both textbooks and laptops. We finally were able to put 

together a digital equity program for them. And what 

happens then essentially is, you know, before the first 

day of class maybe Sunday night, if we're lucky, they 

open those laptops, they open up those course sections, 

and their textbooks come right in. About 85% of the 

students choose digital textbooks over hard copies. 

Probably no surprise to folks. But the real difference is 

we're no longer waiting till October around midterms,

when people start scurrying around campus trying to find 

extra copies of books and things like that. So this is 

the program that we have, providing access to students 

within their tuition and fees. We package them within the 

tuition and fee structure, and they really have no 

concern at all going into that first day of class. We 
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would just- certainly the college is concerned that the 

regulation under consideration could make it harder for 

our students to afford their books and would also impact 

our students' retention and completion. So again, I'll 

close with saying we've had an- just unequivocal success. 

We're in our third year now with this digital access 

program which provides equity for students from all 

backgrounds. And we certainly hope that you can support 

us in this work going forward. Thank you very much.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment, Michael, we appreciate it.

MR. BROPHY: Take care now.

MR. ROBERTS: You as well. Krystil, 

who are we hearing from next?

MS. K. SMITH: Next we have Rosalind 

Goldman. From CALPIRG.

MR. ROBERTS: Welcome, Rosalind, can 

you hear me?

MS. GOLDMAN: Yes.

MR. ROBERTS: Excellent.

MS. GOLDMAN: Hello.

MR. ROBERTS: Go right ahead.

MS. GOLDMAN: Hello. My name is 

Rosalind Goldman. I am a first-year student at UCLA 

studying political science. I chose political science 
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because I'm passionate about social issues, and I feel 

driven to advocate for them in government, which is one 

of the reasons that I'm really excited to be talking to 

you today. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to 

speak. I'm here to express my support for the 

Department's proposal to shift automatic textbook billing 

models from opt-out to opt-in. Even if the inclusive 

access program reduces the cost of a particular book from 

the original price, most students attempt to access their 

textbooks at no cost, either through online PDFs or 

libraries. Inclusive access automatically bills them and 

removes the chance to find alternative, cheaper access to 

their course materials unless they opt out by a certain 

deadline. I experienced this firsthand a couple of months 

ago. Over winter break, I received an email that my 

political science course was using inclusive access. I 

had never heard of it before, but the professor or- but 

the email told me that it would make the textbook 

cheaper, so I noted it and then moved on. My professor 

didn't mention anything, but a few weeks later, I 

received an email reminder that the opt-out deadline was 

approaching. Included in the email was the price of the 

textbook, which was $60. Immediately, I thought that $60 

didn't seem like a very significantly reduced price, and 

was disappointed that I would have to pay that in 
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addition to my tuition for the quarter. I chose not to 

opt out because I didn't know where else to access the 

textbook, and I had already been doing the weekly 

readings from it for two weeks. Then, about a month ago, 

I noticed a $75 charge on my term bill. I checked and 

there was a $60 charge for the textbook and also a $15 

charge for earthquake materials. I'm taking a class about 

earthquakes, so I recognized it was related to that, but 

I was and remain confused about why the charge was there. 

The professor never mentioned an additional digital 

resource, and I never got an email about inclusive access 

for this class, so I didn't even know that I needed to 

opt out of it. Finals are in two weeks, and I still have 

never used this additional material for the class, mostly 

because I don't even know where to access it. Neither my 

professor nor my TA seem to even know we were charged for 

this. A shift to an opt-in program would be beneficial 

for students across the country, because they would no 

longer be automatically charged for material that they 

may not even have access to, simply because they forgot 

to check their email. It would allow students to default 

to free textbooks that they can find online instead. 

There are also alternatives to inclusive access opt-out 

that would save students money. Particularly, 

transferring to open educational resources would ensure 
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high-quality and free textbooks to students. Recently, 54 

student governments and student organizations and 350 

individual students signed a letter urging the Department 

to continue its efforts to make inclusive access opt-in. 

