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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

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GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT

NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING COMMITTEE 2017-2018

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SESSION 3

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Thursday,

March 15, 2018

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The Negotiated Rulemaking Committee 

met in the Potomac Center Plaza Auditorium, U.S. 

Department of Education, 550 12th Street, S.W., 

Washington, D.C., at 9:00 a.m., Ramona Buck, 

Rozmyn Miller, and Javier Ramirez, Facilitators, 

presiding.

PRESENT

RAMONA BUCK, Federal Mediation and Conciliation 

Service, Facilitator

ROZMYN MILLER, Federal Mediation and

Conciliation Service, Facilitator

JAVIER RAMIREZ, Federal Mediation and

Conciliation Service, Facilitator

JEFF ARTHUR, Vice President of Regulatory

Affairs & Chief Information Officer, ECPI

University

WHITNEY BARKLEY-DENNEY, Senior Policy Counsel, 

Center for Responsible Lending

JESSICA BARRY, President, School of Advertising

Art

JENNIFER L. BLUM, ESQ., Senior Vice President,

External Relations and Public Policy,

Laureate Education, Inc.

STEPHEN CHEMA, Ritzert & Leyton, PC
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JENNIFER DIAMOND, Program Associate, Maryland

Consumer Rights Coalition

DANIEL ELKINS, Legislative Director, Enlisted

Association of the National Guard of the

United States

RYAN FISHER, Intergovernmental Relations

Division, State of Texas Office of the

Attorney General

PAMELA FOWLER, Executive Director of Financial

Aid, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

CHRISTOPHER GANNON, Vice President, United

States Student Association

ANDREW HAMMONTREE, Director of Financial Aid and

Scholarships, Francis Tuttle Technology

Center

NEAL HELLER, CEO/President, Hollywood Institute

of Beauty Careers

MARC JEROME, President, Monroe College

C. TODD JONES, President, Association of

Independent Colleges & Universities in

Ohio

ROBERTS JONES, President, Education & Workforce

Policy, LLC

JOHN KAMIN, Assistant Director, The American

Legion's National Veterans Employment &

Education Division

KIRSTEN KEEFE, Senior Attorney, Consumer Finance

and Housing Unit, Empire Justice Center

CHRISTOPHER MADAIO, Assistant Attorney General,

Office of the Attorney General of Maryland

JORDAN MATSUDAIRA, Nonresident Fellow, Urban

Institute; Assistant Professor, Cornell

University

MARK MCKENZIE, Executive Director, Accreditation

Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental

Medicine

LAURA METUNE, Vice Chancellor of External

Affairs, California Community Colleges

ANTHONY MIRANDO, Executive Director, National

Accrediting Commission of Career Arts and

Sciences

MATTHEW MOORE, Director of Financial Aid and

Scholarships, Sinclair Community College
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KELLY MORRISSEY, Director of Financial Aid,

Mount Wachusett Community College

CHAD MUNTZ, Director of Institutional Research,

Office of Administration and Finance, The

University System of Maryland

JONATHAN K. PIERRE, Vice Chancellor for

Institutional Accountability and Evening

Division, Southern University Law Center

TIM POWERS, Director of Student Aid Policy,

National Association of Independent

Colleges and Universities

THELMA L. ROSS, Interim Director of Student

Financial Aid, Prince George's County

Community College

SANDY SARGE, SARGE Advisors

AHMAD SHAWWAL, Student, University of Virginia

DAVID SILVERMAN, Chief Financial Officer and

Director of Business Affairs, The American

Musical and Dramatic Academy

JOHNSON M. TYLER, Senior Attorney, Consumer and

Foreclosure Units, Brooklyn Legal Services

CHRISTINA WHITFIELD, Associate Vice President,

State Higher Education Executive Officers

Association

STAFF PRESENT

STEVEN FINLEY, Office of General Counsel

GREGORY MARTIN, Office of Postsecondary

Education
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 (Time not disclosed)

3 MS. BUCK: Welcome back, everyone. I 

4 really appreciate this group, and all your 

5 thoughts and ideas. Very impressive. Before we 

6 get into the meeting itself, are there any 

7 remarks from any of the negotiators? Then, if 

8 not, is there any public comment? Okay. I don't 

9 see any public comment. Then, where we left 

10 off was Issue Paper 6, and I know that Jennifer 

11 has a proposal with regard to consumer testing, 

12 which would be part of Issue Paper 6. Do you 

13 want to present that proposal, Jennifer?

14 PARTICIPANT: Yes, except for that I 

15 need the language, but I'll try to -- Scott, do 

16 you have the, up on the -- is that what's on the 

17 screen?

18 MR. FILTER: No.

19 PARTICIPANT: Well, okay. Hold on. I 

20 can talk through it, but I need -- because on my 

21 phone, I just realized that it's not coming up as 

22 red lined.
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1 MR. FILTER: I just --

2 MS. BUCK: Is that it?

3 PARTICIPANT: Yes.

4 MS. BUCK: Okay. Why don't you read 

5 it for us as well?

6 PARTICIPANT: Well, I don't know if, 

7 okay. No, it's not red lined. That's why it's 

8 beneficial to -- sorry. Thanks.

9 So, all I did, you know, I can read it 

10 too, but I think everybody can read it, but I 

11 moved the federal notice piece up, so that's not, 

12 I'm not striking out the federal notice. You 

13 know, at the bottom, it's literally just moving 

14 up, because then, in terms of the consumer 

15 testing, I basically added back in the sentence 

16 that had been deleted, so the Department will 

17 conduct consumer testing to determine -- that's 

18 the original, that's in current, that's what the 

19 Department had struck.

20 And then, I added a sentence that 

21 said, this will include but not be limited to a 

22 specific request for consumer input on this topic 
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1 in the Federal Register notice.

2 And so, that is to recognize that they 

3 do every year, I think it's every year, the 

4 Department puts out the template for public 

5 notice, and that does, you know, I did hear the 

6 Department loud and clear on sort of the 

7 practicalities of consumer testing.

8 I think most of us still believe that 

9 there should be consumer testing outside of the 

10 Federal Register notice, but at a minimum, they 

11 do have this period of time when they're 

12 revisiting the template every year, and part of 

13 that should not just be hearing from folks like 

14 us, which we do sometimes, you know, I think 

15 schools do provide input on space on the 

16 template, and things like the completion pieces 

17 that need, you know, adjusting and all of that. 

18 But that a component part of the Federal Register 

19 notice should be about what the consumer, 

20 usefulness, and sort of response is from a 

21 consumer perspective.

22 And so, just requiring the Department 
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1 to inquire about that piece of it should be part 

2 of the Federal Register notice. But you know, as 

3 you can see, the Board added back in the, you 

4 know, added back in the consumer testing that the 

5 Department had deleted.

6 MS. BUCK: Does anyone have any 

7 questions for Jennifer about her proposal? Chris 

8 (phonetic)?

9 MR. MADAIO: Just a comment. Jennifer 

10 and I had discussed it, so I'm in full agreement 

11 with this language. The only two issues I heard 

12 from the Department yesterday were that they 

13 don't want to require themselves to do anything,

14 and that they're worried about potential costs.

15 And I think that those aren't really 

16 concerns for us. I mean, we should express, as 

17 negotiators, the policy that we want the 

18 Department to do with this vote.

19 So, you know, I think we should 

20 express that we want them to do consumer testing, 

21 not that we want them to decide whether they want 

22 to do consumer testing, and we want it to be done 
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1 in, you know, specifically, and the Department 

2 should find the money. I mean, they have a lot 

3 of money. They decide where to use it based on 

4 their policy determinations.

5 So, I think we should express that 

6 with this vote, and not be concerned about the 

7 practical concerns on how it's done.

8 MS. BUCK: So, you're proposing people 

9 express their opinion on it based on the essence 

10 of the proposal, and not as to whether there's 

11 money to do it or not? Okay.

12 MR. MADAIO: Correct.

13 MS. BUCK: Any other comments? So, do 

14 you want to have a temperature check on this 

15 proposal? Jennifer, do you have a comment?

16 PARTICIPANT: Sure. No. I mean, yes.

17 MS. BUCK: Okay.

18 (Spontaneous speaking)

19 MS. BUCK: I was just, I was just --

20 PARTICIPANT: I didn't know that was 

21 directed just to me, but yes, sure, let's --

22 MS. BUCK: No.
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1 PARTICIPANT: -- do a temperature 

2 check.

3 MS. BUCK: Okay. I was just looking 

4 at your face and trying to make sure --

5 PARTICIPANT: Yes.

6 MS. BUCK: -- that's what you were 

7 asking for.

8 PARTICIPANT: Yes.

9 MS. BUCK: So, let's see how your 

10 response is to Jennifer's proposal. So, we don't 

11 see thumbs down, so that will be a -- or 

12 sideways.

13 PARTICIPANT: Or sideways.

14 MS. BUCK: Wow. So, that's an item of 

15 information for the Department of Education to 

16 take back. So, are there any other comments 

17 about Issue Paper 6, which is where we had left 

18 off yesterday? And I think Greg had said all he 

19 needed to say about it in terms of what they were 

20 proposing. Kirsten?

21 MS. KEEFE: This is Kirsten. This 

22 just occurred to me last night, and I didn't see 
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1 it. So there was language put in, I think with 

2 the notification that it had to be provided in 

3 different languages if a course was going to be 

4 taught in Spanish, it had to be included in 

5 Spanish.

6 Has there been any consideration for 

7 the disclosures also to be provided in the 

8 language of the student?

9 MR. MARTIN: No, that was just, that 

10 was just notifications.

11 MS. KEEFE: Then, can I make the 

12 suggestion that that piece also be added to the 

13 disclosures as well?

14 MR. MARTIN: Yes, I'll take that back. 

15 You'd like the disclosure to be, to mirror the 

16 language in notifications?

17 MS. KEEFE: Yes. I think it's 

18 important because there are courses that are 

19 taught to students, in Spanish in particular, 

20 I've seen on some websites. Haven't seen other 

21 languages, but I'm sure -- so if the school is 

22 providing courses in that language, the 
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1 disclosure should be provided in that language as 

2 well.

3 MS. BUCK: Greg can't hear when he's 

4 being talked to, so --

5 MR. MARTIN: Should I wait?

6 MS. BUCK: Yes, I think it's important 

7 for the Department of Ed to hear, so I was just 

8 waiting. So I think, is Jennifer next?

9 PARTICIPANT: Sure, yes.

10 MS. BUCK: They're listening. They're 

11 ready now.

12 MR. MARTIN: Oh, go ahead.

13 MS. BUCK: No, I was just, I was 

14 waiting for Jennifer to speak until you were able 

15 to hear her.

16 PARTICIPANT: I'm moving onto a 

17 different subject, so I mean, I think the 

18 Department had a, wanted to respond to --

19 MR. MARTIN: No.

20 PARTICIPANT: -- Kirsten, so --

21 MR. MARTIN: I just, no. I, we have 

22 that. I'll take that back.
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1 MS. BUCK: Thank you. Okay, Jennifer?

2 MR. MADAIO: It's okay.

3 MS. BUCK: So, Chris, were you --

4 MR. MADAIO: All right.

5 MS. BUCK: -- on the other topic, and 

6 you want to go ahead?

7 MR. MADAIO: Yes.

8 MS. BUCK: Okay.

9 MR. MADAIO: This is on disclosures.

10 MS. BUCK: All right.

11 MR. MADAIO: So, this was something 

12 that was lightly discussed yesterday. I just 

13 wanted to emphasize, on Number 16, the URL 

14 linking to a web page containing the mandatory 

15 qualifications, I just don't remember the 

16 Department's answer.

17 When it says, the state, does that 

18 mean the state where the school is based, the 

19 state where the student lives? Is there any 

20 clarification on that?

21 MR. MARTIN: That's the state where 

22 the school is.
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1 MR. MADAIO: Okay. So, I can't 

2 remember how clear this was articulated 

3 yesterday, so I definitely want to emphasize 

4 that, you know, for online programs, or for 

5 schools where students do not live in that state, 

6 and live, especially where they live very far 

7 from that state, and are pretty clearly not 

8 articulating a desire to move to that state, 

9 listing that state's qualifications for a license 

10 is going to be even more deceptive for a student 

11 than not listing anything.

12 So, I think, again, to go back to 

13 certifications, that we'll get to later, I think 

14 that's more important. And just listing 

15 qualifications for a state that the student, or a 

16 web page for a state that, or Board, or whatever 

17 it may be, that the student doesn't live in is 

18 not a helpful disclosure at all.

19 MS. BUCK: I think, all right. 

20 Jennifer, and then Sandy.

21 PARTICIPANT: Yes. Now, it actually 

22 segues well, because I'm on the same point as 
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1 Chris, which was not scripted. But this does go 

2 back to the language that, and I don't know if 

3 Laura's coming today or not, but this is, so this 

4 is all built around, Chris and I are sort of 

5 piggybacking off of each other.

6 It's not any surprise, and if Laura 

7 were here, she'd be in the same place just 

8 because this is an area where we discussed it in 

9 the last session, and where we did think that we 

10 would be able to build some form of a, you know, 

11 some form of a consensus around the fact that the 

12 state isn't even the right term.

13 So, this Section 16 sort of fails on 

14 its face. And we did now, I know we had, Cynthia 

15 had been on, and in fairness to the Department, 

16 just to be clear, because I want to clarify, and 

17 Laura and I talked about this last night, I want 

18 to clarify, the language that we drafted really 

19 wasn't into a good, you know, into a place where 

20 we sort of had, were all together, worked on it 

21 until last Friday.

22 So, in fairness to the Department, 
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1 they didn't get it until last Friday, and it was 

2 Cynthia who got it. We had not sent it to Scott. 

3 But we now have sent it to Scott, and 

4 so I just want to understand from the Department 

5 whether there's any sensitivity, in the positive, 

6 of adapting its, it really would be adapting both 

7 16 and 13, because actually, Chris, in our 

8 proposal, we deleted 16 and moved it, in effect, 

9 into 13 to clarify that it was going to be, you 

10 know, the disclosures would relate to licensure 

11 boards, including the use of the licensure board 

12 URLs.

13 MR. MARTIN: I think it's like to, 

14 before saying how we would revise that language, 

15 I'd like to see what happens, because it's 

16 inexorably linked to the next, to 8 --

17 PARTICIPANT: 8.

18 MR. MARTIN: -- to 8, I'd like to have 

19 that discussion, and I don't think anything 

20 precludes us from saying, if whatever happens in 

21 8, that we would, that would necessarily link 

22 back to this and require a change if something's 
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1 agreed to there.

2 PARTICIPANT: Okay. So, I agree with, 

3 I agree, principally, with that, although you had 

4 made an interesting change in 8, so we'll talk, I 

5 mean, so we'll tie the two together when we talk.

6 MS. BUCK: Okay. Johnson?

7 MR. TYLER: I had a question about the 

8 loss leader. Hi.

9 MR. MARTIN: Go ahead. I'm sorry.

10 MR. TYLER: Oh, sorry. Sorry.

11 MR. MARTIN: I was looking somewhere, 

12 you know, I didn't --

13 MR. TYLER: Okay. Sorry. Sorry, 

14 Greg.

15 MR. MARTIN: I can't see without my 

16 glasses on. The distance thing really bothers, I 

17 know I need, what do you call those things? 

18 Progressives. But I'm too, I won't do it.

19 So that way, I hear the voice, and I 

20 thought there was, for some reason, I thought it 

21 was Jordan asking me a question. I'm looking at 

22 him, and he's not speaking. So I'll tell you 
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1 what I'll do, put my glasses on and look at you 

2 directly.

3 MR. TYLER: Hi, Greg. How are you? 

4 This is Johnson. My question had to do with the 

5 loss leader statement you made yesterday.

6 So can you, can you just describe 

7 that, what the, what the purpose of it is, and 

8 what, how the Department of Education's going to 

9 -- I kind of feel like these popup things I 

10 talked about yesterday were lost leader type --

11 MR. MARTIN: Yes. I say lead 

12 generators. And yes, loss leaders, I think 

13 that's what's in the grocery store. Like they 

14 point to something cheap like three for a buck, 

15 so you'll spend, you know, spend the money.

16 MR. TYLER: Right. Sorry. Lead 

17 generators.

18 MR. MARTIN: Yes. That's all right.

19 MR. TYLER: Thank you.

20 MR. MARTIN: That's, I do that kind of 

21 stuff all the time. Yes, the lead generators, 

22 we're concerned with, you know, students seeing 
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1 the disclosure in any way that the school, that a 

2 school would reach out to advertise to students. 

3 And so, we're, so you know, the way 

4 the rules are currently written, it's if the, you 

5 know, and anything referencing the program itself 

6 would have to have this on the, this is, this is, 

7 this would be an expansion, I think, to, so that 

8 any lead generator the student, that the school 

9 uses to get, you know, to generate interest in 

10 the programs, that it would, it would also have 

11 to have the disclosure attached to it, or link 

12 attached to it, just to make it more, to make it 

13 more broad.

14 So I mean, that was, that's something 

15 which is a very, it's important point for senior 

16 leadership. They really wanted to get that in 

17 there, and so, that's why I wanted to make that 

18 point that we intend to include something along 

19 those lines.

20 MR. TYLER: Just a followup on that. 

21 I'm not a technology person, but you can't 

22 advance on the page on some of these websites 
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1 without filling out the popup, which generates a 

2 call, a personal touch.

3 So if there's a way that someone who 

4 knows about technology would make sure that, you 

5 know, the regulation reflected that there should 

6 be a way to get some information without being --

7 MR. MARTIN: I wholeheartedly --

8 MR. TYLER: -- stymied with that.

9 MR. MARTIN: -- agree. We agree. 

10 There should be a way for a student to get the 

11 disclosure before giving a number, before giving 

12 the, his or her information to generate a call. 

13 We agree with that, and we will look at that in 

14 the language.

15 MS. BUCK: I know there was quite a 

16 bit of comment on Issue Paper 6 yesterday, and 

17 there have been several now.

18 I'm wondering, all of you did vote a 

19 thumbs up on the proposal for consumer testing, 

20 and so the Department of Ed has that information. 

21 I'm wondering, if that were to be included, what 

22 would be a temperature check on Issue Paper 6 at 
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1 this point, just to, just to kind of get a 

2 feeling?

3 MR. MARTIN: I do what to say, before 

4 we take the temperature check, that I did check 

5 with leadership, and we are, that if the, if the, 

6 if we have consensus or agreement on that, that 

7 we're inclined to change the rules to reflect the 

8 opinion of the negotiators.

9 MS. BUCK: You mean the consumer 

10 testing?

11 MR. MARTIN: The consumer testing 

12 risk. Yes.

13 MS. BUCK: Well, that's good news for 

14 everybody. So if that were to be included, I 

15 just wanted to get a general temperature check on 

16 where you are with Issue Paper 6 before we move 

17 on, and we're going to come back and take a 

18 temperature check of the whole thing, but I was 

19 just trying to figure out where you were at this 

20 point. Seems like there are two comments. 

21 Whitney?

22 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: Just to ask, just 
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1 to ask a clarifying question. And Jennifer, you 

2 might be the one to answer this. So the language 

3 that you and Laura worked on would go on, into 13 

4 on 6? Okay.

5 I mean, that's my only concern about 

6 an issue, or a temperature check, is I, you know, 

7 that language has been negotiated between a group 

8 of negotiators offline. And so, I'm just a 

9 little uncomfortable doing a temperature check 

10 until we've discussed that language, because I 

11 think it's important in this issue paper.