That's because my experience is not unique. Students 

across the country have found that despite its name, 

inclusive access isn't inclusive at all. Truly inclusive 

and equitable access to education requires policies that 

support transparency, affordability, and choice in how 

students acquire their materials, not practices that 

obscure the true cost of education and limit students' 

options. Thank you for your time.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment Rosalind, we appreciate it. Alright, Krystil.

MS. K. SMITH: Next, we have Luke 

Becker, who is representing himself, and Luke is in the 

room.

MR. ROBERTS: Welcome, Luke. Can you 

hear me?

MR. BECKER: Yeah. Oh wait, shoot. 

There we go.

MR. ROBERTS: I was gonna say. There 

we go.

MR. BECKER: Lighting's pretty bad. 

I'm not gonna lie.
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MR. ROBERTS: That's alright. You'll 

find all sorts of states of readiness in this room. 

Welcome to public comment. You have three minutes to 

address the committee with a 30-second heads-up and the 

floor is yours. 

MR. BECKER: Sounds good. Good 

afternoon, guys. My name is Luke Becker, and I'm a 

sophomore at the University of Missouri studying health 

and wellness. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I 

recently heard from one of my instructors that Mizzou 

might have to stop offering their auto-access program. 

Auto-access makes sure that all students automatically 

have access to their course materials within canvas on 

the first day of class at the lowest price. I was told 

that the Department was trying to get rid of these 

programs, because they had been told by certain students 

that these programs did not provide enough choice. I 

don't see how that can be. At Mizzou, we are notified 

well before the semester begins, what courses are in 

auto-access and how much the materials will cost, and how 

much- or- and if we can opt-out if we would rather get 

books a different way. This gives us weeks to shop around 

for other options. How is this not a choice? It has been 

a hassle to get course materials for some of my courses 

that are not in auto-access. Specifically. Last year for 
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my biology course, I had to purchase access to an online 

lab directly from its website. It required that I have a 

credit card to pay the $60, but I did not have a credit 

card to use. Luckily, I was able to call my parents and 

use one of their credit cards, but this was still a pain. 

What do students do that don't have a credit card or a 

parent card to use? To me, that is not having a choice. 

At least if this was- if this course was part of autoaccess, all students would have been given access to the 

lab, and then they could have decided if they wanted to 

opt out or not. I'm urging the Department to reconsider 

what student choice really means. Is it taking colleges' 

ability away to make sure all students have access to pay 

their course materials on the first day of class, at the 

lowest price, removing a choice? Thank you for your time.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you Luke, we 

appreciate your comment.

MR. BECKER: Thank you. Have a good 

day.

MR. ROBERTS: You as well. Krystil, I 

think that we probably have time for one more comment, if 

that's alright with everyone. There's a few folks on the 

waiting list.

MS. K. SMITH: Our next speaker is 

Stacia Moroski-Rigney from Michigan State University, and 
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Stacia is in the room.

MR. ROBERTS: Welcome, Stacia. Can you 

hear me?

MS. MOROSKI-RIGNEY: I can, thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Excellent. Welcome. 

You'll have three minutes to address the committee. 

You'll be given a 30-second heads up and the floor is all 

yours. 

MS. MOROSKI-RIGNEY: Thank you. So, 

good afternoon. My name is Stacia Moroski-Rigney, and I'm 

the director of accreditation, assessment, curriculum, 

and compliance at Michigan State University. I'm only 

representing my unit, AACC, to make a comment today about 

the proposed rules. We who do the work of state 

authorization and who greatly appreciate the state 

authorization reciprocity agreement, object to some of 

the language in the current draft. We, of course, agree 

that we must protect our students and appropriately 

regulate distance learning. However, SARA member 

institutions must comply with state laws regarding the 

delivery of distance education. States have autonomy over 

whether they allow out-of-state schools to place students 

in enrolled courses or programs, particularly those that 

lead or may lead to professional licensure or 

certification. As a reminder, participation in SARA is 
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voluntary, yet currently, more than 2,200 institutions in 

49 member states participate. When states voluntarily 

joined SARA, they agree to follow a uniform set of 

policies for participation and for ensuring ongoing 

compliance. In many states, SARA's policies provide even 

greater consumer protection than home state protections 

may provide. As a matter of fact, SARA offers many 

protections that go beyond what seems to be implied by 

the proposed rules. Two important protections are 

provided by the state entity portals and the NC-SARA 

State Authorization Guide. First, each state member 

state- each SARA member state must designate a state 

portal entity to oversee SARA-participating institutions. 