12 MS. BUCK: What did you want to say 

13 about the language? You wanted to look at it 

14 again?

15 PARTICIPANT: That's not, that's not -

16 -

17 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: No, that's not 

18 Jennifer's language.

19 MS. BUCK: That's --

20 PARTICIPANT: Well, that was my 

21 language on consumer testing, but there's a whole 

22 other subcommittee that had language on Friday 
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1 that I think, and it's, we can circulate it, but 

2 to Greg's point, which I think he said a minute 

3 ago, 6 and 8 are really tied together.

4 And so, until we get an answer to 

5 Whitney's point on paragraph 13, which the 

6 Department says they want to hold on, which I 

7 understand, until we have a conversation about 

8 certification, you know, the 8, you know, the 

9 Issue 8, I feel like it's premature to ask for a 

10 temperature check on 6 because I would probably, 

11 I mean, I'll just tell you right now, I would 

12 probably vote against it, but only because we 

13 don't have an answer on paragraph 13.

14 So, and we're not going to get one 

15 until we talk about Issue 8. So I feel like it, 

16 I feel like it needs to hold. I mean, that's 

17 just my view.

18 MS. BUCK: Okay. So is everybody 

19 ready then to move onto Issue Paper 8?

20 PARTICIPANT: Sure.

21 PARTICIPANT: Yes.

22 MS. BUCK: Okay. Over to you, Greg.
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1 MR. MARTIN: Okay. Cynthia Hammond 

2 of, from FSA, will be coming up to assist with 

3 Issue Paper 8. Okay.

4 So we are looking at Issue Paper 8, 

5 Certification Requirements. And I'll just give 

6 you a summary of the changes since Session 2.

7 Since the second negotiating session, 

8 our only proposed change is our conforming 

9 changes that limit the certifications to 

10 undergraduate programs. So other than that, what 

11 you see here is what was proposed previously, 

12 except for, oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Right. I'm 

13 sorry. Yes. Page 3.

14 So there is an exception here, page 3. 

15 This is the change we made relatively a short 

16 time ago. So note the change there at the bottom 

17 of page 3.

18 The GE program, so these are part of 

19 the certifications that the GE program is 

20 programmatically accredited, or has submitted an 

21 application for pre-accreditation or 

22 accreditation.
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1 So that is, that is an addition from 

2 the previous, over the previous, the paper that 

3 was given to you in the previous session. Okay. 

4 We would entertain questions.

5 PARTICIPANT: Well, didn't you strike 

6 a whole bunch of page 4 that's relevant? You 

7 struck the certification on licensure.

8 MR. MARTIN: Yes, I'm sorry. This is 

9 not a paper, these later changes are, yes. Okay. 

10 You're right.

11 On the back, we should look at page 4. 

12 So on the back of page 4, you can see here that 

13 we have, we struck the portion that says for the 

14 state in which the institution is located or in 

15 which the institution's otherwise required to 

16 have obtained state approval, each eligible 

17 program satisfies the educational prerequisites 

18 for professional licensure in that state. So we 

19 struck that.

20 And also, for the program in which the 

21 institution seeks to establish eligibility for 

22 Title IV funds is not substantially similar to a 
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1 program offered by the institution that, in prior 

2 years, became ineligible.

3 MS. BUCK: Questions or comments?

4 PARTICIPANT: Well, now that Laura's 

5 here, I'm sure she'll do some speaking too, but 

6 I'll cover the base for her until she, until she 

7 settles in, and I'm sure Chris will pick up.

8 But I am curious, I'm just going to do 

9 it in the form of a question. I suspect I know 

10 the answer, but I am, I am curious, and it's sort 

11 of an interesting place for me to be raising 

12 this, but I am curious as to why the Department 

13 would strike the certification on licensure.

14 I'm not sure I have a position myself, 

15 but I do want to understand the reasoning behind 

16 the striking of it.

17 MS. HAMMOND: So senior leadership was 

18 concerned about the conflict between, when 

19 accreditor is accredit, and when state licensure 

20 boards require licensure.

21 There are numerous cases where an 

22 accreditor will require them to graduate a few 
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1 classes before they have a chance to accredit 

2 them, and then, the state, it, rules are in 

3 conflict, and so we, that's the reason why we 

4 struck this paragraph.

5 PARTICIPANT: Okay. So, and I, 

6 believe me, we deal with that all the time, so I 

7 am very sympathetic to that. That is a huge 

8 catch 22 in general from a licensure standpoint, 

9 that the accreditor requires you to be in 

10 existence, but not just in existence, but a lot 

11 of specialized accreditors require that you 

12 graduate students before they will accredit you.

13 And then, the states on the license 

14 boards, will say that you have to have 

15 specialized accreditation, and you can't. You 

16 literally can't because your program is new and 

17 you don't have completers. So I am very 

18 sympathetic to that reasoning behind the 

19 striking.

20 MS. BUCK: Whitney, then Laura.

21 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: So I understand 

22 that concern, but I guess my concern is what 
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1 happens to the borrowers and students who 

2 graduate under that regime?

3 I mean, presumably, you know, they 

4 can't sit for the certification and licensing 

5 exams? Is that correct?

6 PARTICIPANT: Not necessarily. It 

7 sort of depends on how the state handles it, but 

8 you're completely correct, and this is one of the 

9 reasons why, and so, I do appreciate the 

10 Department's recognizing that 6 and 8 are tied 

11 together.

12 It's one of the reasons why my 

13 position on this is that we get the disclosure 

14 piece right, and it's incumbent on, in the 

15 disclosure section, in my view, that the 

16 institution that's in that catch 22 make sure, so 

17 you can still complete.

18 So, one thing they really keep in mind 

19 with licensure programs is you can often have 

20 good professions without the licensure piece.

21 So, and I'm not trying to make that 

22 sound like a sugar coating or anything, but the 
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1 fact of the matter is that, you know, there, you 

2 can go into some school counseling without being 

3 licensed as a counselor. Like, the schools will 

4 hire, and then you can get, there are sort of 

5 avenues, and I've talked about pathways and 

6 things like that. And so, there are ways.

7 But on the disclosure piece, I feel 

8 like it's very incumbent on the institution to 

9 explain what the avenue, you know, what it looks 

10 like so that there's a full picture.

11 And so that's why I'm very focused on 

12 the disclosure section in particular in terms of 

13 getting it right and making sure that the 

14 institutions are, you know, fairly obligated to 

15 disclose in a way that's sort of fully 

16 transparent about the situation that a school 

17 might be in in the states.

18 And Whitney, I mean, you're raising a, 

19 it's, this is a quandary for every school that 

20 decides to open a new program and licensure. 

21 It's a definite issue.

22 But some states handle it. So some 
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1 states allow the, if you're in pre-accreditation, 

2 which is why the Department, I think, added the 

3 language on page 3, which I also appreciate that 

4 it's recognizing pre-accreditation.

5 So if you get yourself into pre6 accreditation, a lot of the states will then sort 

7 of allow some --

8 PARTICIPANT: Candidacy.

9 PARTICIPANT: -- you know, right, 

10 candidacy status. Right. And then, they'll 

11 allow the licensure. That's state to state, 

12 which is why I'm really intent on the state to 

13 state piece on the disclosure.

14 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: So help me just 

15 understand, Cynthia, so I make sure I'm getting 

16 this right. So 2, at the bottom of page 3, would 

17 require pre-accreditation?

18 MS. HAMMOND: The program would either 

19 have to be programmatically accredited, or pre20 accredited, if required by the state.

21 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: Some states have 

22 a programmatic accreditation requirements, and a 
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1 lot don't.

2 MS. HAMMOND: Right.

3 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: And some of them 

4 have them for one program and not for others. So 

5 it kind of depends on what the state rules are 

6 regarding that.

7 And this is a problem that I know we 

8 went back and forth about in the last GE, but I 

9 do just want to raise that what the state

10 requires, and to some extent, I understand that 

11 this is a state issue, but what the state 

12 requires, and often, what employers require is 

13 different.

14 And my concern is borrowers who are 

15 going onto a site and seeing countless numbers of 

16 accreditations and licensures that actually don't 

17 mean anything to employers in their field.

18 And so, it sort of makes the, you 

19 know, for example, in certified nursing, you 

20 know, you might go on and have, like, we have 

21 this little accreditation, and this little 

22 accreditation, and this little accreditation, but 
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1 none of it leads to an actual CNA. And that's 

2 the concern that I have when it comes to this.

3 And I don't know that we, like I said, 

4 can fix that at this table, but I appreciate that 

5 at least we're not requiring some showing of 

6 accreditation and pre-accreditation.

7 MS. BUCK: Laura, and then Mark.

8 MS. METUNE: I understand the concern 

9 that's been raised about the way in which states 

10 require institutions to be, meet licensure 

11 standards, and the way in which accreditors 

12 operate, in terms of requiring students to enter 

13 and sometimes graduate from the program before 

14 they'll provide accreditation.

15 And I think that's why the 

16 conversation that Jennifer and I had with Chris 

17 and others was around ensuring that this, 

18 retaining the language regarding licensure 

19 status, but also ensuring that there were 

20 exceptions to that.

21 Exceptions where a student would have 

22 to self-identify that they understand the 
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1 limitations that, around whether or not they'll 

2 be eligible to sit for licensure in their state, 

3 and then, essentially, affirming that they want 

4 to enroll in the program anyway, which is a way 

5 beyond disclosure, which I think we talked about 

6 yesterday. Most students are not going to click 

7 on those links to determine what their state 

8 level licensure requirements are.

9 So how do we ensure that a student has 

10 a much better way of understanding the 

11 limitations of the program they're entering with 

12 regard to whether or not it can assure them a 

13 spot in licensure for that career field?

14 So I want to propose, I mean, I also 

15 propose language that would ensure that that's 

16 true for the state in which the students resides, 

17 not just the state in which the institution is 

18 operated.

19 I'd like to propose that language. It 

20 came out by, Scott emailed it out yesterday. I'm 

21 not sure if I, anybody printed copies. Oh, thank 

22 you.
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1 MS. BUCK: So the proposal is coming 

2 around the table.

3 MS. METUNE: And I also want to say 

4 that Jennifer and I knew, going into the 

5 conversation we had about this language, that we 

6 were too late for the issue paper.

7 And so, it's not the fault of the 

8 Department. Okay, great. Great. Sorry. I 

9 apologize for being late. I had a meeting this 

10 morning.

11 So I'll, this is coming around. I'd 

12 encourage folks to look at it. I think, at the 

13 very least, we need to continue to require 

14 licensure that the, a program meets licensure, 

15 and which the state in which it's located, I'd 

16 like to see it extended to the state where the 

17 student is located, and I also think ensuring a 

18 student signs and acknowledges any limitations of 

19 licensure is a way to avoid the problem that was 

20 raised by the Department.

21 PARTICIPANT: We were, I got the paper 

22 at the same time you were recommending. Is it 
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1 somewhere specifically in here that, what you 

2 just stated?

3 MS. METUNE: The bottom part, the red 

4 at the bottom.

5 PARTICIPANT: Page 1?

6 MS. METUNE: Yes.

7 PARTICIPANT: Got it.

8 MR. MADAIO: Right. So page 1, the 

9 first front page of what was just passed around 

10 would go in page 4 of the issue paper, what the 

11 Department, the yellow highlighted that the 

12 Department struck out.

13 MS. METUNE: Yes.

14 MR. MADAIO: So that would go in there 

15 with the additions that were suggested. That was 

16 Chris, by the way.

17 PARTICIPANT: People probably need a 

18 minute to absorb the proposal, so we'll give 

19 people a minute to review it.

20 MR. MADAIO: Yes, so this is Chris. I 

21 don't know if it needs, if everybody's reading, 

22 if I'll, if I would interrupt by going, 
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1 explaining it a little more.

2 I guess there's three right tenants to 

3 it. The first, of course, includes where the 

4 program's enrolled students reside, or any other 

5 state for which the institution has made a 

6 determination.

7 That was language, I think, that was 

8 previously in the rules. So we didn't come up 

9 with that last clause about institution making a 

10 determination. And again, I support that, 

11 obviously, I think the reasons that we discussed 

12 before, that students should know that the place

13 that they're living, at least, is somewhere 

14 they'd be able to obtain licensure.

15 And then, this addresses that the 

16 middle addition, with possible specific 

17 curricular adjustments offered by the institution 

18 as needed.

19 I think, and Jennifer, you can add, 

20 that's attempting to correct the point that, 

21 maybe could, you probably say it better. If they 

22 need to make adjustments based on changing 
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1 licensure standards.

2 PARTICIPANT: Yes, it's the, it's to 

3 recognize, and I've discussed this before in 

4 previous sessions. It's to recognize that 

5 different licensure boards and different states 

6 actually have different curricular requirements. 

7 And so, it's quite possible then, in 

8 order to satisfy, your home state might, and 

9 which is, your home state is where you're going 

10 to care the most, initially, right? So your home 

11 state is going to say, here's what we require for 

12 licensure.

13 But as you get students from 

14 additional states, you need to go, the license, 

15 view the institution, you need a licensure board, 

16 look and see what their requirements are, and it 

17 might be that, you know, while one state says you 

18 need to take X course, you don't need to take 

19 that X course in state Y. And so, you add 

20 whatever course is needed in state Y to 

21 accommodate the student who's in that state so 

22 that they can get licensure.
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1 MR. MADAIO: Right. Sorry. So that, 

2 right, says it a lot better, that just the 

3 specific program a student's about to get into 

4 might, maybe a few more credits, perhaps, for 

5 that state.

6 And then, the last part is what, I 

7 think Laura was discussing, which is that the 

8 idea being that, if a student is going to go into 

9 a program that does not have the licensure, could 

10 be for various reasons, then the idea is that the 

11 student should understand that, and provide kind 

12 of their written acknowledgments, affirming that 

13 they know why that is, and then writing, in their 

14 own words, the reason.

15 So we thought it was important not 

16 just for the student to check a box or to see a 

17 disclaimer that says, you know, this may not meet 

18 the requirements of your state, but to actually, 

19 to have to think about it for a minute, a moment 

20 of pause, and the student would have to write 

21 something in that would articulate their reason. 

22 Maybe it's because they don't intend 
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1 to get licensure. Maybe it's because they intend 

2 to move to Florida, or they move, intend to move 

3 far away from their home state to a state that is 

4 licensed. Or any other reason that it may be.

5 So I think we're not trying to limit 

6 it so much as to what the intent is to ensure 

7 that the student understands.

8 MS. BUCK: Mark, did you have a 

9 comment about this proposal, or was your name up 

10 for a previous piece?

11 MR. MCKENZIE: Yes, it is about the 

12 language around the accreditation piece. This is 

13 Mark McKenzie, for the record.

14 On page 3, the paragraph under Number 

15 2, I don't, I'm not sure that the language that 

16 you currently have in there is going to 

17 accomplish what you're trying to get. And even 

18 the language that, I think, is proposed is also 

19 not going to capture everything.

20 And the reason I'm saying that is you 

21 could, an institution can submit an application 

22 for pre-accreditation or accreditation, and not 
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1 even be eligible.

2 PARTICIPANT: Right.

3 MR. MCKENZIE: So they could still, 

4 you know, well, status is, or pre-accreditation 

5 is an actual status. There's a, there's an 

6 eligibility phase.

7 And so, like in the state of 

8 California, for example, if you submit an 

9 application for pre-accreditation or 

10 accreditation, and demonstrate that you're 

11 eligible for that, then the process unfolds, and 

12 it still may take another year to two years for 

13 that program to actually achieve pre14 accreditation status, that grant.

15 So we just have to clarify that piece, 

16 for sure. So you don't want somebody just, well, 

17 yes, I submitted an application, but I'm not even 

18 eligible.

19 MS. BUCK: Todd, and then Jennifer.

20 PARTICIPANT: And I have a question 

21 for Mark too. So, Mark, on that, on that point, 

22 thank you for clarifying that. That helps. I am 
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1 involved in a situation where, for a pharmacy 

2 program, you submit the application, do 

3 everything, but they cannot start enrolling 

4 students until they have received that pre5 accreditation.

6 And in fact, it is a situation like 

7 Jennifer was describing. They, where you get 

8 pre-accreditation, you submit, you have to 

9 actually graduate students out of that program 

10 before they are then eligible to basically prove 

11 they know how to teach, I guess, pharmacy, and 

12 they would then receive full accreditation, all 

13 the bells and whistles lining up, assuming.

14 So are you, I think that, for me, 

15 would the designation be that, based on the 

16 accreditor, based on when the accreditor allows 

17 the school to begin teaching, whatever the status

18 is, it's, that's when it needs to matter, right? 

19 I mean --

20 MR. MCKENZIE: Well --

21 PARTICIPANT: -- help me.

22 MR. MCKENZIE: -- yes. It's a little 
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1 bit complicated, because it changes at each 

2 state. So not all states require pre3 accreditation, or even allow it.

4 PARTICIPANT: Well, you guys do, but 

5 accreditors don't.

6 MR. MCKENZIE: Not all accreditors are 

7 even granted the authority to give pre8 accreditation status. So that's, it's, you know, 

9 it's by accreditation.

10 So your status, the first thing, the 

11 status needs to match the state requirements. 

12 That's first and foremost. And if there is a 

13 pre-accreditation, then it's like, how do you do 

14 it?

15 So in California, one of the driving 

16 factors is the accreditor actually requires 

17 schools to be up and running and having enrolled 

18 students in order for us to be able to evaluate 

19 them.

20 Therefore, they're enrolled in a time 

21 when they're non, they're not accreditor, and 

22 they're not pre-accredited. They're, they've 
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1 been granted state authorization, but they are in 

2 that in between land. And so they're not 

3 eligible for Title IV at that point.

4 PARTICIPANT: Right.

5 MR. MCKENZIE: So during that phase, 

6 the challenge becomes, state law in California 

7 mandates, if it leads, especially in health 

8 professions, if it leads to licensure, they have 

9 to be able to, that student has to be able to 

10 have a pathway to licensure, so if they graduate 

11 before the accreditation status is achieved, then 

12 they would not actually be eligible for state

13 licensure.

14 So what ends up happening is it gets 

15 pushed back to the individual review board. So, 

16 like, in acupuncture, it would go to the 

17 California Acupuncture Board. They would have to 

18 evaluate that student individually.

19 And so, what we negotiated with the 

20 State of California is that we will, we'll get 

21 you a letter that says they have actually applied 

22 to, and been given the status, eligibility 
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1 status, so they've met our 21 eligibility 

2 requirements.

3 So, you know, theoretically, they can, 

4 they could be eligible to achieve accreditation, 

5 but they're not accredited yet. Does that help?

6 PARTICIPANT: Yes, it does.

7 MS. BUCK: So Todd, I think, is next. 

8 Or, I'm sorry.

9 MS. HAMMOND: No, go ahead and let 

10 Todd go.

11 MR. JONES: One of the problems that 

12 is encountered by expanding this kind of system 

13 to more kinds of degree programs is you run into 

14 problems like I'm going to describe.

15 Baccalaureate programs that lead to 

16 licensure at colleges, independent colleges, 

17 include institutions that don't fit the mold 

18 we're talking about here in a couple of ways.

19 First of all, not everyone declares 

20 what program they're going into when they enroll, 

21 and more specifically, there is a significant 

22 number of colleges that do not permit students to 
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1 select what their major is.

2 So if you're going into teaching, you 

3 may know the day you walk in that you intend to 

4 be a teacher, but you're not really a teacher, 

5 teaching major at that institution until, in some 

6 cases, your fourth semester on campus, or junior 

7 year.

8 And then, you get into difficulties, 

9 the next difficulty that leads from this is what 

10 is your home state?

11 Grow up in Colorado, you move to Ohio 

12 to attend one of my institutions that has a later 

13 declaration of major, and you decide that you no 

14 longer want the clear skies and sun of Colorado, 

15 you want gray, depressing, industrial towns to go 

16 teach kids who have greater need. And so, you 

17 decide, I'm either going to live in Cleveland or 

18 Detroit.

19 And now, so which teaching regulations 

20 are important? I mean, what notice are you 

21 doing? The fact that the college doesn't work on 

22 a focus on Colorado is really not relevant.
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1 That's important for the teacher 

2 education institution and what we're talking 

3 about. You have to disclose here, and you have 

4 to receive a written acknowledgment.

5 So let's even assume you're now doing 

6 the written acknowledgment in the middle of the 

7 kid's sophomore year to, kid, the 20-year-old's 

8 sophomore year. What, at what point, or what 

9 value are you providing the nature of this 

10 notice?

11 The other thing I want to point out is 

12 even for institutions that have students who are 

13 attending their institution, you can have such 

14 degrees of variability as to where students are 

15 coming from for particular programs year over 

16 year, that handling this becomes exceedingly 

17 difficult when you are a national institution.

18 And there are, there are literally, 

19 say dozens there, there are literally a few 

20 hundred institutions in our country where 

21 students are not attracted from the state of the 

22 institution. They're coming from elsewhere.
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1 I'm not saying it's not possible to do 

2 this. I'm saying it's hopelessly bureaucratic, 

3 and really not providing anything of value 

4 because, here's the other thing about these 

5 institutions.

6 If you are a national baccalaureate 

7 institution, you are, and facing this dilemma, 

8 the students who you are attracting are going to 

9 be of higher academic quality, and not the ones 

10 that you're really, I would think, conceptually 

11 concerned about issues of notice and risk of 

12 debt.

13 These are institutions that have zero, 

14 one, and two percent default rates. They have 70 

15 and 80 percent four-year graduation rates.

16 So the problem here doesn't fit those 

17 institutions, and yet, it's setting up, unless 

18 I'm missing something, another bureaucratic 

19 hurdle in a nation where we spend a lot of time 

20 wringing our hands about the cost of education, 

21 but thinking, well, the, you know, the Department 

22 can just add this one little piece, and that's 
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1 okay.

2 MS. BUCK: Cynthia, you had wanted to 

3 respond earlier, and I had interrupted you, so 

4 please go ahead.

5 MS. HAMMOND: It's fine. I just 

6 wanted to respond to something in Mark's comment. 

7 First of all, I want to clarify that all schools 

8 are required to get accreditation.

9 This is if the state or federal 

10 government requires programmatic accreditation 

11 for a specific occupation. Everybody absolutely 

12 has to be accredited in order to get Title IV 

13 money.

14 The other one is, I had a proposal

15 that we could change in order to address some of 

16 the issues that have been raised at the table.

17 So Number 2 could read, the program is 

18 programmatically accredited, or has pre19 accreditation status, when available, if such 

20 accreditation is required by a federal government 

21 entity, or a governmental entity in the state in 

22 which the institution is located, or in which the 
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1 institution is otherwise required to obtain state 

2 approval under 34 CFR 600.9.

3 So instead of saying, the big change

4 here is, instead of saying, or has submitted an 

5 application for pre-accreditation or 

6 accreditation, it'll say, or has pre7 accreditation status, when available.

8 MS. BUCK: So Cynthia, help me 

9 understand. Is this with regard to Laura's 

10 proposal, or separate from it?

11 MS. HAMMOND: This is more on Number 

12 2, so it doesn't touch into all of the issues 

13 that are in Laura's proposal.

14 MS. BUCK: Because I think she had 

15 made the proposal, and people were responding. 

16 I'm just trying to keep track of what's going on 

17 here.

18 MS. HAMMOND: I think we've been 

19 floating back and forth --

20 MS. BUCK: Yes.

21 MS. HAMMOND: -- between the 

22 Department's proposal --
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1 MS. BUCK: Yes. Yes.

2 MS. HAMMOND: -- and Laura's.

3 MS. BUCK: I think so too.

4 MS. HAMMOND: So --

5 MS. BUCK: So I wonder if we could 

6 take them separately. I wonder, Laura, would you 

7 rather, would you rather us respond to what 

8 Cynthia has just said first?

9 MS. METUNE: Sure.

10 MS. BUCK: Okay.

11 MS. METUNE: I also have different 

12 language, if we want to hear that as well. So 

13 I've just been over here scribbling.

14 MS. BUCK: So can people respond to 

15 what Cynthia just proposed? So Cynthia, could 

16 you read it again?

17 MS. HAMMOND: Sure.

18 MS. BUCK: Please?

19 MS. HAMMOND: The program is 

20 programmatically accredited, or has pre21 accreditation status, when available, if such 

22 accreditation is required by a federal entity, or 
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1 by a government entity in the state in which the 

2 institution is located, duh, duh, duh, to the end 

3 of the, that paragraph.

4 PARTICIPANT: So could you say it 

5 again, so that way Aaron (phonetic) could catch 

6 it up on there, so people could look at it, so if 

7 you turn around, you could see where he's editing 

8 on there?

9 MS. HAMMOND: So where it currently 

10 says, or has, keep that, delete the submitted an 

11 application for, after the word pre12 accreditation, add status, when available, and 

13 then, delete or accreditation, also in the 

14 highlighted.

15 MS. BUCK: So why don't you look, make 

16 sure that it's happening, and if not, repeat 

17 segments of it until it is what your proposal is.

18 MS. HAMMOND: Yes. After the word 

19 pre-accreditation, delete or accreditation. And 

20 the only reason I'm deleting that is it's 

21 duplicated from what it says in the, in the line 

22 above. Yes, there's a, also a comma at the end 
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1 of the highlighting that can be deleted. Thank 

2 you.

3 MS. BUCK: So, does that cover it? I 

4 mean, is that, is that --

5 MS. HAMMOND: That is the Department's 

6 proposal, currently.

7 MS. BUCK: That is the Department's 

8 proposal? Okay.

9 MS. HAMMOND: And like I said, it was 

10 to respond to the very good points Mark said 

11 about what's, you know, its pre-accreditation 

12 status, not application form.

13 MS. BUCK: So are there any questions 

14 about what the proposal is or what it means, that

15 you want to direct to Cynthia? Let me ask that 

16 first.

17 The, so the people who have their 

18 cards up now all have questions for Cynthia. Is 

19 that right? Okay. So Tony?

20 MR. MIRANDO: So this is for Cynthia, 

21 and my organization is institutional 

22 accreditation, but I was with a programmatic 
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1 accreditor prior.

2 So I guess my question here is for you 

3 is that, is it the intention that where 

4 programmatic accreditation is required by the 

5 state for sit for licensure, that this is saying 

6 that they must have pre-accreditation status 

7 prior to offering the program?

8 MS. HAMMOND: It doesn't say --

9 MR. MIRANDO: It says the program is 

10 programmatically accredited --

11 MS. HAMMOND: The program has to be 

12 either accredited by the programmatic accreditor, 

13 or has pre-accreditation status, when available, 

14 before the program is offered if the state or 

15 federal government requires it. And an example 

16 of when the federal government would require it 

17 is aviation.

18 MR. MIRANDO: Yes. So that might be a 

19 little difficult, because again, and I don't know 

20 how it is for your agency, but some programmatic 

21 accreditors, and I'll say some, programmatic 

22 accreditors will require that the program be up 
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1 and running prior to doing that.

2 MS. HAMMOND: Let me clarify. It's 

3 Title IV. It's not actually offered. You guys 

4 can offer whatever you want. It's for Title IV.

5 MR. MIRANDO: Well, then that would be 

6 institutional accreditation, and that's Number 1, 

7 not Number 2. Because programmatic accreditation 

8 is, maybe I'm mistaken, is not tied to Title IV. 

9 That's institutional accreditation is. So --

10 MS. HAMMOND: So the program either 

11 has to be institutionally accredited, or included 

12 in the institutional accreditor, accreditation, 

13 but this is an additional requirement, that --

14 MR. MIRANDO: Right.

15 MS. HAMMOND: -- we're proposing in 

16 this, right.

17 MR. MIRANDO: And I don't, and I don't 

18 mean to be, I don't mean to be difficult, but I 

19 just want to make sure we get it right.

20 So the one story that I think 

21 everybody remembers is a school being opened in 

22 New York, and I think it was for ultrasound, and 
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1 I think that's where this is kind of coming from, 

2 I think.

3 This school there was required to be, 

4 obviously, institutionally accredited in New 

5 York, in order to have the program. Student came 

6 in, took the program, but wanted to go back to 

7 New Jersey.

8 When they got to New Jersey, New 

9 Jersey said, you needed to have other 

10 requirements, which included programmatic 

11 accreditation, I believe, and New York didn't 

12 require that. So the student wasn't eligible. 

13 So I think that's what this is supposed to get 

14 to, no?

15 MS. HAMMOND: No. This is, so after 

16 we did gainful employment the first time round, 

17 back in, what was it, 2010? Back when we did it 

18 the first time round, we found several cases of 

19 programs that the states they were located in 

20 required a certain accreditation they did not 

21 have. So for an example, maybe it was a nursing 

22 program --
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1 MR. MIRANDO: Right.

2 MS. HAMMOND: -- that had the --

3 MR. MIRANDO: Okay.

4 MS. HAMMOND: It was part of the 

5 school with other programs, and so it had the 

6 overall institutional accreditation, but that one 

7 program, in order to sit the licensures --

8 MR. MIRANDO: Sit the licensure.

9 MS. HAMMOND: -- and in the state they 

10 were located, didn't have it. The other issue 

11 about crossing borders --

12 MR. MIRANDO: And that's fine. Again, 

13 some accreditors won't do programmatic 

14 accreditation until the program is up and 

15 running, so they can go in and evaluate it. So 

16 you can't require it prior to being up and 

17 running.

18 Now, the students may have to be 

19 notified that the school is not programmatically 

20 accredited yet, but that we're working towards 

21 getting it, but it doesn't ensure that it meets 

22 that requirement. Yes.
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1 MS. BUCK: Are there any other 

2 questions of Cynthia, as to what, as to the 

3 proposal? Questions about it? Jennifer?

4 PARTICIPANT: So sort of along the 

5 lines of what Tony is saying, I'm really worried 

6 that this provision is mixing apples and oranges 

7 a little bit in terms of what the Department's 

8 trying to accomplish. And so, I'm now, 

9 admittedly, confused, myself.

10 But when you referenced the 34 600.9, 

11 that's a state authorization, that's the state 

12 authorization requirements.

13 I know that there's a provision in 

14 there that references a 668 provision that 

15 pertains to disclosure on licensure, but I think, 

16 and I don't have it in front of me, but 600.9 is 

17 a state, institutional state authorization 

18 section. First of all, let me just ask, that's 

19 correct, right? That's not programmatic?

20 PARTICIPANT: It's under state 

21 requirements. Yes, the state authorization 

22 regulations also include that the institution 
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1 meets other state requirements for the programs 

2 it's offering. So it's like, other state 

3 requirements, if applicable.

4 PARTICIPANT: Okay. Because I just 

5 feel like, when you add in or in which the 

6 institution is otherwise required to attain state 

7 approval, muddies the water on what we're talking 

8 about here, because it's not the institute, it's 

9 the program, we're talking about licensure for 

10 the student, and I feel like we're mixing 

11 thoughts in too.

12 I'm not saying it's not a legitimate 

13 thought, in terms of as it relates to the 

14 institution, but that piece seems to me more 

15 covered in other places.

16 And so, this, to me, relates to the 

17 programmatic accreditation, or whether or not an 

18 institution is required, whether or not a 

19 program, sorry, is required to have 

20 accreditation, and if it does or doesn't, in 

21 order for a student to be licensed.

22 Now, a lot of states don't require 
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1 accreditation, so that's a whole different ball 

2 of wax. But that last phrase of, or in which the 

3 institution is otherwise, to me, muddies the 

4 water with the rest of the paragraph.

5 MS. BUCK: Do you want to respond to 

6 that, Cynthia?

7 MS. HAMMOND: I'd like to hear, I'd 

8 like to hear Mark's question before we respond.

9 MR. MCKENZIE: Sure. I, the way you 

10 presented it, you're absolutely right. So you're 

11 already assuming that, at this point, the 

12 institution that's offering the program has to be 

13 an accredited institution, excuse me, which 

14 changes the dynamic a little bit as, but still, 

15 accreditors will handle program approvals 

16 differently.

17 In some cases, there still may be the, 

18 let's call it an eligibility phase, so it's 

19 actually before pre-accreditation, and students 

20 may be enrolled in that program when it's in 

21 eligibility.

22 And your language corrects the pre-
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1 accreditation candidacy, but it doesn't 

2 accommodate the students that are enrolled in a 

3 program that is deemed to be eligible, but has 

4 not yet been granted pre-accreditation status.

5 And in certain states, that has to be 

6 included, especially where it leads to licensure. 

7 So I don't know if that, if, I'll leave it at 

8 that and let you respond.

9 MS. BUCK: Steve (phonetic), did you 

10 want to respond? I noticed you put up your name.

11 MR. CHEMA: So, in prior discussions 

12 with the GE regulations, this issue comes down to 

13 how the program is marketed to the students. All 

14 right?

15 Because I understand a lot of programs 

16 that can have programmatic accreditation can lead 

17 to a faster path to licensure for some of the 

18 graduates, and then, there's usually an alternate 

19 track where they can, they can take the program 

20 if it doesn't have programmatic accreditation, 

21 and then work for a couple of years before they 

22 can sit for the, for a licensure exam in that 
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1 area.

2 And the discussions we had before, 

3 it's all about how it's marketed. If that 

4 program is being marketed to students as if 

5 completing that qualifies them to sit for that 

6 license exam, that's the way it, that's the 

7 approval the program needs to have for those, to 

8 be eligible for Title IV. Right?

9 It's, so it's not just that it, the 

10 institution itself has Title IV eligibility. The 

11 program, the way it's marketed, also needs to 

12 have that additional requirement.

13 So let me just go on there for a 

14 second, and I'm sorry, I forgot. This is Steve, 

15 for the record.

16 But that also means if they're 

17 marketing inappropriately to say, you can take 

18 this program and go out and work two years, and 

19 then sit for this exam, or here's the earnings 

20 you're going to get if you take this program and 

21 start working, without then having the additional 

22 step to be able to get this other licensing 
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1 thing, that would be okay. But this is, this is 

2 the context for the prior discussions we had on 

3 this issue.

4 MR. MARTIN: We'd like to call for a 

5 10 minute break, please. Thank you.

6 MS. BUCK: We'll take a 10 minute 

7 break.

8 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

9 went off the record and resumed at an undisclosed 

10 time.)

11 MS. BUCK: Okay. So I see that the 

12 Department of Ed is back, their representatives, 

13 and Greg, tell us what you'd like to say.

14 MR. MARTIN: So we would, first of 

15 all, before, does anybody want, was Laura done? 

16 Want to say anything else?

17 MS. BUCK: Was Laura done, do you mean 

18 with her proposal?

19 MR. MARTIN: Yes, right.

20 MS. BUCK: No, I think we were focused 

21 on the wording that had been brought by Cynthia. 

22 That's what we're focused on right at this 
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1 point.

2 MS. HAMMOND: Okay. We don't have any 

3 changes to what I said, but I believe that 

4 Anthony had a proposal. Tony?

5 MR. MIRANDO: Yes, thank you. 

6 Actually, Whitney wrote it up, so I'm going to --

7 MS. HAMMOND: Oh, dear.

8 MR. MIRANDO: -- refer to her so that 

9 she can, but we all kind of talked about it.

10 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: Okay. So my 

11 proposal is, so the program is programmatically 

12 accredited, comma, meets state or accredible 

13 eligibility requirements for accreditation --

14 PARTICIPANT: Accredible?

15 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: Meets state or 

16 accreditor, sorry, I can't read my own 

17 handwriting. I was scribbling fast, guys.

18 State eligibility requirements for 

19 accreditation, and has submitted an application 

20 for pre-accreditation or accreditation.

21 So I think that gets us a little bit 

22 closer, at least as a starting point to what we 
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1 need with including the schools that are eligible 

2 for accreditation, but you know, we, it kind of 

3 addresses the issue of, well, they've submitted 

4 the paperwork, but they know that they're not 

5 accredited, they're not going to be eligible for 

6 it.

7 MS. BUCK: Does anyone have any 

8 question, not a comment, but a question to better 

9 understand the proposal? Jennifer, do you have a 

10 question?

11 PARTICIPANT: I don't understand the 

12 phrase accreditor state eligibility requirement.

13 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: So that's meant 

14 to address the issue that came up earlier that 

15 Mark brought up, which is that you can, pre16 accreditation is paperwork, right? You can 

17 submit it at any point, knowing that you're not 

18 actually eligible for the accreditation.

19 So that's what this is trying to 

20 address and ensuring that it's not just a 

21 paperwork exercise that the school or the 

22 program, rather, has actually, knows that they 
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1 can or should meet the eligibility requirements.

2 MS. BUCK: Okay. Does anyone else 

3 have a question? A question? Okay, go head, 

4 Jessica.

5 MS. BARRY: And I might not just 

6 understand this, but who's determining if they 

7 meet those eligibility requirements for the pre8 accreditation?

9 PARTICIPANT: The schools.

10 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: So I'd be happy 

11 to add an enforcement provision, however, I think 

12 it's worth thinking about it, it would be, you

13 know, the school requiring that they, basically 

14 they're acting in good faith that they know that 

15 they meet the state eligibility requirements, or 

16 accreditor eligibility requirements.

17 MS. BUCK: Any other questions? 

18 Sandy, do you have a question?

19 MS. SARGE: I thought, I have to start 

20 with a, one sentence. I thought, Steve, thank 

21 you so much, because I thought your comment about 

22 the marketing just shined a bright light for me 
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1 on that.

2 So the question is, are we really 

3 trying to get to the fact that when we are 

4 marketing or trying to bring in, enroll potential 

5 students, that we are doing our best efforts to 

6 be in alignment with that, I'm sorry, that we're 

7 trying to give them a program that would, could 

8 lead to licensure in that state?

9 I mean, I think that's what you're, I 

10 think to Whitney's point, that's, you're acting 

11 in good faith, so how do we get to that? Because 

12 there's so many various options in 50 different 

13 states.

14 I mean, you probably could have 1,000 

15 different combinations of this, and I think what 

16 we want to do is maybe try to get to, you can't 

17 be lying, and if you, there's complications, you 

18 need to disclose, or you need to certify that 

19 you're doing everything to make sure the student 

20 understands that.

21 MS. BUCK: So Cynthia, you want to 

22 respond to her question?
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1 MS. HAMMOND: Yes, let me give you an 

2 example. So there was a program in California 

3 that was a law program that were very clear that 

4 it did not lead to a law degree, and they 

5 marketed it as not a law degree program. You 

6 couldn't sit for the bar, and that's how they 

7 marketed that program.