These entities employ experienced staff members who 

conduct oversight of institutions to help ensure their 

ongoing compliance with key consumer protection. They 

oversee SARA-related student complaints and serve as a 

resource for students who have questions or concerns. The 

State Portal entity is also the liaison between 

institutions, regional compacts, other SARA member 

states, students, and other stakeholders. Secondly, the 

NC-SARA State Authorization Guide provides pertinent 

information supplied by each member state territory and 

the District of Columbia that includes a state's 

important agency information. Things such as tuition 
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refunds, surety bonds, and student complaint processes 

are included in this already-existing guide. If the 

proposed changes in state reciprocity are intended to 

protect consumers from predatory institutions, and are 

based on the impression that any college or university 

can or could join SARA with the intent to avoid oversight 

and accountability, that's simply not accurate. States 

are already involved with the regulation of predatory 

institutions, and it's not likely any SARA Portal entity 

would ever improve an application submitted by a 

university or college with a questionable track record 

that cannot provide the required qualifying, supporting 

credentials and documentation. Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you very much for 

your comments, Stacia. We appreciate it.

MS. MOROSKI-RIGNEY: Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, well, that will 

conclude day two of session three of this negotiated 

rulemaking. We will pick up tomorrow and resume our 

conversation on cash management with the three hands that 

we had left over this afternoon. But until then, thank 

you all for your hard work today. And we will see you 

tomorrow.
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Zoom Chat Transcript 

Program Integrity and Institutional Quality- Session 3, Day 2, Afternoon, March 5, 2024 

*Chat was copied as presented, as a result minor typos or grammatical errors may be present. 

From A - Zack Goodwin (he/him), Financial Aid Administrators to Everyone:

Reacted to "To follow up on sect..." with ���

From A-Michale McComis, Inst. Accrediting Agencies to Everyone:

���� Diplomacy ������

From Charles Prince to Everyone:

Alternate will comem on, as I have to step away for a few unexpectedly

From A - Zack Goodwin (he/him), Financial Aid Administrators to Everyone:

JoEllen is now returning as Primary.

From P-Jessi Morales, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Sorry what page is this?

From A, Michael Cioce, 2 Year Colleges to Everyone:

page 3

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Community colleges appreciate the full faith language included. Thank you.

From A - Zack Goodwin (he/him), Financial Aid Administrators to Everyone:

Reacted to "Community colleges a..." with ����

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

at risk to what specifically still needs to be clarified from your perspective Barmak?

From A, Michael Cioce, 2 Year Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "Community colleges a..." with ���

From A-David Cohen, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Does the Department have data regarding the number of fully online institutions or 

programs that have failed or closed, and if it does, does it have data on the size of those institutions 
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and their online footprint at the time of closure? Perhaps that might provide some guidance as to 

the size. It would seem that the overwhelming number of institutions operating online are not and 

have not closed or failed.

From P - Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

(ii) A State action that exempts a private institution based on years of operation if the 

institution has been in continuous operation on or before November 8, 1965 without undergoing a 

change of ownership; or

(iii) A state or local governmental action that establishes a public institution that is locally 

controlled by a governmental entity within a State.

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid Orgs. to Everyone:

Closures are not the only circumstances where the Department must discharge debts and 

that results in large losses to taxpayers. Fraud committed by institutions that do not close - 

including misleading recruiting tactics, failure to provide promised services, etc., also lead to high 

levels of student loan defaults, as well as borrower defense applications.

From P-Jessi Morales, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "Closures are not the..." with ���

From P - Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

I think ED's logic is that the larger the institutional footprint, the more adverse impact any 

misconduct would have on its residents

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid Orgs. to Everyone:

Reacted to "Closures are not the..." with ���

From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "Closures are not the..." with ���

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid Orgs. to Everyone:

Removed a ��� reaction from "Closures are not the..."