8 It was for people who wanted to know 

9 more, like, a lobbyist or somebody, who wanted to 

10 know more about the law. There was also a number 

11 of advocates for different things that would take 

12 this course.

13 But they were very clear in their 

14 marketing that it did not lead to being able to 

15 take the bar exam in that state.

16 And that was one where, as Steve said, 

17 they were able to meet these certification 

18 requirements because they were very clear in what 

19 it did and didn't do.

20 MS. BUCK: Tony, or Steve, did you 

21 have a question? Steve Chema?

22 MR. CHEMA: Yes. I was actually kind 
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1 of holding my place in the line in case we 

2 meandered back to the other proposal, so --

3 MS. BUCK: Okay. Any other questions 

4 about this proposal?

5 MS. METUNE: I've got a question.

6 MS. BUCK: Okay, go head, Laura.

7 MS. METUNE: In the example that you 

8 cited, the institution was able to meet the 

9 existing certification requirements around state 

10 licensure and around program accreditation?

11 MS. HAMMOND: Yes, they were, because 

12 they were licensed in the state. They were, they 

13 were, I guess not programmatically accredited, 

14 but they also were not trying to be a program 

15 that led to a law degree.

16 MS. METUNE: Okay. So the existing 

17 provisions provided no problem for that 

18 institution to continue to be able to do what it 

19 wanted to do?

20 MS. HAMMOND: Correct.

21 MS. BUCK: Mark, did you have a 

22 question?
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1 MR. MCKENZIE: It's actually, I think, 

2 a friendly amendment to the language that I think 

3 might make it a little clearer, if you will 

4 engage me.

5 So the first line, the program is 

6 programmatically accredited, or pre-accredited, 

7 comma, or meets state or accreditor eligibility 

8 requirements for accreditation.

9 And you can put, I guess, and then, 

10 and has submitted an application for, I, yes, I 

11 think you can either take that, I mean, it might 

12 be redundant.

13 Because what you're trying to find out 

14 is, are they actively pursuing the process, and 

15 have they been either reviewed, somebody asked 

16 the question, who approves this? Well, we ended 

17 up having to negotiate with the State of 

18 California in our case, now, and again, some of 

19 these things really are at the graduate level 

20 that lead to licensure, and a lot of this, as an 

21 undergrad, and may not lead to licensure.

22 So some of it may be irrelevant in 
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1 some ways, but I just want to make sure that 

2 we're catching the language correctly. So, 

3 what's that?

4 PARTICIPANT: Are you sure that 

5 they're going to submit --

6 MS. BUCK: Whitney?

7 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: I just wanted to 

8 say to Sandy's question, and I might be 

9 misunderstanding you, Sandy, but I think that 

10 this, I think that this specific language 

11 targeted the places where a certain programmatic 

12 accreditation is required.

13 So it's not, you know, like I said, in 

14 my ideal world, it would be, and employers 

15 require, you know, this accreditation, but that's 

16 hard to do here, and not, you know, if it's not 

17 required in the state, it's not required in the 

18 state. But I think that this gets to the 

19 specific programmatic accreditation that the 

20 state requires.

21 MS. BUCK: So could we have a 

22 temperature check on the language as it's 
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1 projected?

2 I'm not seeing any thumbs down, unless 

3 I'm missing something. A lot of thumbs up, and a 

4 few sideways.

5 PARTICIPANT: All right. So with 

6 this, with that consensus, I guess this question 

7 would be for the Department, because we're going 

8 to be taking a consensus check when we get 

9 through the papers here. Is this something that 

10 would be a modification to the proposed document 

11 from the, from the Department?

12 MS. HAMMOND: Yes, we can take this 

13 back.

14 PARTICIPANT: Okay.

15 MS. BUCK: Very good. Thank you. 

16 Let's now go back to Laura's proposal. And thank 

17 you, Laura. Are there questions of, I know Steve 

18 wanted to make a comment or ask a question.

19 MR. CHEMA: Well, you know, Steve 

20 Chema, for the record. And this relates to the, 

21 you know, the Jen (phonetic) and Laura and Chris 

22 proposal, and I thought that Todd did a good job 
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1 of explaining, you know, in a practical way, you 

2 know, some of the difficulties with implementing 

3 this.

4 You know, I think that it's a sensible 

5 approach to, you know, have the acknowledgment 

6 that is included here. And I might just want to 

7 try to tinker with the language there a little 

8 bit, and I'm referring to that the, it's the 

9 underscored sentence, with possible specific 

10 curricular adjustments offered by the 

11 institution, as needed.

12 MS. BUCK: Page 1 or page 2?

13 MR. CHEMA: This is page 1, almost 

14 center of the page.

15 PARTICIPANT: Of the proposed --

16 MR. CHEMA: Yes.

17 PARTICIPANT: Steve, is that it up on 

18 the board?

19 MR. CHEMA: Yes, it is. It's the 

20 underscored sentence, right there. What I'm 

21 thinking is, this is, I think when we contemplate 

22 this, you know, being part of an agreement formed 
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1 on the front end, you can probably understand 

2 what you might need to do and, you know, saying 

3 doing anything possible or anything, as needed, 

4 wouldn't seem like that would be too difficult. 

5 But understanding that things aren't as static.

6 As Todd pointed out, there are 

7 institutions where, you know, you don't require a 

8 student to declare a major. Students can change 

9 their minds. Licensing boards change their 

10 minds.

11 So I would suggest, instead of saying, 

12 with possible specific curricular adjustments, 

13 that the language read, with appropriate 

14 curricular adjustments offered by the 

15 institution.

16 And you know, one more point to this 

17 idea that these things are not, you know, set in 

18 stone, that you don't just have, at the point a 

19 student matriculates, you know, a clear idea of 

20 where you need to be for licensure, when I try to 

21 deal with this issue, I have talked to schools 

22 about certainly, at the, as part of the 
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1 admissions process, explaining what the licensure 

2 requirements are in the state in which the school 

3 is located, getting input from the student as to 

4 what their career path and plans are, but also, 

5 and then, explaining, well, if it's in our state, 

6 great. If it's in some other state, this is what 

7 we think we need to do, or maybe we need to 

8 investigate this.

9 But also, telling the student at that 

10 time, if you change your mind, you've got to come 

11 back to us. Because the institutions can't 

12 anticipate that, and I don't want to create a 

13 certification that is influx that we can be in 

14 one moment in compliance with, and suddenly in 

15 violation because of a change, either at the 

16 state board level, or with the student.

17 MS. BUCK: Based on what you've just 

18 said, are you making any additional proposals for 

19 language changes?

20 MS. METUNE: What we said prior to 

21 enrollment, this is Laura, prior to enrollment in 

22 the program for, like, so, or at the point, we 
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1 could add something about at the point of 

2 declaring a major in that language there to make 

3 it clear that that's really what we're talking 

4 about is the point at which the institution has 

5 discovered the student has this pathway towards 

6 licensure.

7 MS. BUCK: Laura, where would that be, 

8 specifically in the document?

9 MS. METUNE: So the, at the bottom 

10 section in red, right now, after the pursuant to 

11 668, 412, that, and prior to a student's 

12 enrollment or declaration of major, or program 

13 participation, of program enrollment --

14 MS. BUCK: Declaration of major, 

15 comma, what else?

16 MS. METUNE: Or program enrollment.

17 MS. BUCK: Major or program 

18 enrollment?

19 MS. METUNE: I mean, prior to 

20 student's enrollment, so that it's clear it's not 

21 just prior to enrolling in the institution, but 

22 prior to that specific program.
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1 PARTICIPANT: Or change, it could be 

2 or change.

3 MS. METUNE: Oh, sure, yes. That's a 

4 great idea. Declaration or change in program 

5 enrollment.

6 MR. CHEMA: That's, I think that's, I 

7 do, I think that addresses it because you've got, 

8 you know, the moment at which, you know, the 

9 institution has the ball, when the student walks 

10 through the door, and then, if they're going to 

11 make a change in their enrollment, that's an 

12 affirmative act by them that's, I think it, I 

13 think that's going to be okay.

14 MS. BUCK: So, Laura, has that changed 

15 their -- my sight isn't that good. Can you tell 

16 me if the change is in? Good. Are we ready to 

17 take a temperature check on Laura's proposal? 

18 Okay, Todd.

19 MR. JONES: I'm sorry. I'm just not 

20 seeing this address the issue I'm raising. And 

21 let's go back to that said, or the section, and 

22 receives a written acknowledgment from the 
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1 student affirming the student knows that the 

2 program does not meet the state licensure 

3 requirements, and the institution requires the 

4 student to explain in writing, in his or her own 

5 words, the reason the student still seeks to 

6 enroll in the program.

7 We're going to create a bureaucratic 

8 obligation that a student write an essay to the 

9 university explaining why I'm going off to Peace 

10 Corps, but I want to be a teacher, for anyone who 

11 wants to enroll in their program.

12 In programs that are of the kind of 

13 high academic quality where we are not anywhere 

14 at risk of a student being misled.

15 It is the over-inclusion of programs 

16 in this that is the flaw from the beginning, and 

17 I'm not, I can't go along with that that we're 

18 adding, it's, to say it's, well, it's just 

19 another piece of paper, I'm sorry. This is the 

20 problem, that we're just, you know, from the 

21 federal level, including more and more 

22 obligations of processing paperwork on higher ed 
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1 institutions where the person collecting this may 

2 well be the head of the Department of Teaching at 

3 a small college, when the, this really is 

4 providing absolutely no benefit to the kind of 

5 student we are talking about. And then --

6 MS. BUCK: So you would prefer that 

7 that whole phrase was left out. Is that right?

8 MR. JONES: I understand where you're 

9 going with the obligation of written 

10 acknowledgment. But I'm sorry, I'm just, I don't 

11 want to go down that path.

12 You know, another piece of paper isn't 

13 going to solve the problem, any sort of problem, 

14 at the institutions that I represent. If you --

15 MS. BUCK: So, Todd, is it that 

16 wording, or is it the whole thing that --

17 MR. JONES: It --

18 MS. BUCK: -- in opposition to?

19 MR. JONES: For me, it, at this point, 

20 it is the entire process --

21 MS. BUCK: Okay. Okay.

22 MR. JONES: -- of that. There may be 
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1 a solution. I'm not going to foreclose that, but 

2 I simply can't see that as being something that's 

3 accepted.

4 MS. BUCK: Okay. So you're in 

5 opposition to it at this time.

6 MR. MADAIO: So maybe Laura and I 

7 could try and respond a little bit, you know, to 

8 some of those points. I guess, I would think, at 

9 least, that for a lot of the small schools, those 

10 students are probably living in that state, 

11 right?

12 I mean, this is really, okay. I mean, 

13 maybe not. Maybe not. But that's fine. The 

14 point is, it's not, I think, an essay, as it is 

15 just an affirmation, the idea is that the student 

16 understands what you just said.

17 I mean, if a student's going to Peace 

18 Corps, they would write, I'm going to Peace 

19 Corps, and I don't intend to teach.

20 But I think that if it's a program 

21 that is going to, you know, for most of the 

22 students, require a license for employments, you 
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1 know, I understand that there is going to be some 

2 bureaucratic hurdle. Of course.

3 But I mean, really, this is to address 

4 a really serious problem of students not being 

5 able to work in the fields to obtain the license, 

6 and thus, never work in the fields.

7 So you know, I think that in, the 

8 benefit to students is in truly understanding 

9 that they're able to work in the field, I mean, 

10 outweighs, you know, some administrative burden 

11 here.

12 And you know, again, for students who 

13 obviously live in the state the school is in, 

14 this really isn't a change. This is for students 

15 who don't live in the state and really just need 

16 to understand, and sure, I get that that student 

17 who lives there, he or she may not intend to live 

18 there again.

19 But I mean, I think we kind of have to 

20 start somewhere. So with the state the student 

21 lives, we, you know, essentially assume that 

22 they're going to want to work there. And that 
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1 may not be correct, and that's the point of the 

2 student being able to clarify.

3 MS. METUNE: And then, the only thing 

4 I would add to that is that one of the 

5 conversations we had in our work group was would 

6 it be okay for an institution to provide a 

7 student some of the most common reasons that they 

8 might choose to still enroll, despite the fact 

9 that they wouldn't be eligible to be licensed?

10 If the Peace Corps is a huge 

11 population of your students, you could add this 

12 to the list of reasons that a student might still 

13 want to enroll in the program so that it becomes 

14 a little bit easier for the student to understand 

15 why they might still want to enroll in the 

16 program. So I'd be open to language there as 

17 well.

18 MS. BUCK: I don't know that it's 

19 valuable to get into a discussion of whether to 

20 have this or not. I think there's a proposal on 

21 the table. I want to make sure everybody 

22 understands it, and then see what the temperature 
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1 check is for it.

2 But if there's a question about the 

3 proposal, then we want to make sure that gets 

4 addressed. Does anyone else have any questions? 

5 Jennifer?

6 PARTICIPANT: Well, I have two. One 

7 is on the proposal, which of course I helped 

8 draft. Given the edits, though, to paragraph 2, 

9 there would need, I think, to be some conforming 

10 edits to 3 with regard to the pre-accreditation, 

11 because I think, I think, and again, I'm just 

12 throwing that out there, but I'd need to think 

13 about it.

14 But then, also I have a question for 

15 the Department. Department has its card up 

16 anyway, which is, you know, we're sitting here 

17 discussing this proposal, but you guys deleted 

18 the section.

19 So I just, before we go down the, 

20 further on this rabbit hole, are you open to 

21 hearing, like, before we start editing it and 

22 trying to make, are you open to it, or are we 
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1 stuck with not having a provision in, you know, 

2 which, I just want to know before we start 

3 tackling --

4 MR. MARTIN: I, we did take it back 

5 and discuss it. At this point, we, our position 

6 is that, relevant to the proposed, the proposal 

7 on the table here, that we would be disinclined 

8 to go with what's here.

9 We see, we see this primarily as a 

10 disclosure issue. We would be inclined to revise 

11 the disclosure requirements such that the school 

12 would disclose which states they, for whichever, 

13 which states they made the programmatic licensure 

14 requirements, and in any other state that they 

15 want to assert that they meet that requirement, 

16 they would do so in the disclosure.

17 And they would also have to include a 

18 statement that it's incumbent upon the student to 

19 be certain that the program meets the licensing 

20 requirements in the state he or she wishes to 

21 practice that profession in.

22 MS. BUCK: I think it's still useful 
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1 for the negotiators to indicate their views, and 

2 the Department of Education can then decide what 

3 they're going to do.

4 MR. MARTIN: But we're fine with that.

5 MS. BUCK: Yes. Okay. Pamela?

6 MS. FOWLER: Well, I agree with Todd. 

7 And if I'd heard the Department correctly, now 

8 it's just notifying the student. And we're 

9 putting this on the student, which is where it 

10 should be in the first place. Okay.

11 And I don't have to collect this piece 

12 of paper, because my question was going to be 

13 what the heck do it with this piece of paper once 

14 I collect it? Who's going to read it? No one. 

15 And what do I do with it? Stuff it in a drawer? 

16 Image it and stick it in a file somewhere?

17 MS. BUCK: Okay, Todd. And then, 

18 let's do a temperature check, even though there 

19 may be other things that could be said.

20 MR. JONES: I'm sorry. I'm just 

21 waiting, you know, and I appreciate the sincerity 

22 of the belief that this can't cause, you know, 
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1 this could only be beneficial for the students 

2 involved, and I'm always hesitant to point out 

3 the names of individual institutions, because I 

4 don't want it showing up inside higher ed that 

5 I'm saying this institution or that institution. 

6 So, I'm not. I'm not going to put them on the

7 spot.

8 There are hundreds of elite liberal 

9 arts institutions around the country that do not 

10 need the additional intervention of a process 

11 dictated by the federal government for the good 

12 of their students because of somehow students 

13 being misled and defrauded.

14 I mean, trot these students out for 

15 me. Where are they? Because they're going to 

16 number, you can probably nationally find them on 

17 single hands, or people who are working for 

18 advocacy organizations saying, well, I was one 

19 and I really didn't know.

20 That is true. I'm sure there are 

21 people that don't know at some of these colleges 

22 I'm describing. But the reality is that is not 
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1 the issue.

2 The issue is not defined to establish 

3 a system where we think that this kind of notice 

4 is going to lead to prevent the kind of regret 

5 that someone has that I made the wrong choice, or 

6 that my program has misled me.

7 Getting the federal government 

8 involved at this level of minutia for these kinds 

9 of institutions is not the appropriate solution, 

10 and that's why I'm opposed.

11 If you could come up with a solution, 

12 I mean, you know, we had already carved off four 

13 very reasonable agreed reasons, graduate 

14 programs, I think, finding an institutional 

15 division here will help, because otherwise, I'm 

16 absolutely opposed to this, and I'm going to 

17 continue to say so loudly.

18 MS. BUCK: Thank you, Todd. Laura, 

19 did you want to say something before we do the 

20 temperature check?

21 MS. METUNE: Just maybe a closing 

22 comment.
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1 MS. BUCK: Yes.

2 MS. METUNE: I understand your 

3 concern. Community colleges have long been put 

4 into the same box as the bad actor for profits 

5 for which these rules were initially designed, 

6 and I'm sympathetic.

7 I also am incredibly disappointed that 

8 my public and nonprofit colleagues wouldn't stand 

9 up for something that protects students, despite 

10 a small administrative burden that it causes.

11 I hope the Department will reconsider 

12 this as they move forward, and thank you for 

13 considering the proposal.

14 MS. BUCK: So let's have a temperature 

15 check now on Laura's proposal that was handed 

16 out.

17 PARTICIPANT: A show of thumbs?

18 MS. BUCK: A show of thumbs. Four 

19 down? Four thumbs down. Several up and several 

20 sideways.

21 So thank you for your work in putting 

22 together a proposal, and I always appreciate it 
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1 when people can come forward with a specific 

2 proposal that people can look at. So thank you 

3 for that. Let -- yes, Sandy?

4 MS. SARGE: I was, I was neutral on, 

5 this is Sandy. I was neutral on this simply 

6 because I think that the Department's effort to 

7 keep this somewhere in front of students with the 

8 disclosures is very important, and from that 

9 perspective, I don't want this to go away.

10 I think that what Laura and the team 

11 and everybody that was involved with negotiating 

12 through this on their own time has exactly the 

13 heart of what we're trying to get at here.

14 So the reason I'm neutral is because I 

15 still think it's extremely important that it's 

16 somewhere.

17 MS. BUCK: Todd, is your -- so let's 

18 go back then to Issue Paper 8. Are there other 

19 things people want to say about Issue Paper 8? 

20 Yes, Cynthia? Or is it Greg?

21 MS. HAMMOND: Cynthia, yes. In 

22 looking at Whitney's language, I just want to ask 
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1 a clarifying question. So it says meets state or 

2 accreditor requirements for accreditation and has 

3 submitted an application, pre-accreditation, 

4 that's in the state in which the institution is 

5 located, correct?

6 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: Sorry about that. 

7 I'd be willing to hear from people better at 

8 this than I am as far as this piece goes, from 

9 Anthony and Laura, or Tony and Laura, rather.

10 I was just trying to get what I was 

11 hearing about the eligibility requirements 

12 incorporated into the language. So I'd be open 

13 to hearing ideas about that.

14 MS. METUNE: It seems like the intent 

15 was for it to be where the institution was 

16 located or required to obtain state approval 

17 under the state auth requirements.

18 PARTICIPANT: That's good.

19 MS. HAMMOND: Okay. I just wanted to 

20 get that clarification before seeing if we had 

21 any more comments on this paper, then voting on 

22 this entire paper.
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1 MS. BUCK: Any other comments or 

2 questions? So do you want to take a temperature 

3 check on Issue Paper 8 with the modification that 

4 has been approved?

5 PARTICIPANT: Yes.

6 MS. BUCK: Okay. So thumbs up, thumbs 

7 down, thumbs sideways on Issue Paper 8. One 

8 down, two down, three down, four down. Four 

9 thumbs down. Four thumbs down.

10 PARTICIPANT: What issue papers are 

11 left?

12 MS. SARGE: I'd just like to 

13 understand where the problems are still on 8.

14 MS. BUCK: You want to know why the 

15 people, well, can somebody, can it be very 

16 briefly stated, the people who had thumbs down, 

17 Sandy's asking why. Just, like, in one sentence, 

18 per each.

19 MR. MADAIO: Sure, that the licensure 

20 certification that we discussed previously, for 

21 me, Chris.

22 MS. BUCK: Johnson?
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1 MR. TYLER: I've had clients who have 

2 been affected by this. They can't sit for exams, 

3 they invested a huge amount of time in their 

4 educations, and money, and they're still on the 

5 hook for the education.

6 MS. BUCK: Jennifer?

7 PARTICIPANT: I just want to, on that 

8 point, Johnson, you know, you've heard me talk 

9 about this. I mean, I'm really sympathetic to 

10 that.

11 I would say that this, and I just want 

12 to remind everybody that this section is on the 

13 school's certification of a PPA. So it's a, yes, 

14 when I hear Todd, it's a, I mean, that piece of 

15 it is, it's very complex for the, for, you know, 

16 for each program to certify and then have it be, 

17 it's your PPA. So it's a big deal.

18 So the one piece that I would ask, and 

19 I'm not saying that we need to get to consensus 

20 on 8, but I, it's why I keep saying that I 

21 actually view Issue 6, Issue Paper 6 as being 

22 more important, because that's where the 
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1 disclosure section is for this student piece.

2 And so, in terms of the student 

3 protections too, I know that 8 represents a very 

4 big hook, which is probably why you care about it 

5 so much in terms of the, you know, in terms of 

6 the PPA certification.

7 But I would say, you know, if it's 

8 helpful at all, or if it, I mean, I'm not 

9 expecting it will move the dial at all for you, 

10 but I did just want to point out that we still 

11 are discussing Issue Paper 6, and so there is a 

12 known, and hopefully we'll have a fruitful 

13 conversation there.

14 And so, I guess to remount, I would 

15 say, you know, let's see how Issue Paper 6 goes, 

16 and maybe there might be an argument for taking 

17 another vote on Issue Paper 8 later.

18 MS. BUCK: And for other people who 

19 had thumbs down, do you want to give a one 

20 sentence reason why?

21 MR. GANNON: This is Chris Gannon, for 

22 the record. Yes, just the licensure 
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1 certification, and also just that the group nixed 

2 the proposed changes.

3 MS. BUCK: Was there anyone else with

4 thumb down who would like to give a one sentence 

5 reason why? Okay.

6 MR. MADAIO: Again, Chris. Just add 

7 that obviously, as we've said many times, I'm 

8 opposed to the inclusion of the nonprofits and 

9 the publics, I mean, for reasons like this, that 

10 it destroys, it seems, a legitimate thing that 

11 happens probably most often in the for-profit 

12 sector.

13 So you know, if we were able to 

14 include that requirement that we discussed for 

15 the for-profit schools, or the GE programs, if we 

16 want to do that, that could be something I would 

17 agree with.

18 But that's not in this issue paper, so 

19 I don't think it's necessary to discuss any 

20 further. But I would, it's what I would relate 

21 to the Department.

22 MS. BUCK: Sandy?
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1 MS. SARGE: So I disagree with that. 

2 I think it's just a matter of time. When you 

3 have students out there at state schools where a 

4 state, states are losing their money to fund 

5 higher education, and students are getting double 

6 digit increases in tuition, and not getting 

7 allocated money, and it's just a matter of time. 

8 I hate to say it. We're at just the 

9 beginning of, it speaks to a bigger issue, but 

10 just because it has, a student says, thinks they 

11 can't go up against the powerhouses of Harvard or 

12 University of Michigan or Colorado or whatever, 

13 doesn't mean that there aren't students being 

14 affected.

15 And I think, I agree completely with 

16 Laura in that, that issue of it, of it going back 

17 to being what was formally defined as GE is off 

18 the table. So let's keep it off the table, and 

19 stick to what's right for students, and not go 

20 back to that.

21 It's done with, and now let's figure 

22 out whether, in the future, you could possibly 
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1 perceive that a student might feel like they got 

2 screwed by a public or a private not for-profit. 

3 There's a possibility of that. So let's work 

4 towards that.

5 MS. BUCK: Greg?

6 MR. MARTIN: Yes. I understand that 

7 there are serious philosophical disagreements at 

8 this table, and one of them is whether or not 

9 this rule should apply to all institutions or 

10 not.

11 We're obviously not going to resolve 

12 that, so I, and having already voted the paper 

13 down, I think we need to continue.

14 MS. BUCK: So given that, do we go 

15 then to Technical and Conforming Changes?

16 MR. MARTIN: Not quite. We have two 

17 more things to do. One would be to go back, I 

18 don't think we've done a temperature check on 6 

19 yet, so I would want to do that.

20 MS. BUCK: Okay.

21 MR. MARTIN: Before we, before we do 

22 that, I'm going to bring up Sarah Hay. She has a 
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1 couple of comments about some data that we 

2 provided yesterday, so she'd like to make some 

3 clarifications there. Then we'll proceed to 

4 close out 6 and move on to Technical and 

5 Conforming Changes.

6 MS. HAY: This is Sarah Hay. I hope 

7 all of you had a piece of pie, as instructed. We 

8 had blueberry at my house.

9 So the Department would like me to 

10 talk you through, just for the record, the slides 

11 that we shared yesterday. So I will do that. 

12 There are four of them. Don't miss the back of 

13 each page. We, you know, in the Department, we 

14 print double sided to try and save our trees.

15 So the first is that, and I'm going to 

16 start with the one that says five-year repayment 

17 rate versus percentage of borrowers who receive 

18 Pell.

19 MS. BUCK: You want to hold on just a 

20 minute, because a number of people are --

21 MS. HAY: Sure. Okay. They are --

22 MR. MARTIN: So tell them around the 
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1 table, what, they're passing them around.

2 MS. HAY: They are passing some 

3 around.

4 PARTICIPANT: I think, I think some 

5 folks may have to share. They're printing more, 

6 but at least for now, if folks wouldn't mind 

7 sharing.

8 MS. BUCK: Okay. I think people now 

9 have access to it. So I think we can go ahead.

10 MS. HAY: Okay. Everyone have a copy? 

11 All right. Thanks. Okay. Yes. Okay. All 

12 right.

13 So what Scorecard data shows is that 

14 as the percent receiving Pell increases, the 

15 repayment rate decreases. Now, that's at a high 

16 level.

17 When you, and it has an R squared of 

18 about 0.7, which means it's correlated, but it, 

19 you know, it's moderately correlated.

20 So if you flip the page over, there's 

21 more to the story, and this is something that I'm 

22 not sure everyone is attuned to.
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1 The title of this one is five-year 

2 repayment rate for borrowers receiving Pell 

3 versus five-year repayment rate for borrowers who 

4 do not receive Pell.

5 And so, this is, you know, at any 

6 given school, what does the repayment rate look 

7 like for the borrowers who received Pell versus 

8 the borrowers who did not receive Pell. And the 

9 slope on this line is about 1.

10 So what that means is that at any 

11 given school, the repayment rate for both of 

12 those populations is essentially the same. So it 

13 appears that it is school dependent, not Pell 

14 dependent. Okay?

15 When you go to the other piece of 

16 paper, okay? There's an, there's an element 

17 there of things being school dependent, may be 

18 related to selectivity of the institution, or 

19 the, well, Scorecards at institution level, okay? 

20 So as a proxy for selectivity, we did 

21 use SAT math scores. There are arguments to be 

22 made for other metrics. We used median SAT math 
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1 scores. It's on the Scorecard. It's the one we 

2 picked.

3 So if you look at five-year repayment 

4 rate versus SAT math scores, as the SAT math 

5 score goes up, so as a proxy for selectivity, as 

6 selectivity increases, the repayment rate 

7 increases.

8 If you flip the page over, and I'm 

9 sorry we switched our axis. That's because we 

10 did it quickly. But I'll say it the same way.

11 This one is SAT math scores versus 

12 percent of undergraduates receiving Pell. So as 

13 the SAT math score increases, the percent 

14 receiving Pell decreases.

15 So applying the proxy, so that is as 

16 the selectivity increases, the percent of 

17 borrowers at that institution receiving Pell 

18 decreases. Okay?

19 So I don't know, converting that in 

20 to, what does that maybe mean, right? I'm not 

21 going to do a lot of interpretation. I'm going 

22 to let you guys think about that.
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1 But to me, there's some evidence here, 

2 or some data here, that suggest that the 

3 difference may not be the student. It might be 

4 the institution and the selectivity of the 

5 institution affecting repayment rate.

6 And there are lots of ways to think 

7 about it, and probably a number of graduate 

8 theses associated with that very topic. But I'll

9 answer questions to the best of the ability, but 

10 we wanted to make sure we talked you through it 

11 on the record so we had gave you guys a chance to 

12 ask questions about it.

13 MS. BUCK: Johnson, and then Chad?

14 MR. TYLER: Hi, Sarah. Thank you. 

15 This is Johnson. So pages 3 and 4, these are the 

16 ones that intrigue me the most.

17 I understood 3 saying that the higher 

18 the SAT score, the more, the higher the Pell 

19 students were repaying their loans. Is that 

20 right?

21 MS. HAY: No. So that was the last 

22 one we did, which is the higher the SAT score, 
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1 the lower the percent that are, of the borrowers 

2 at that institution that are receiving Pell.

3 PARTICIPANT: I think our pages were 

4 stapled differently.

5 MS. HAY: Oh, your pages were stapled 

6 differently. Okay.

7 PARTICIPANT: I just wanted to let you 

8 know.

9 MR. TYLER: Oh, thank you. Okay.

10 MS. HAY: Sorry about that.

11 MR. TYLER: Okay. I guess my, I guess 

12 what I'm trying to understand is why are the last 

13 two slides you showed inconsistent? I mean, 

14 aren't they reinforcing the same principle? Or -

15 -

16 MS. HAY: I think they are consistent.

17 MR. TYLER: They are consistent? 

18 Okay.

19 MS. HAY: Yes.

20 MR. TYLER: Okay. Thank you.

21 MS. BUCK: Chad?

22 MR. MUNTZ: To try and pull back one 
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1 of the conversations we had with you, I think, 

2 over this week about repayment rates and what 

3 would be a good rate, just curious if this helps 

4 provide that?

5 If it's an institutional driven thing, 

6 and we see a repayment rate of, I don't know, 20 

7 percent, or even 40 percent, that looks like it 

8 would carve out a very small group. Do we know 

9 what kind of institutions are in that area?

10 MS. HAY: We did not look at that, but 

11 you're right. Looking at a scatter plot of data 

12 is one way of identifying a threshold.

13 I think the Department is considering 

14 computing repayment rate at the, at the program 

15 level, not at the institution level. And so, 

16 where that break in the data is might look 

17 different when we plotted programs.

18 MR. MUNTZ: Okay. And then, the 

19 second question is do you know what institutions 

20 tend to fall with the lowest repayment rates?

21 I mean, that's one of the key things 

22 is getting the loan money back to the federal 
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1 government. So any insights about that?

2 MS. HAY: We didn't look at it.

3 MR. MUNTZ: Okay.

4 MS. HAY: If you were to submit an 

5 email to Scott, we could pull that information 

6 for you. Okay. It's a publicly available data 

7 set, so, yes.

8 MS. BUCK: Jordan?

9 MR. MATSUDAIRA: So, first, thank you 

10 for the data. I just wanted to make a comment, 

11 which is just about the kind of aggregate 

12 relationship between repayment and Pell.

13 So in the same way that the aggregate 

14 relationship between repayment and Pell, which is 

15 to say that you see an aggregate schools with a 

16 higher fraction of Pell, students seem to have 

17 lower repayment rates.

18 But if you disaggregate the data and 

19 look at repayment rates for Pell students versus 

20 non-Pell students, as I'd suggested, you actually 

21 see that, you know, schools with higher shares of 

22 Pell, even the non-Pell students do worse.
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1 So suggesting, you know, as you, as 

2 you were characterizing it, that school quality 

3 here really plays a role in differential access 

4 to better quality schools between richer and 

5 poorer students is partially explaining these 

6 patterns.

7 I just want to say that the same logic 

8 applies to looking at the disaggragate 

9 relationship between repayment rates and SAT 

10 scores, okay?

11 So you know, we know there are big 

12 correlations with socioeconomic status and how 

13 students score on the SAT. And so, if you have 

14 the microdata to be able to look at students with 

15 high SAT scores and low SAT scores, then you 

16 might also conclude that this is less of a kind 

17 of relationship between students SAT or that kind 

18 of academic background and repayment rates per 

19 se, but rather students with different academic 

20 preparation are attending different schools with 

21 different qualities, in the same way that we came 

22 to that conclusion with the Pell data.
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1 So I realize those data are not 

2 available for the Department to be able to do 

3 that analysis, but just want to caution in the 

4 interpretation.

5 MS. BUCK: Thank you. Chris Gannon?

6 MR. GANNON: I'm just a little 

7 confused here. What exactly, like, is the 

8 purpose of looking at this data, and what are we, 

9 what are we trying to accomplish with this?

10 MS. HAY: So these data, really we're 

11 satisfying a data request we received two days 

12 ago. And so, we ran it for you, we put it on the 

13 back table, and the Department wanted me to come 

14 back and walk you through it for the record.

15 MS. BUCK: Sandy?

16 MS. SARGE: I think my, maybe I, 

17 Sarah, could you expand a little bit? What was 

18 the actual request, or your understanding of the 

19 request?

20 I just want to make sure I'm 

21 remembering which of the many that were talked 

22 about, and then I have a question. Oh, was it 
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1 yours, Jeff?

2 MR. ARTHUR: Yes. My request was to, 

3 the relationship of five-year repayment rate to 

4 the percent of students that received Pell.

5 MS. SARGE: Okay. So, my, I'm just 

6 going to throw this out there, especially when 

7 you look at the SAT scores.

8 So there are colleges out there that 

9 have a limited amount of ability to accept 

10 everybody that applies. I think the state 

11 schools probably get, I mean, Pamela, you gave us 

12 in the first week, a tremendous thing, right? 

13 Interest, couple hundred thousand, application, 

14 50,000, and then, you went down the list until 

15 you get to about 5,000, and then 1,000 that 

16 actually attend, or something thereabouts, right? 

17 Roughly, that span.

18 So the fact that students that want to 

19 go to certain institutions, but can't get in 

20 because of limitations, let's just say it's 

21 limitations due to the capacity of the school, 

22 and not, you know, they're going to take the 
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1 cream of the crop, the ones with the highest 

2 eligibility requirements, or standards.

3 So then, you have all the students 

4 that are left that don't get into the, all of 

5 those prestigious schools. So what happens to 

6 them in this world?

7 They go to their second, third 

8 choices, or the school around the corner, or they 

9 rethink their life, and maybe they pick another 

10 school.

11 So now, the cream of the crop is off 

12 at the public schools and the private not for13 profits, and some of the elite for-profits that 

14 we all know, and now you're left with the 

15 students that are, by this definition, have lower 

16 SAT scores.

17 So I'm, I feel like there's a lot of 

18 vilification happening, if that's even a word, 

19 for schools that have a more lenient enrollment 

20 for, enrollment policies, for students that don't 

21 get into these other schools.

22 What are we going to do with all those 
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1 students if we go harsh on everything we're 

2 talking about here? Just a question of, we've 

3 got to figure that out.

4 MS. BUCK: Marc Jerome?

5 MR. JEROME: So I think this is an 

6 area, the institutions are really looking for 

7 some guidance from the Department, because in 

8 some ways, we're getting very mixed messages.

9 I took a look at our data, and our 

10 data, the results of students who receive Pell 

11 and don't receive Pell were about 16 points 

12 different. Very different.

13 And my institution has a very robust 

14 support system around students who borrow for 

15 about 10 years, but I believe we are 

16 intentionally guiding students into certain non17 amortizing programs because the staff feels it's 

18 the right thing for the student, and it's not an 

19 indication of a problem with the quality of the 

20 program in the city of New York. If someone's 

21 earning $40,000, they may want to start off at 

22 interest only.
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1 So I guess, what I'm, and I guess I'll 

2 say this. When repayment rates came out, there 

3 was an implication that a low repayment rate 

4 correlated to student default.

5 That if you had a 20 percent repayment 

6 rate, it meant 80 percent of the students were 

7 going to default, and I believe that is 

8 completely untrue.

9 And so, I guess I'm asking the 

10 Department to think about the messaging of how 

11 this all works together, because you know, we're 

12 institutions. You are our regulator.

13 But we look to you to guidance on 

14 what's the right thing to do, and I would say, at 

15 least in my institution's case, and I have to 

16 give some direction, it's unclear to us what the 

17 right thing to do is.

18 MR. MARTIN: Well, I don't think I'm 

19 in a position to say for, on behalf of the 

20 Department, what the right thing to do is, so I 

21 won't go, I won't go quite that far. I don't 

22 flatter myself that much.
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1 But I don't think, you know, as far 

2 as, I guess you're referring to what's, repayment 

3 programs you're going to counsel students to get 

4 into.

5 We, I would just want to say on the 

6 record, for the record, we don't look at any of 

7 them pejoratively. You know, I mean, so 

8 obviously we offer, now, I understand the point 

9 you make about how it reflects in repayment 

10 rates.

11 And I've heard that, and I, we get 

12 that, but I just want to say that we're not 

13 looking, we're not, we're not ranking the 

14 repayment options available.

15 Obviously they're out there, either 

16 regulatory or in statute, and I don't think the 

17 Department's going to make any assertions about 

18 which is better or what you ought to do. So --

19 MR. ARTHUR: But you actually are, 

20 because we are sitting here with a proposal that 

21 a low, a high percentage of students in non22 amortizing is a reflect, is a negative reflection 
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1 of the institution, and we're proposing a penalty 

2 phase for it.

3 And so I'm going to continue to 

4 question the validity of sanctions around 

5 something like loan repayment where, and someone 

6 could help me out.

7 I believe half of all Americans who 

8 borrow are non-amortizing, and I haven't even 

9 looked at the data on Pell students, what 

10 percentage are non-amortizing.

11 So I'm just, you know, I'm just 

12 raising the philosophical question, and you know, 

13 I'm a, especially with, still 500,000 students 

14 defaulting, and the Department not seeming to 

15 focus on that anymore.

16 MR. MARTIN: I mean, I'll just close 

17 out by saying, I hear you. I hear you. We'll 

18 take, we understand that. I'm not saying that 

19 you don't have some valid points.

20 I mean, the package is about, and I, 

21 and we've talked about the balancing acts 

22 involved here, and what, why we reintroduced the 
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1 repayment rate.

2 And so, I get all of the concerns. I 

3 mean, we, at this point, I think, and we brought 

4 Sarah up here to get through the data, which 

5 she's done.