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid Orgs. to Everyone:

Reacted to "Closures are not the..." with ���

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid Orgs. to Everyone:

Removed a ��� reaction from "Closures are not the..."
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From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

is this current proposal able to be shared, knowing that additional language would be 

coming.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

i think this does make a lot of sense

From A, Magin Sanchez, Civil Rights/Consumers to Everyone:

Reacted to "Closures are not the..." with ���

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

Agree with Diana, there is no number that would be sufficient as protection, if states can't 

enforce their consumer protection laws. If there is predatory behavior, states must be able to 

enforce their laws.

From P., Diana Hooley, State Attorneys General to Everyone:

Reacted to "Agree with Diana, th..." with ���

From A, Magin Sanchez, Civil Rights/Consumers to Everyone:

Reacted to "Agree with Diana, th..." with ���

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid Orgs. to Everyone:

Reacted to "Agree with Diana, th..." with ���

From Joe Weglarz (P) NACUBO to Everyone:

Dom Chase will be joining the Cash Management discussion.

From P, John Ware, State Regulator to Everyone:

As has been mentioned previously, States are free to enforce there own laws at any point 

by dropping out of the reciprocity agreement. Also, general fraud laws can be enforced under the 

current reciprocity agreement.

From P-Jessi Morales, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Emmet will be joining the discussion when we come back

From P - Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

I also wanted to record my concern and disappointment with the asynchronous clock hours 
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proposal that was circulated earlier today. Judging the hour-by-hour quality of asynchronously 

delivered content to accreditors strikes me a procedural gesture with no likelihood that any 

accreditor would be able to carry out the complex tasks involved. I also don't understand the 

hands-on/hands-off distinction, and the comparability language is, at best, a post-facto 

requirement that can only be conscientiously implemented after the fact. I strongly urge the 

Department to correct the Devos-era change on synchronous clock hours and revert to status quo 

ante.

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "As has been mentio..." with ���

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid Orgs. to Everyone:

I would note that just because no action has been taken by an attorney general or state 

does not mean there are not problems with a school. Here is a list of schools who have pending 

borrower defense applications that will be granted pursuant to the Sweet class action settlement: 

https://www.highereddive.com/news/heres-a-list-of-the-colleges-in-the-sweet-v-cardonasettlement-agreement/629283/ 

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

Following up on Robyn's point above, the Sweet class action settlement resulted in relief to 

more than 200,000 borrowers enrolled in more than 150 institutions, many of which offered online 

programs.

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid Orgs. to Everyone:

+1 to Barmak and Carolyn.

From Charles Prince to Everyone:

P for HBCUs is returning

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid Orgs. to Everyone:

Sophie will be coming in for me during cash management discussion.

From Joe Weglarz (P) NACUBO to Everyone:

Dom Chase has joined the group

From P, Jason Lorgan, Public 4-years to Everyone:

Alyssa Dobson will be coming to the table to comment for Public 4-years

From P-Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:
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agree with Barmak! I was just formulating a question about schools including in tuition 

things like art supplies, test tubes, safety aprons in a lab, etc as long as tuiiona nd fees are proprerly 

noticed/dsiclosed

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

Magin Sanchez is joining for Civil Rights/Consumer.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

significantly discounted.

From P - Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

+1 on Greg's explanation of ED's rationale

From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

+1 If the school truly offers better rates, then we will all keep opting in. ��� There would be 

no worries for either constituency.

From A, Michael Cioce, 2 Year Colleges to Everyone:

For the department:

From A, Michael Cioce, 2 Year Colleges to Everyone: 

To the department -How do you see that the elimination of course material access and 

affordability programs increases choice for students?

 

 

 

These programs can no longer exist in an opt in manner because its not possible to give all 

students access on day 1, nor will the volume based pricing be available.

From P-Jessi Morales, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

I would cash any check with any amount of money.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

we have heard from many of these students throughout the public comment period too.

From P - Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

Yes, literally all students defending "inclusive access" were a certain publisher's "brand 

ambassadors"
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From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "Yes, literally all s..." with ���

From P-Jessi Morales, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Emmett joining the conversation

From A - Zack Goodwin (he/him), Financial Aid Administrators to Everyone:

Could the authorization not be required every single payment period? In other worlds, it 

would be required and remain in effect until and unless the student opts out.