6 So if there are any more technical 

7 questions for Sarah, I'll feel free to say, ask, 

8 on her behalf, go ahead and ask them. I'm very 

9 liberal with Sarah's expertise. Isn't that 

10 amazing of how I do that?

11 MS. BUCK: So, are there --

12 MR. MARTIN: I guess I have complete 

13 confidence in her. But if there are no more 

14 technical questions for Sarah, I'd like to move 

15 on to closing out Issue Paper 6.

16 MS. BUCK: Okay. I think that 

17 Whitney, do you have a technical question?

18 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: I have a followup 

19 question to what Marc just asked, for myself. So 

20 we, yes, a large number of borrowers are in non21 amortizing repayment plans.

22 Does that necessarily mean they are in 
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1 an IDR plan, or could that also be a forbearance 

2 issue? Yes.

3 Because my understanding is that about 

4 27 percent of borrowers are in IDR plans, which 

5 yes, they're non-amortizing, but that's also a 

6 huge chunk of borrowers who are non-amortizing 

7 who are in a different plan or in forbearance or 

8 in deferment.

9 MS. SARGE: Or they could also be 

10 paying interest only.

11 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: Right. Yes. So, 

12 and I just wanted to point out, you know, in GE 

13 1, we talked about a 35 percent repayment plan.

14 So I just, and Anthony had to help me, 

15 because I'm not very good at math. So I have 

16 four lines here, so I'll have to figure out, or, 

17 Number 1, the first page.

18 So it looks like that 35 percent 

19 repayment plan, even in just borrowers who 

20 receive Pell, would put the vast majority of 

21 borrowers over 35 percent of repayment. Is that 

22 a correct interpretation?
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1 PARTICIPANT: This one.

2 PARTICIPANT: Your first one.

3 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: The first, the 

4 five-year --

5 MS. BUCK: Okay.

6 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: -- repayment plan 

7 versus percentage of borrowers who receive Pell.

8 MS. HAY: Okay. So ask your question 

9 again. I was trying to forget which slide.

10 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: So if we put 

11 repayment at 35 percent, it looks like most 

12 borrowers would be above that 35 percent 

13 threshold. Like 75 percent of borrowers.

14 PARTICIPANT: Institutionally.

15 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: Institutionally. 

16 And I think that holds true on the next page as 

17 well when comparing repayment rates between 

18 borrowers receiving Pell and non, those who 

19 aren't receiving Pell.

20 MS. HAY: So I hear what you're 

21 saying, but if I draw a horizontal line at about 

22 0.35, I don't see a break in the data there. And 
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1 normally, I would draw a threshold where I see a 

2 break in the data.

3 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: But I understand 

4 that. But I'm not --

5 MS. HAY: Okay.

6 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: -- wrong to say 

7 that most borrowers would pass that, or most 

8 institutions' borrowers would pass that standard.

9 PARTICIPANT: Most institutions --

10 MS. HAY: I think I might look at 

11 different data to answer that question.

12 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: Okay.

13 MS. BUCK: Johnson, do you have a 

14 question?

15 MR. TYLER: Yes. I'm looking at the 

16 second slide you presented here, which --

17 MS. BUCK: What's the title, just so 

18 we're all looking at the same thing?

19 MR. TYLER: Five-year repayment rate 

20 for borrowers receiving Pell versus five-year 

21 repayment rate for borrowers who did not receive 

22 Pell.
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1 So you're, Sarah, I understood your 

2 conclusion to be that the repayment rate wasn't 

3 dependant on whether you receive Pell or not.

4 MS. HAY: So that's what the data 

5 appeared to show if you look at it within an 

6 institution.

7 So at any given institution, and 

8 there's variation, right? Like, not all the dots 

9 are right on that red line.

10 But within an institution, what it 

11 looks like is that there's a likelihood that the 

12 repayment rate will be the same for borrowers 

13 that received Pell versus borrowers that did not 

14 receive Pell.

15 The students that are not reflected 

16 here are those that did not, I mean, you can't 

17 calculate a repayment rate if we don't have 

18 information. You know, like if they have private 

19 loans, that's not captured here. Okay. This is 

20 just --

21 MR. TYLER: Okay.

22 MS. HAY: -- Title IV students.
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1 MR. TYLER: So then, I have a, I have 

2 a very technical question here. So one of these 

3 dots here, does this represent a Pell or a non4 Pell student, or is that the institution that has 

5 both Pell and non-Pell --

6 (Simultaneous speaking)

7 MS. HAY: Okay. So we're not, so this 

8 would be, what we're graphing here is an 

9 institution --

10 MR. TYLER: Okay.

11 MS. HAY: -- not students.

12 MR. TYLER: Okay.

13 MS. HAY: Okay? So this sort of 

14 outlier dot --

15 MR. TYLER: Yes.

16 MS. HAY: -- that you see here, would 

17 be an institution where, I don't know, 65 percent 

18 of them did not receive Pell, but, I don't, it 

19 looks like maybe 70 percent of them did receive 

20 Pell. No, I said that wrong. Sorry. Brian's 

21 (phonetic) getting up and correcting me.

22 MR. TYLER: Sarah, what was your 
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1 source? What is the source?

2 MS. HAY: This is the Scorecard data.

3 MR. TYLER: So was that --

4 MS. HAY: So --

5 MR. TYLER: -- that was just two 

6 columns?

7 MS. HAY: Yes, but let me answer the 

8 first question first and get that right. Okay. 

9 So I said it wrong. I apologize.

10 MR. TYLER: Okay.

11 MS. HAY: So this outlier here --

12 MR. TYLER: Yes.

13 MS. HAY: -- indicates that those that 

14 did not receive Pell had, and I'm going to, I 

15 don't know, guess, maybe that's a 62 percent 

16 repayment rate --

17 MR. TYLER: Okay.

18 MS. HAY: -- and those that did 

19 receive Pell, it looks like 70 percent repayment 

20 rate.

21 MR. TYLER: I see. I understand now.

22 MS. HAY: Okay.
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1 MR. TYLER: I understand how that 

2 curve --

3 MS. HAY: All right.

4 MR. TYLER: Thank you.

5 MS. HAY: Sorry if I confused anyone.

6 MR. TYLER: No, no, no.

7 MS. HAY: I apologize.

8 MR. TYLER: That's very helpful.

9 MS. BUCK: So we're focusing --

10 MR. TYLER: Thank you.

11 MS. BUCK: -- on questions for Sarah. 

12 Chad, did you have a question? Your card is up.

13 MR. MUNTZ: No.

14 MS. HAY: Well, I think Marc had a 

15 question that we were going to come back to.

16 MS. BUCK: Okay.

17 MS. HAY: No? Okay.

18 MS. BUCK: Tim?

19 MR. POWERS: Thank you for this, and I 

20 know that this is a response to a data request, 

21 so we appreciate you guys putting this together. 

22 And I have strictly a data question 
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1 for you, coming at the end of the context that 

2 I'm going to provide before, which is, I'm just 

3 looking at this, and on the first page, we have 

4 an incise of 3,865 institutions. So --

5 MS. BUCK: Make sure we're talking 

6 about the same first page.

7 MR. POWERS: Yes, sorry. The top 

8 page, the five-year repayment rate versus 

9 percentage of borrowers who received Pell.

10 It's kind of irrelevant which one 

11 we're looking at, because the point is the same, 

12 which is, on the bottom here, we have an incise 

13 on the far right of 3,865 institutions.

14 So let's call it a data set of about 

15 4,000, just to make it simple. I just, I think I 

16 want to first reiterate the point that we are 

17 looking and proposing under this rule to look at 

18 programs, not institutions. And I know that we 

19 don't have the data on that, and we have been 

20 over this many, many, many times.

21 But if I remember correctly, last, 

22 there was a data request during the last session 
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1 about how many gainful employment programs the 

2 Department had collected data on, inclusive of 

3 those programs with less than 30 students.

4 So in other words, there were about 

5 8,000 gainful programs under current regulation 

6 that were reported on, and I believe there were 

7 another 22,000 or so for a complete universe of 

8 about 30,000 gainful employment programs alone, 

9 under the current regulation.

10 But again, we're expanding this now to 

11 every single major at every single institution at 

12 the bachelor's degree level and below. So 

13 hundreds of thousands to maybe a million 

14 programs. We don't, we don't know the answer.

15 So here's my data question. This is a 

16 universe of 4,000, and if we get to a universe of 

17 half a million to a million programs, I think we 

18 can all come to the logical conclusion that these 

19 are much smaller programs in nature.

20 So my data question is, therefore, 

21 because we're looking at smaller numbers enrolled 

22 in programs, I've always been under the 
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1 assumption that smaller programs lead to more 

2 volatility in the data. Is that a fair 

3 assumption to make?

4 MS. HAY: Yes.

5 MR. POWERS: And so, while I really 

6 appreciate this, and I know that this is a 

7 response, can we really draw any conclusions from 

8 this data, on the program level, given that 

9 they're smaller, and there is more volatility in 

10 those programs?

11 Can we make assumptions from this 

12 institutional data on programs, or can we not 

13 draw any conclusions based on this as it relates 

14 to majors and individual programs?

15 PARTICIPANT: Very good speculation.

16 MS. HAY: So from a mathematical 

17 perspective, my recommendation, of course, would 

18 be to look at the data at the programmatic level

19 if you're trying to make decisions about 

20 programs. We don't have them.

21 And so, in an effort to get you back 

22 the information that was requested, this is what 
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1 we had. I would agree, things could look very 

2 different, but it's speculative at the program 

3 level.

4 MR. POWERS: Okay. I just wanted to 

5 clarify that, and just kind of make sure we were 

6 on the same page. So this is institutional and 

7 not major by major. So thank, I really 

8 appreciate it. Thank you.

9 MS. HAY: Yes, no problem.

10 MS. BUCK: David?

11 MR. SILVERMAN: I have a question for 

12 Sarah. Thank you for this. This is David, for 

13 the record.

14 Right now, this document, to me, is 

15 like one of those Excel circular references that 

16 go round and round and drive you crazy, so maybe 

17 you can just help me with this.

18 So page 1 is five-year repayment rate 

19 for people who receive Pell. And then, on page 

20 2, you compare Pell versus non-Pell.

21 If you did what I, what I would've 

22 done, if you did a five-year repayment rate on 
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1 page 1 for people who did not receive Pell, would 

2 it look exactly the same as this?

3 MS. HAY: Yes.

4 MR. SILVERMAN: Okay. So --

5 MS. HAY: Well, we did graph it. We 

6 didn't print it for you.

7 MR. SILVERMAN: Okay. So --

8 MS. HAY: But when we overlaid them, 

9 we didn't print it because you couldn't really 

10 tell the difference between the two.

11 But if folks would like to see it, I'm 

12 not opposed to showing it to you on the computer 

13 screen during a break or something like that.

14 MR. SILVERMAN: Okay. That was just 

15 the missing link for me. Thank you.

16 MS. HAY: Yes.

17 MR. SILVERMAN: I'm not, I believe 

18 you, so I don't need to see it, but maybe others 

19 would. So then you get into SAT math score 

20 increases, repayment rate increases, which I get. 

21 And then, page 4, SAT math score 

22 increases, the number receiving Pell decreased. 
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1 So what's the bottom line here?

2 It's, since, because then, if, after 

3 reading this, I'm going back and saying, this has 

4 something to do with Pell recipients, which is 

5 bringing me back to page 1 and 2, which says the 

6 Pell recipients have nothing to do with it.

7 So what's the bottom line here? It's 

8 just really SAT math scores, and Pell has nothing 

9 to do with it?

10 MS. HAY: When I look at this, to me, 

11 I see that there isn't a confounding element that 

12 has to do with the selectivity of the 

13 institution, and who they admit.

14 And without further research, I'm not 

15 sure I would feel comfortable saying much more 

16 than that.

17 It's possible that there are other 

18 confounding factors going on also that aren't in 

19 our data, and that we haven't uncovered. Right? 

20 So we're showing you correlations, but that 

21 doesn't necessarily mean causation.

22 PARTICIPANT: Right.
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1 MS. HAY: Okay.

2 MR. SILVERMAN: Okay. Thank you.

3 MS. BUCK: Kelly?

4 MS. MORRISSEY: Kelly, for the record. 

5 I have a question on the SAT portion. What 

6 about students who don't take the SAT all?

7 Now, how do they affect this universe, 

8 because there are institutional types that have 

9 very small percentages of students who take the 

10 SAT at all. Community colleges, other 

11 certificate granting institutions.

12 So how would this look, and are they 

13 somehow reflected in here where we just have this 

14 entire group of students that are not included in 

15 the data?

16 MS. HAY: So that's a good question, 

17 and I'll point you to the incise that's at the 

18 bottom of the SAT slides, and you'll see that we 

19 go, in the first couple of slides, from abut 

20 3,300 institutions down to about 1,100 or 1,200 

21 institutions.

22 And that's because we don't have data 
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1 points on math SAT scores for institution. And 

2 that is the data we have.

3 There are other variables on the file. 

4 This is the one we picked, but you're right. We 

5 can only provide you information on data that we 

6 have. But I hear your point.

7 MS. BUCK: Chad?

8 MR. MUNTZ: This is Chad. All right. 

9 So I, to follow up on Tim and Todd's kind of 

10 comments, if we can go to that second slide, 

11 because I think that, which is the five-year by 

12 five-year, and it was the point that you had 

13 made, Sarah, that it looks like the institutions 

14 have the same kind of repayment rate regardless 

15 of the percentage of Pell.

16 So if you had 10 percent Pell or you 

17 have 90 percent Pell, if your institutions don't 

18 repay, they all don't repay. Or if they do 

19 repay, they all repay, I think is the statement I 

20 heard, correct?

21 MS. HAY: That's what we saw in the 

22 data.
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1 MR. MUNTZ: Okay. So if each of these 

2 dots represent an institution that has 20 to 40 

3 to 100 programs, in order to stay at a 90 percent 

4 repayment, it kind of draws a conclusion that I 

5 would have to say the vast majority of all those 

6 programs and all those students are repaying at a 

7 90 percent level.

8 I don't think we can draw that from 

9 the data, because you can have an engineering 

10 program. I mean, this is hypothetical. And you 

11 can have an engineering program with a 90 

12 repayment rate --

13 PARTICIPANT: Okay.

14 MR. MUNTZ: -- and a social work or 

15 some other program with a 10 percent --

16 MR. MARTIN: But you don't know --

17 PARTICIPANT: How about this side?

18 MR. MARTIN: -- the vast majority of 

19 the students, regardless of the program, have to 

20 be paying at that high level.

21 MR. MUNTZ: But I don't, I don't know 

22 if we can draw that conclusion, because it's 
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1 just, it's just the average, rather, I mean --

2 MR. MARTIN: Yes.

3 MR. MUNTZ: -- I would assume that 

4 you're correct, but I don't know if we can, and 

5 I'm not a, I'll turn to Jordan or Sarah or 

6 someone who's more data sciencey than I am.

7 But I agree with the notion, but I 

8 don't know if the data necessarily can support 

9 that statement.

10 MR. MARTIN: I think 

11 probabilistically, I probably could say that it's 

12 likely that most students at the top in all of 

13 their programs are repaying, to being able to 

14 have the institution remain at the top.

15 MR. MUNTZ: I just, and we don't, I 

16 don't --

17 MR. MARTIN: Yes.

18 MR. MUNTZ: -- know.

19 MR. MARTIN: Yes. So I think that 

20 there is something that we could learn with that, 

21 and that's why I think it offers, and I know 

22 there's no break in the data, but if we looked at 
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1 and said, like, a 30 or 20 percent repayment rate 

2 is kind of where we want to focus, then I would 

3 expect a lot of those institutions and programs 

4 would all have a 20 percent kind of repayment 

5 rate. I wouldn't think of someone --

6 MR. MUNTZ: But we don't know.

7 MR. MARTIN: -- but I just think it 

8 kind of offers us a, yes. I mean --

9 MR. MUNTZ: No. I, and like, I 

10 totally agree with the, with the sentiment, and 

11 the notion. I just, I just don't think we --

12 MR. MARTIN: Okay.

13 MR. MUNTZ: -- would know.

14 MS. BUCK: So Chad, did you have a 

15 question for Sarah?

16 MR. MUNTZ: Yes, I was just hoping we 

17 could use this as, for that other second metric, 

18 as some sort of point that we could --

19 MS. HAY: So I think the answer to 

20 that question is no, and I'll answer it by 

21 playing devil's advocate, okay?

22 So, say an institution has three 
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1 programs, right? And one program has 1,000 

2 students enrolled in it, and that's the one that 

3 has a 90 percent repayment rate.

4 But these other two programs each have 

5 50 students enrolled in them, and the middle one 

6 has a 50 percent repayment rate, and the third 

7 one has a 20 percent repayment rate.

8 When you, if you look at, if you 

9 ignore the program group and you look at just the 

10 students, you're going to end up with a pretty 

11 high repayment rate for the institution.

12 If you group by program, you're going 

13 to see one program that passes, clearly, at a 90 

14 percent repayment rate, right? One that is, and 

15 two that are much lower, where one of those two 

16 is even lower than the other.

17 And so, if you were to average 90, 50, 

18 and 20, you're going to get a really different 

19 figure for the institution than if you remove the 

20 program group and just average the repayment rate 

21 for all students, or average sort of the percent 

22 of students, ignoring what program they're in, 
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1 that are repaying.

2 MR. MUNTZ: Yes, I agree, that 

3 mathematically, that would be the case.

4 MS. HAY: Okay.

5 MR. MUNTZ: I don't have a problem 

6 with that. But it still kind of points to where 

7 the risk would be.

8 For that situation to exist, it would 

9 have to be a very small minority of students in 

10 the whole vast universe to make that happen, 

11 1,000 to 50 to 50. Fifty are bad.

12 So I get that. I'm just trying to 

13 help us understand that for an institution to be 

14 good, most of the students have to be doing well.

15 PARTICIPANT: Be good.

16 MS. BUCK: Chris, did you have a 

17 question for Sarah?

18 MR. GANNON: Yes. So, Sarah, I think 

19 I heard you say that you stated the right way to 

20 calculate these rates would be to have the data, 

21 but we don't currently have the data.

22 Can you clarify, are you saying that 
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1 the Department is irresponsibly writing this rule 

2 by going forward and not having that data?

3 MS. HAY: That's not a data question I 

4 can answer for you.

5 MS. BUCK: Jennifer, did you have a 

6 question?

7 MR. MARTIN: I would just like to, I 

8 would like to respond to that. I don't think, I 

9 don't think it's irresponsible on our, on our 

10 part that we don't have data.

11 We did, we did, as we talked about 

12 earlier, put forth looking at the repayment rate 

13 with, by applying a statistical model.

14 And one of the reasons we did that is 

15 we didn't have anything on which to base an 

16 absolute, and absolute floor or cutoff.

17 MS. BUCK: Jennifer?

18 PARTICIPANT: I just wanted to thank 

19 the Department, because this is actually, and I 

20 actually don't think they're being irresponsible 

21 at all.

22 I think, in order to write a good 
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1 regulation, and this is why I actually, I'm one 

2 of those few people who actually really like neg 

3 reg, because I actually think, even if you don't 

4 reach consensus, it informs the conversation in a 

5 way that helps the Department and it helps all of 

6 us, because we'll be going into a comment phase, 

7 and I find these charts to be very interesting to 

8 the extent that the Department has raised good 

9 questions for this last session and around 

10 looking at demographics and thinking about sort 

11 of where the middle ground is to look at when 

12 constructing a rate.

13 I think this informs us a lot about 

14 the, how to treat and how to think about 

15 selective institutions, because the message here 

16 is that, and there are a lot of really good 

17 selective institutions that are making great 

18 strides to enroll Pell students.

19 But the fact of the matter is that 

20 they're holding them to a, they're making sure 

21 that they're academic, which they should, 

22 academically ready to be in their school.
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1 But it also demonstrates, and I think 

2 the data shows it, is that you're going to get a 

3 different outcome there.

4 And if a, if a school is an open 

5 admission, and they're going through the process 

6 of enrolling 80 or 90 percent of their students 

7 are Pell, and we're seeing some results there, I 

8 think it just helps, this data will help inform 

9 the Department when thinking about what the 

10 thresholds might be, and it helps me, and so I 

11 want to thank you.

12 It helps me think about what data, and 

13 I hope other institutions will do this too, helps 

14 me think about what data might be helpful to 

15 provide the Department in our comments about what 

16 we know about our programs, and at program level, 

17 because we can slice and dice some things in ways 

18 that the Department actually, you know, might not 

19 be as able to about our own students.

20 And so, this is, I just want to thank 

21 the Department, because I actually think it's 

22 quite responsible and very helpful.
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1 MS. BUCK: Johnson, did you have a 

2 question?

3 MR. TYLER: I'll pose it a question, 

4 but it's a statement, which is thank you for the 

5 information.

6 And I think it's really important, 

7 because it shows that the quality of the 

8 institution, not the resources of the family, 

9 indicate whether a person can repay their debt, 

10 instead has to take on, go into a negative 

11 amortization program. So I view this data 

12 differently.

13 MR. MARTIN: I think, this is great. 

14 I think we just have to agree to disagree on 

15 what, you know, on how we interpret this.

16 I don't, I don't think it serves our 

17 purpose to have a cyclical argument about, you 

18 know, to what extent it shows the quality of 

19 institutions. It wasn't, it wasn't intended to 

20 do that.

21 MS. BUCK: So unless there are more 

22 questions for Sarah, we want to express 
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1 appreciation for the production of this, and I 

2 think we then want to move back to Issue Paper 6. 

3 Isn't that what you were proposing, Greg?

4 MR. MARTIN: Yes. I'd like a 

5 temperature check on Issue Paper 6, at which 

6 point we'll move on to Technical and Conforming 

7 Changes.

8 MS. BUCK: So when we looked at Issue 

9 Paper 6, you felt like you needed to I think look 

10 at 8 first, and now that we've done that and 

11 you're looking back at Issue Paper 6, I'll wait 

12 until everybody kind of has it in front of them, 

13 because there are a lot of papers, aren't there? 

14 Are you ready to indicate a 

15 temperature check for Issue Paper 6? So Sandy is 

16 asking for just a few minutes to review it, so 

17 we'll just let you review it for a couple 

18 minutes.

19 MR. RAMIREZ: And just to 

20 clarification --

21 MS. BUCK: And --

22 MR. RAMIREZ: -- it's the, it's the 
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1 language that was issued with the one change of 

2 the consumer testing --

3 MS. BUCK: Right.

4 MR. RAMIREZ: -- language that 

5 Jennifer had.

6 MR. MARTIN: Yes, thank you, Javier. 

7 Yes, I do want to reiterate that. To accommodate 

8 those concerns we had in Issue Paper 8, we took 

9 this back to leadership, and we are willing to 

10 adjust the language in, I think it's 13, right?

11 PARTICIPANT: Yes.

12 MR. MARTIN: Yes, 13, about whether 

13 the program does satisfy the applicable education 

14 prerequisites for professional licensure.

15 We, as we, as I said earlier, would be 

16 amendable to strengthening that language such 

17 that institutions have to disclose the, whether 

18 it meets the licensure requirement in that state, 

19 and any other state that they want to make 

20 assertion, that they want to make assertions 

21 about such that, for any, for any state that the, 

22 certainly for the state the institution's in, and 
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1 any other states that they want to assert that 

2 they meet the licensure requirements for, would

3 be in the disclosure.

4 We would also append the disclosure to 

5 indicate that students, it's incumbent upon a 

6 student, if they intend to practice the 

7 profession in any other state that's not listed 

8 here, to check with that state's licensure 

9 requirements.

10 MS. BUCK: Sandy?

11 MS. SARGE: Hi, this is Sandy. Just 

12 for understanding, does, maybe you guys can 

13 answer this, that put out these disclosures.

14 Do you guys actually list the states 

15 in which you believe your, or your certifying, 

16 or, wrong word, thinking that your schools do it, 

17 do, thank you.

18 I don't know how to say it, but is it 

19 actually, like, it is our intent to comply with 

20 the licensure requirements of Alabama, Arkansas, 

21 New Jersey, California, and Texas? Just throwing 

22 them out. Is that how it is looked at? Anybody? 
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1 Anybody who --

2 MS. BUCK: Greg, do you have a 

3 response to that?

4 MR. MARTIN: I'll let, if that has to 

5 do, I think, is your, this is great for the 

6 record. Is the question about what the template 

7 currently allows for? Because they can, I think 

8 --

9 MS. SARGE: That's a good question.

10 MR. MARTIN: -- one of the schools 

11 could answer that. I'll, Jen, do you want to, 

12 no.

13 The disclosure currently allows for a 

14 drop down for schools to indicate the various 

15 states that they offer licensure in.

16 So there, you know, there's two things 

17 in play here. With the regulatory language 

18 surrounding the disclosures, and how it reflects 

19 on the template itself.

20 So I think, for a lot of are maybe at 

21 a disadvantage because you don't use it or you 

22 haven't seen it, whereas the folks who have, who 
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1 have been subject to GE obviously have worked 

2 with that to a great, to a great extent. So I 

3 think I captured that correctly. But if users 

4 want to add anything, let me know.

5 MS. SARGE: Can you pick multiple 

6 states?

7 MR. MARTIN: You can.

8 MS. SARGE: Okay. There you go. I 

9 like that.

10 MR. MARTIN: We would be talking about 

11 writing some of that functionality into the reg.

12 MS. BUCK: Any other questions? 

13 Pamela?

14 MS. FOWLER: On page 2, Number 7, 

15 where it talks about the total cost of tuition 

16 fees and total cost of books and supplies for the 

17 program, for completing the program. For those 

18 of us that don't know what that is, can we put an 

19 estimate in there?

20 MR. MARTIN: No, I mean, we, the whole 

21 purpose of this was for students to know what 

22 the, and I understand that a lot of institutions 
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1 look at things, you know, every year, and 

2 students could take different course loads and 

3 whatever.

4 We, and I think, excuse me, I think 

5 where we acknowledge that in the, in the end, in 

6 the end, that the student might not actually wind 

7 up having been charged exactly what that number 

8 is.

9 But that should be a, I hesitate to 

10 use the word estimate. That should be the 

11 charges over the entire cost of the, of the 

12 education, but, I'll let Cynthia speak to that as 

13 well.

14 MS. HAMMOND: So if your concern is 

15 just that your state hasn't set what the tuition 

16 fees are going to be going forward, then we do 

17 allow you to estimate that.

18 I'm not sure it's something we could 

19 put in the regs or not. We can certainly look at 

20 that.

21 But we want the total cost of the 

22 program as best you know it. We understand that, 
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1 you know, states change, things change, 

2 especially in longer programs.

3 MS. BUCK: Jeff, did you have 

4 something to say on that point?

5 MR. ARTHUR: Yes. I just have a 

6 suggestion, that why not just show one year's 

7 total cost, and then the median completion time, 

8 and let them do that math?

9 PARTICIPANT: That would be so much 

10 better.

11 MR. MARTIN: And this is Greg again, 

12 for the record. The whole, the purpose of this 

13 particular disclosure is to give students the 

14 cost of the program, not a year.

15 And I understand that's probably, in 

16 some cases, it's, for a lot of the schools, 

17 currently, a lot of the programs, not all, 

18 currently covered by GE, that, you know, if it's 

19 a, if it's a 13 month program, or a 9 month 

20 program, that that's very representative, and 

21 that would, extending it to, as, in your case, 

22 Pam, you know, extensively, a lot of 
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1 baccalaureate programs, that you are projecting 

2 it out.

3 You are looking, I don't want to say 

4 projecting, you are looking over a number a 

5 years, and that can seem somewhat daunting.

6 But the, but the goal here is to give 

7 the student the cost of the entire program, and 

8 for a baccalaureate program, that program is four 

9 years. So we would, we would be inclined to stay 

10 with this.

11 MS. BUCK: Whitney?

12 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: Yes. So I just 

13 have some, a question about the disclaimer on the 

14 top of 4, little Number 2.

15 It says, if appropriate, a disclaimer 

16 states, please note, however, that the 

17 institution believes the earnings may be effected 

18 by a significant number of students.

19 I'm just wondering where the 

20 enforcement is going to happen on that disclaimer 

21 to ensure that both, it is appropriate, which is 

22 not defined, and that it is, in fact, a 
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1 significant number of students who are affected.

2 MR. MARTIN: Well, again, yes. This 

3 is, this is an assertion being made by the 

4 institution, and we would, we would expect that 

5 it's, that it's accurate.

6 We, I, we didn't want to burden the 

7 reg or, you know, with all kinds of language as 

8 to exactly how we would, we would look at this. 

9 I would view this as a, as a program review audit 

10 issue.

11 If an institution is making, is 

12 asserting that this is the case, that, you know, 

13 a significant number of students who completed 

14 our program did not report their income, such as 

15 tip income, it would be incumbent upon the school 

16 to demonstrate to us that that's the case.

17 We do the same thing currently with 

18 consumer information. You know, if a reviewer's 

19 looking at that, and a school puts consumer 

20 information out, we would, we would want to be 

21 certain that that information is accurate.

22 And the same thing here. It is, yes, 
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1 it is up front, presuming the integrity on the 

2 part of the institution for making this 

3 statement.

4 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: And I'm sorry, 

5 just to follow up with that. There's no 

6 requirement in the statement, and maybe it's 

7 earlier in the rule and I've forgotten it, 

8 because we've looked at so much language this 

9 week.

10 But there's no requirement that this 

11 tip income comes from, for example, in Neal's 

12 case, where I'm fine with it. It comes from the 

13 program that the person trained for, right?

14 This could be any tip income on any 

15 second job or anything they're doing to bring 

16 income in?

17 MR. MARTIN: We don't specify that 

18 here. And I don't know. I mean, that's 

19 something we have to take back.

20 I mean, if a, if a school were making 

21 an assertion that, well, you know, many of my 

22 students, I think that the intent here is for, I 
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1 just, I'm not picking on cosmetologists.

2 I'm just pointing out that in 

3 cosmetology, this is something which would 

4 probably be a very accurate assertion. Tip 

5 income's a job.

6 If someone was trying to make the 

7 case, well, you know, a lot of my students don't 

8 get, don't get jobs in the, in the profession for 

9 which they trained, therefore, they maybe 

10 waitresses or waiters for a while, and tip income 

11 could be there.

12 I don't know how we would look at 

13 that. I don't think that's what's intended, but 

14 we're not 100 percent clear here about --

15 MS. BUCK: Chad?

16 MR. MUNTZ: This is to follow up on 

17 that Number 7 again with the tuition fees. I 

18 think I have two questions with this.

19 I appreciate that we can put an 

20 estimate. I don't know how this works, legality, 

21 if we're trying to disclose if a student actually 

22 got charged more than we estimated. I don't know 
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1 if that sets up a situation.

2 MR. MARTIN: Well, I mean, I think, 

3 Greg, for the record. There's no, there's no, I 

4 think in circumstances, certainly, where a 

5 school, where an institution, I think, has a 

6 program where you have a student signing 

7 enrollment agreements as to the cost of the 

8 program, that that's, that we would expect that 

9 to be reflected.

10 Where we're expanding this to, to 

11 include all programs, I understand that at, you 

12 know, because you, Pam's here, at University of 

13 Michigan, she might not know what tuition's going 

14 to be in 2000 and, you know --

15 MR. MUNTZ: Yes, I know.

16 MR. MARTIN: -- '22. So it might wind 

17 up that it isn't exact.

18 And Cynthia pointed out, and I'll use 

19 her language, that to the absolute best of your 

20 ability, at the current, at the time you're 

21 disclosing it, you disclose the cost for the 

22 entirety of that program to make it as clear to 
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1 the student as possible.

2 I also want to ask the question to the 

3 group, do you think it would be, if, would you 

4 like us to consider for tip income, that, to say 

5 that tip income derived from the --

6 MS. SARGE: Program you're --

7 MR. MARTIN: -- program for which the 

8 student was trained? Or --

9 PARTICIPANT: Yes.

10 MS. BUCK: So why don't you do thumbs 

11 on that question, just so he can be clear? Is 

12 everybody clear about the question?

13 PARTICIPANT: I'm not. Could you say 

14 it again?

15 MS. BUCK: Could you say the question 

16 again?

17 MR. MARTIN: The question was, because 

18 around the table, there seemed to be this idea 

19 that this, is this, does this assertion here, is 

20 it, are we asserting that the student's tip 

21 income is derived from employment in a field 

22 which this, for which the student was trained by 
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1 the program. And I just asked, I'm asking this 

2 as a, to get some opinion.

3 MS. BUCK: Just to get a feeling, 

4 okay? So, can you respond to that question? So 

5 it looks like at least two thumbs down. Several 

6 thumbs up. Several thumbs sideways.

7 MR. MUNTZ: And sorry. I did have a 

8 second question on the tuition. Back in some 

9 days, when I've worked with the private 

10 institutions, I think --

11 MS. BUCK: Can you get a little closer 

12 to the mic?

13 MR. MUNTZ: Yes, I think that there 

14 was an issue that, for competition, that you're 

15 not always allowed to disclose tuition. How does 

16 that work? I don't know if that's still the 

17 case.

18 MR. MARTIN: I don't know what 

19 anybody's rules would be about competition, but 

20 our rule would supercede that. If you're 

21 required to report this --

22 MR. MUNTZ: Oh.
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1 MR. MARTIN: -- you're required to 

2 disclose it, you're required to disclose it --

3 MR. MUNTZ: Yes. Okay.

4 MR. MARTIN: -- in earnest.

5 MR. MUNTZ: Yes, but, and just to sort 

6 of align ourselves with our public colleagues on 

7 this, I mean, our boards meet twice, three times 

8 a year every year, and some of them set tuition 

9 really far in advance, some of them set it just a 

10 few months in advance.

11 So I just wanted to align ourselves 

12 with the publics, and we don't usually have to 

13 deal with state legislatures setting our tuition, 

14 so thank goodness for that.

15 So, but you know, even without the 

16 state legislature interfering in sort of our 

17 tuition setting, we face those issues as well.

18 MS. BUCK: Jennifer? Oh, sorry, go 

19 ahead.

20 MR. MARTIN: This is Greg, for the 

21 record, one more time. I think, I think the 

22 Department, you know, we're, we definitely want 
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1 to be reasonable about this.

2 We would be looking, is a school being 

3 disingenuous in what it's putting out there, not 

4 a got you where, you know, I don't think any 

5 Department leadership would support if a review, 

6 if I were a reviewer and I went out there and 

7 said, aha, you estimated this and it's -- a 

8 student, I can see from the student's, the 

9 student's account that he was charge or she was 

10 charged, you know, an additional $20,000 because 

11 the tuition changed. We would not, we would not 

12 be going down that path.

13 MS. BUCK: Jennifer?

14 PARTICIPANT: So, first, I just want 

15 to say why I voted no on the tip question. We 

16 gave up a long time, I think, ago, I think it was 

17 in Gainful 1, on equating the earnings to the, 

18 whether they were trained in the field or not, 

19 because the Department couldn't quite figure out 

20 how to do that.

21 And so it would be inconsistent at 

22 this point in a disclosure to tie the tips to, 
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1 and I think there's actually even a, potentially, 

2 sort of a legal sort of aspect to that where, the 

3 Department, like I said, they're relying on 

4 earnings that are earned, regardless of the field 

5 that the person actually ultimately ends up in. 

6 And David's now back at the chair, but he can 

7 speak to it.

8 There are lots of people, obviously, 

9 who are actors who, you know, are doing tips on 

10 the side, making their way as they also act.

11 And so, I think it gets really squirmy 

12 to try to figure out what portion of income is 

13 relevant to the, so that's my, that is on that. 

14 I don't know.

15 I have a different point though, which 

16 is why my card was up. So on this issue of 

17 tuition, first of all, I would propose that if 

18 you feel like it can be an estimate, then let's 

19 put the word estimate in, which would be hugely 

20 helpful. I can't even tell you how much that one 

21 word would be helpful.

22 But then, I also would urge the 
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1 Department, and I don't think we're going to come 

2 up with this today, but I would strongly urge the 

3 Department, when it goes into the NPRM phase, to 

4 be thinking, assuming we don't reach consensus, 

5 that paragraphs 2, 3, and 7 ought to, they need 

6 to really correlate very carefully.

7 So paragraph 2 is on completion rates 

8 for full time, and less than full time students, 

9 and withdraw rates.

10 Number 3 is the length of program and 

11 the calendar time. And so the completion rates 

12 have to sort of correlate to the length of time. 

13 So that's why they correlate.

14 And then, the cost has to correlate to 

15 2 and 3. And I think that's, it is very, 

16 frankly, confusing for everybody. I think it's 

17 confusing for it.

18 God knows was each of the programs are 

19 doing around the country on this, because I don't 

20 know that it's consistent across different 

21 institutions and how they decipher what you mean. 

22 And then, for the students who are 
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1 reading it, there needs to be actually a 

2 correlation between those three paragraphs.

3 And so, I would urge the Department to 

4 consider not actually, even considering not 

5 having them be separate.

6 I'm not saying not disclose the data, 

7 but somehow correlate those three factors 

8 together in the disclosure. But I would put on 

9 the table right now, adding the word estimate to 

10 7.

11 MS. BUCK: Jordan?

12 MR. MATSUDAIRA: Thank you. I wanted 

13 to ask a quick question about, I think it's 

14 Number 10, about the disclosure for median loan 

15 debt.

16 And I think the way it reads is it 

17 says, you report the median debt for any one or 

18 all of the following groups.

19 And then, and then, the three groups 

20 are students who completed, students who didn't 

21 complete it, and then, all of the students.

22 And I just wonder whether it's not 
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1 strange to have the option to only report debt 

2 for students who withdrew, which I think is the 

3 way that reads?

4 MR. MARTIN: I, yes, Jordan, I think 

5 you could if you're, if you're parsing it that 

6 way. You probably, I mean, so the students who 

7 completed, yes, the following, the following 

8 groups, I mean, I would say that, yes, you, 

9 looked at that way, you, that's certainly not the 

10 way we intended it.

11 And it's, and in the, yes, remembering 

12 again that we, on the template, in the Federal 

13 Register, we publish which elements we're going 

14 to require to be disclosed. So these are just a 

15 list of those that we may use.