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "Could the authoriz..." with ���

From A, Michael Cioce, 2 Year Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "Could the authorizat..." with ���

From P-Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

my example was that this is within the tuition, it's unique and not available any other way, 

and the tuition amount is properlu noticed

From P - Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

The problem with "not available elsewhere" is that it would be just as easy to create a 

unique product and price-gouge as it would be to create a product and provide it at a discount.

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

Replying to "To the department -H..."

 

Wondering why it would not be possible to offer volume-based pricing with an opt-in 

model. Assuming it was offered at a competitive price, students would opt in at similar rates, and 

therefore would lead to similar volume of students enrolling. if students don't enroll at a similar 

rate, it seems it would signal that the price was not competitive.

From P - Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

The "below-market" construct doesn't work either, because if schools work in cahoots with 

publishers, the latter could just jack up the price and create illusory discounts

From P-Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:
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to Barmak's point: that would make the tuition high, which would be clear -- tuition is the 

most evident item for comparison and student awareness. //To Dave: this is stuff the school prints 

itself. What if institution bought expensive test tubes and again those lab aprons, and includes 

them "seamlessly" in tuition -- and full discloses its tuition?

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "to Barmak's point: t..." with ���

From P - Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

Why wouldn't the student purchase a content packet that is vastly less expensive than 

buying 12 books? Why do institutions need more of an incentive than a reasonable price AS 

DECIDED BY THE PERSON PICKING UP THE TAB?

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

I had resources like this during MY undergraduate program in the early 1990s.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "I had resources like..." with ���

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

What Jillian describes is common.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "What Jillian describ..." with ���

From A-David Cohen, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

To Denise's and Jillian's point, using partial books is not uncommon. Instead of requiring a 

student to buy multiple books, some publishers allow a faculty member to create a specialized 

book that includes portions from more than one book. This does same students money.

From P-Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

can't speak to how widespread but I believe it is a practice that lets faculty tailor and create 

materials. 

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

Reacted to "To Denise's and Jill..." with ���

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:
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Scott Dolan is back for nonprofits

From A, Michael Cioce, 2 Year Colleges to Everyone:

Replying to "To the department -H..."

 

There's the ALL schools approach and the "My school" approach. I'm obviously better 

versed at the latter- what I offer directly impacts what the text needs are which in turn is tied to the 

volume price. It's competitive and saves students NOT only money but provides access on day one. 

the opt-in is the bigger issue for me

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

Replying to "To the department -H..."

 

���

From P - Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

NYT and WaPo would also love to force their subscriptions on everyone, with opt-outs, but 

we don't allow businesses to do that. I also take exception with characterization of students as 

unable to make their own decisions.

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

+1 to Barmak's comment above.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

agreed with alyssa. the volume difference matters as does the availability on first day

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

Reacted to "agreed with alyssa. ..." with ���

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

+1 to Emmett's comments. If it saves students money, they will opt in.

From P - Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

Beware of doing others massive favors . . . with their own money

From P - JoEllen Price, Financial Aid Administrators to Everyone:
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Reacted to "agreed with alyssa. ..." with ���

From A- Alyssa Dobson: 4 Yr. Public Institutions to Everyone:

In order for the program to work, we need to rely on the utilization of the entire class. 

Many students will opt out upon first exposure to the idea of the automatic charge - hundreds of 

them will do this - and then come back to the program. Students should be able to rely on the 

institution to follow the rules and opt in should not be necessary.

From A- Alyssa Dobson: 4 Yr. Public Institutions to Everyone:

Also you can't regulate bad players out of the system. Unfortunately. 

From A, Sophie Laing, Legal Aid to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to Emmett's comme..." with ���

From P - Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

If regulations don't make a difference, what are we doing here?

From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "If regulations don't..." with ���

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

Reacted to "If regulations don't..." with ���

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

not sure why my hand went down

From A- Alyssa Dobson: 4 Yr. Public Institutions to Everyone:

They make a difference when they are enforced. In this case we are changing a regulation 

because it isn't being enforced... that is what won't work.

From P-Jessi Morales, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Lets not assume all students we are talking about are coming straight from high school.

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "Lets not assume al..." with ���