16 MR. MATSUDAIRA: Okay.

17 MR. MARTIN: I don't, I couldn't 

18 foresee an instance where anybody would say we're 

19 going to only list it of the students who 

20 withdrew, but you know --

21 MR. MATSUDAIRA: It would certainly be 

22 lower.
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1 MR. MARTIN: And we could, yes, we 

2 could look at it, but I don't, I don't, I see it 

3 as something, it's a little bit interpretive, but 

4 I don't, certainly that's something, I don't, we 

5 would ever do. But --

6 MR. MATSUDAIRA: Okay.

7 MR. MARTIN: -- I'll take it back.

8 MR. MATSUDAIRA: Thank you. And just 

9 one followup. I wonder whether there wouldn't be 

10 some level of agreement around the table for the 

11 idea which we discussed a little bit yesterday, 

12 but just to bring it back up again, of requiring 

13 the secretary to post some of the program level 

14 data on the Scorecards to some of these 

15 disclosures.

16 I don't know, you know, how much of 

17 this it makes sense to incorporate into some of 

18 the public facing tools that we have.

19 But you know, to the extent that some 

20 of these could be put in a centralized location 

21 that's maintained by ed, and kind of more easily 

22 accessible to students.
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1 You know, again, especially the things 

2 that ed is kind of already just calculating from 

3 their own data, like whether it's the Scorecard 

4 or something similar, just like a kind of program 

5 level pages for the Scorecard so, you know, 

6 things like earnings and debt are kind of 

7 straightforward.

8 And then, if you are incorporating the 

9 disclosure things, you know, bringing in cost of 

10 attendance and time to degree, like Jeff was 

11 suggesting, I think would be potentially burden12 reducing.

13 I don't know how that part of the 

14 equation would shake out, but at least very 

15 helpful to students. I wonder whether, if some 

16 language like that couldn't be incorporated.

17 MR. MARTIN: I think we are going, 

18 Greg, for the record. We'll, we certainly will 

19 consider what additional information we can 

20 publish in the Scorecard.

21 I don't, I'm not going to, I don't, we 

22 wouldn't be, we wouldn't be accepting of anything 
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1 that would obligate us to do, to do that, at this 

2 point.

3 MS. BUCK: Chris Madaio?

4 MR. MADAIO: Chris Madaio. So a few 

5 points on the disclaimer. On the second Roman 

6 numeralette, 3, the institution believes that the 

7 data used may not reflect earnings potentially in 

8 your geographic location.

9 My concern might be that any school 

10 that enrolls students nationally would put that 

11 on there, thus kind of challenging, I mean, I 

12 understand, that is a point they would make.

13 But also, I mean, obviously the 

14 earnings incorporates their students, which are 

15 national, if that's the case.

16 So I just think, again, over 

17 disclosing too much information, it's going to

18 become confusing.

19 It makes the disclosure of the debt to 

20 earnings less valuable if we're adding all of 

21 these phrases on that seem to essentially say, 

22 but you should ignore it because of all these 
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1 reasons.

2 I mean, again, maybe some consumer 

3 testing would be good on this to get what the 

4 objective of that is, and to get what a consumer 

5 takes out of it, because I don't think it adds a 

6 lot of value, and only adds confusion.

7 As the, in the first, this disclaimer, 

8 you know, I think it should be a little more 

9 declarative, as far as, you know, it says, the 

10 university believes that the earnings may be 

11 effected by a significant number of students, and 

12 I think to accomplish, Greg, what you said 

13 before, that the university is stating that it 

14 believes that its graduates, a significant number 

15 of them, have all of those scenarios, you know, I 

16 think it should be a little more clear to the 

17 student that this is a significant number of its 

18 graduates have this outcome.

19 And again, triggering a moment of 

20 pause for the student to understand, you know, 

21 why this would be.

22 And again, I guess I, as far as the 
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1 tips being derived from the program, you know, I 

2 think that's important simply to ensure that the 

3 student understands why this is.

4 So you know, I get why you don't do it 

5 in the debt to earnings calculation itself, but 

6 you know, if a school believes that that's the 

7 case, if it's a drama class, or a drama program, 

8 I mean, a lot of those students probably aren't 

9 making tips in the drama use of that degree, but 

10 a lot of them may be making tips in the "waiter 

11 or waitressing" part of that degree, because 

12 that's the job I guess they have to get if they 

13 can't find a job.

14 So a student should know that, and it 

15 shouldn't, I should be clear to that student that 

16 that's where they're getting the tips because 

17 they may not be able, a significant number of 

18 students may not be able to find jobs in that 

19 field.

20 I would definitely, it was a 

21 suggestion, so I want to make sure the Department 

22 doesn't do this, which is to have one year of 
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1 tuition instead of the full course of the 

2 tuition.

3 I think if a student sees one year or 

4 one semester's worth of tuition, that would be 

5 deceptive for them, and they're not, may not 

6 always do the math to calculate it.

7 And then, I just would think, there 

8 was a discussion, the Department was going to 

9 alter Number 13, as far as the licensure bit, and 

10 I guess I would just like to see that language.

11 Maybe if they could write it, or over 

12 the break, lunch break, kind of put forth how 

13 they would propose to alter it, so when we vote 

14 on it, we know what we're voting on. Thank you.

15 MS. BUCK: So we have about 10 minutes 

16 before lunch, so I just wanted to give that time 

17 check. I think John is next.

18 MR. KAMIN: Yes, John Kamin, for the 

19 record. I, Jordan kind of took what I said, and 

20 I just want to re-emphasize, when it comes to 

21 transparency and informing consumers, there is 

22 numerous references to College Navigator and 
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1 College Scorecard that all indicate that the 

2 school's disclosure website needs to link back to 

3 them.

4 And that does seem to me fundamentally 

5 backwards and how to do this to the point that if 

6 I wanted to find a school disclosure, I mean, or 

7 information about gainful employment, for that to 

8 be absent from the College Navigator, my recourse 

9 is then to Google a school and find through just 

10 public domain, where that is.

11 I think that it's incumbent upon the 

12 Department of Education to include this in the 

13 College Navigator, and that really, I'm not sure 

14 if it needs to be put in the CFR.

15 It could be done without having to 

16 rewrite regulations, but again, I mean, with the 

17 intent being that we're raising awareness for 

18 students to know, it seems like a common sense 

19 thing that I don't see any opposition to.

20 MS. BUCK: Mark (phonetic)? Johnson? 

21 No. Yes.

22 MR. TYLER: I would, I would agree 
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1 with John and Jordan's point. It is difficult. 

2 I found it difficult finding the disclosures on 

3 various websites.

4 I want to just go back to what Kirsten 

5 had said earlier on today, which is what about 

6 language. I just found four schools that are 

7 advertised, that have the Spanish pages about 

8 their HVAC, beauty, massage, medical assistant 

9 school.

10 I think there has to be something that 

11 says, you know, if you're presenting information 

12 in Spanish, the disclosure, or whatever language 

13 it is, it should be compatible.

14 I don't think it's a big problem for 

15 the schools. They have things that say translate 

16 this page. It just should make sure that it 

17 translates over the disclosure page as well. 

18 Thank you.

19 MR. SILVERMAN: This is David 

20 Silverman, for the record, speaking on behalf of 

21 performing arts. This disclaimer is, would be 

22 extremely helpful. It would be perfect.
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1 I mean, we have everything for our 

2 students, and we don't make train for it, but we 

3 have everything, and then we have tip income, we 

4 have self-employed, we have business expenses, 

5 part-time, and everything else. So, thank you.

6 However, my question is, would this be 

7 applicable for the performing arts? Please say 

8 yes.

9 MR. MARTIN: The way, the way, the way 

10 that the regulation, the proposed regulation is 

11 currently written, it would not preclude that. 

12 Yes. You see, I mean, the way it's written, it 

13 simply says tip income. You know?

14 MR. SILVERMAN: Thank you, Tony. 

15 Thank you.

16 MR. MARTIN: I'm learning to be a 

17 lawyer from Steve. So --

18 MS. BUCK: Jennifer?

19 PARTICIPANT: I just wanted to comment 

20 on something that Chris said about the geography 

21 disclaimer, because I hear, you know, actually I 

22 think I hear him on that.
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1 And I just wanted to say that maybe it 

2 could be so simple, because I don't love the 

3 institution believes part either, to be honest 

4 with you.

5 It's just a general, it's a factual 

6 statement that earnings vary geographically, and 

7 so, couldn't it just be, literally, a note, 

8 earnings can vary significantly one part of the 

9 country to another, without the sort of first 

10 part, it would literally be just the last phrase? 

11 Because the whole, may not reflect 

12 your earnings, put, like, all that piece, so it's 

13 just literally a statement where an institution, 

14 if an institution has high earnings, it's 

15 covering every base.

16 It's covering all scenarios, frankly, 

17 to just make the factual statement that earnings 

18 vary, which is true. Just a thought.

19 MS. BUCK: Jessica?

20 MS. BARRY: Hi, Jessica Barry, for the 

21 record. I actually wanted to comment on the 

22 geographic statement too. I think the simplified 
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1 version would work too.

2 But I just wanted to give you an 

3 example, and I actually have gotten this 

4 complaint at our school.

5 So our median income is in the high 

6 30s, and we have many students who come from 

7 rural communities, and we talk to them when they 

8 enroll, and we say, you know, if you choose to 

9 move back to your rural community, you may not be 

10 able to achieve this median. But a lot of times, 

11 they didn't listen.

12 Now they're back in their small 

13 community where employment opportunities are very

14 few, and they end up making maybe 20 percent less 

15 than what they say we have told them they would 

16 make. So I'm, I definitely want to support this, 

17 and I hope you all consider supporting it too.

18 MS. BUCK: So would you like to take a 

19 temperature check on Issue Paper 6? All right. 

20 So --

21 MR. MARTIN: I don't know, I can't do 

22 language right now. You know, it's going to take 
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1 some time, if we're still doing that.

2 MS. BUCK: You're thinking about the 

3 language?

4 MR. MARTIN: If we want the language -

5 -

6 MS. BUCK: You're thinking about the 

7 language that's --

8 MR. MARTIN: If people want to see the 

9 language that would be adjusted for the 

10 disclosure, on 13.

11 MS. BUCK: Do you want to have a 

12 temperature check of it as it stands?

13 MR. MARTIN: Yes. Take what, take it 

14 as it stands.

15 MS. BUCK: Okay. So show of thumbs, 

16 as it stands. One, two, three --

17 MR. MARTIN: Greg, for the record. 

18 What I can do is work on the language at lunch, 

19 come back, present it to you before we take a 

20 vote on the package.

21 MS. BUCK: Okay. There were at least 

22 six thumbs down, that I saw. So I think it is 
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1 time for lunch.

2 After lunch, we will come back and 

3 look at Technical and Conforming Changes. We 

4 want to let you know that at some point this

5 afternoon, we are probably going to have a round 

6 where we ask each person to think about what is 

7 most important that you want to leave the 

8 Department of Ed with.

9 So I'm just telling you that so you 

10 can kind of have that question in your mind ahead 

11 of time. So we will come back. Again, we have 

12 to allow an hour and a half, so I think it will 

13 be 1:30.

14 MR. RAMIREZ: A two-minute statement.

15 MS. BUCK: Right.

16 MR. RAMIREZ: A short, brief --

17 MS. BUCK: Not a long statement from 

18 each person.

19 MR. RAMIREZ: -- statement.

20 MS. BUCK: A very short statement. 

21 Thank you, Javier.

22 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 
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1 went off the record and resumed at an undisclosed 

2 time.)

3 MS. BUCK: Okay. Welcome back, 

4 everyone. I think what we're going to do is 

5 start with tactical and conforming changes, and 

6 then come back to the Issue 6, in terms of having 

7 it ready for projection.

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

9 talk about technical and conforming changes.

10 MR. MARTIN: Thank you. So we're 

11 looking at technical and conforming changes. And 

12 I had initially thought that we wouldn't have to 

13 do anything here, but we -- a couple of things we 

14 do have to consider. So bear with me while we go 

15 through this.

16 So the summary of changes since -- to 

17 -- as a refresher -- I know this is going to 

18 sound somewhat convoluted, but as a reminder, 

19 remember, there were certain areas of disclosures 

20 in 41, 668.41, that even though none of that was 

21 -- none of that was pertinent to our discussions 

22 about -- about DE rates or GE/DE, it -- we were 
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1 tasked with looking at it because it was -- it 

2 had to do with disclosures and because we were --

3 we were dealing with disclosures, even though our 

4 disclosures were in a completely different 

5 section.

6 So that was the way it was initially. 

7 Then the borrower defense negotiators took back 

8 41, or they had taken back -- taken back 

9 responsibility for 41. So what you see here is 

10 that there is a reference here to requiring 

11 schools that use pre-disputed arbitration 

12 agreements or class action waivers to disclose 

13 the information -- disclose that information, 

14 rather, in an easily accessible format for 

15 students, prospective students, and the public, 

16 and to require these schools to provide an annual 

17 notification of this information to enrolled 

18 students.

19 We note here this is an -- this is an 

20 issue for borrower defense that we are currently 

21 tracking. We don't have to track this. Borrower 

22 defense took it back. So we are not going to 
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1 look at pre-disputed arbitration, which is a 

2 subject with which I only have a nodding 

3 acquaintance. I know what it is, but I have not 

4 been dealing with it. So we're not going to deal 

5 with that.

6 However, when we look in here, if we 

7 turn into the document to -- if you'll follow me 

8 to page 4, at the bottom of page 4, under 

9 Reporting and Disclosure Information, you'll note 

10 that this has been struck. It's not highlighted, 

11 but for procedural reasons we have to -- I have 

12 to raise this. I have to raise this topic here 

13 and mention it, although we're not going to be 

14 making any decisions about this.

15 As you probably are aware, borrower 

16 defense negotiations have concluded and consensus 

17 was not reached. So the Department is currently 

18 in the process of drafting a Notice of Proposed 

19 Rulemaking for that.

20 However, these -- these areas here 

21 have to be just noted and brought up here. So 

22 even though it's struck out, I refer you to the 
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1 bottom of page 4, Financial Protection 

2 Disclosures. And we note that the Department 

3 proposed to remove these financial protection 

4 disclosures, and that was that the institution 

5 had to deliver to enrolled and prospective 

6 students.

7 These are basically disclosures 

8 dealing with financial protection triggers. So 

9 when there were triggering events that were --

10 were apparent, that the school would be required 

11 to disclose those. So you'll see that actually 

12 all of Section -- this is Section I, I believe, 

13 right? Has been struck.

14 Just to make sure I have this right 

15 because I was not 100 -- okay. Yes, right. 

16 Right. So it's 41-I, 668.41-I has been struck. 

17 And I would refer you to -- to moving on to page 

18 -- so we follow all of that through. 

19 All disclosures -- this follows all 

20 the way through to page 7 where you'll note that 

21 we start with H, which in the normal course of 

22 things comes before I, but not here. 
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1 (Laughter.)

2 MR. MARTIN: So it was a little bit of 

3 a --

4 PARTICIPANT: It might have been a cut 

5 and paste.

6 MR. MARTIN: It might have been a 

7 cut-and-paste issue. Actually, it was entirely 

8 intentional and it's very complex. I just don't 

9 want to go into it. No.

10 (Laughter.)

11 MR. MARTIN: No, it's not that at all. 

12 It was a cut-and-paste issue.

13 So H as well, which is loan repayment 

14 warning for -- for proprietary institutions, this 

15 is -- this requirement to issue a warning for 

16 loan repayment has also been struck. So I don't 

17 -- it's very -- it's a fairly lengthy section 

18 here. It talks about how the institution was to 

19 -- to post the warning, and that goes on until 

20 the bottom of page 9.

21 So I bring it up. If anybody wants to 

22 say anything about it at all, it's -- I mean, 
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1 it's kind of a -- I don't know how much good that 

2 would -- well, the Department is currently 

3 writing the NPRM for it. So if anybody has 

4 anything brief they want to say, I'd be willing 

5 to entertain that. I have no further comments on 

6 the matter.

7 MS. BUCK: You don't want -- you don't 

8 want to go on to page 11 until they comment on 

9 the other parts?

10 MR. MARTIN: No, we're not going to do 

11 page 11 at all. We're not too -- we're not 

12 discussing pre-disputed arbitration at all.

13 Anything else, Steve?

14 MS. BUCK: So are there comments or 

15 questions? Chris?

16 PARTICIPANT: So I understand the 

17 process, so are you looking -- going to be 

18 looking for a temperature check on these issues?

19 MS. BUCK: First, I was asking if 

20 there were comments or questions.

21 PARTICIPANT: So, okay, I guess -- I 

22 mean, my comment is just this is difficult to 
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1 vote on. I mean, obviously, because it touches 

2 other things. So, I mean, if I was asked to take 

3 my temperature on this -- this technical 

4 conforming issue paper, I think I would be a down 

5 vote because I just disagree with all of the 

6 other things that it is changing.

7 I understand why this is a technical 

8 thing. It's not the substance, but -- so I guess 

9 that's my question. If you're looking for a 

10 temperature check, as I'm telling you now, that's 

11 my comment is that I just disagree with the 

12 underlying substance.

13 MR. MARTIN: I was just -- in talking 

14 to our counsel on this, who was involved in this 

15 issue, so as a clarification, the pre-disputed 

16 arbitration was already decided by that team. 

17 This has not been. We do need an up or down --

18 we need an up or down on consensus on this -- on 

19 this particular -- on these two -- on these two 

20 sections of the regulation.

21 So continue, Chris.

22 MS. BUCK: Okay. Just clarify to help 
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1 me, Greg. Which two sections?

2 MR. MARTIN: Sections I --

3 MS. BUCK: I --

4 MR. MARTIN: -- which in our -- for 

5 our purposes here is coming before H. I and 

6 Section H.

7 MS. BUCK: -- and Section H.

8 MR. MARTIN: Right. So I will --

9 pardon? No, starting on -- so starting on page 

10 -- yeah, I goes back to page 4, I believe. 

11 Right. So those two pages. I apologize. You 

12 probably haven't given this much thought, but --

13 but to the extent that you do have any comments 

14 or opinions, please let us know. We are required 

15 to vote -- to vote up or down on this.

16 MS. BUCK: It's page 4. So by page, 

17 it's page 4 through 9.

18 MR. MARTIN: It starts -- it's Section 

19 I and Section H of 668.4 -- .41.

20 MS. BUCK: Which ends at the bottom of 

21 page 9. Is that correct?

22 MR. MARTIN: No, wait. Maybe not. 
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1 Hold on a minute. 

2 (Simultaneous speaking.)

3 MS. BUCK: That's why I'd like to have 

4 the page number, so we're all really clear. So 

5 page what to page what? And then page what to 

6 page what?

7 MR. MARTIN: Yeah. Right. Four to 7, 

8 and then H starts at the -- on -- and I do 

9 apologize for the -- for my lack of preparedness 

10 here. But I was -- H is starting at the top of 

11 page 7 where you see those four asterisks there. 

12 And then going on to page 8. And then on page 

13 -- through page 9.

14 MS. BUCK: So it's pages 4 through 7, 

15 and then the H starting on 7 through 9. Is that 

16 right?

17 MR. MARTIN: Correct.

18 MS. BUCK: Okay. Okay. Before we 

19 take a temperature check, does anybody have any 

20 questions? Sandy?

21 PARTICIPANT: Okay. I just don't even 

22 know where this falls in. So could you just help 
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1 me. What do we use this for? I apologize for 

2 being ignorant on this.

3 MR. MARTIN: I apologize for the 

4 last-minute aspect of this. This is part of 

5 borrower defense. It has nothing to do with --

6 with our renegotiating gainful employment rules 

7 or debt to earnings. It's entirely related to 

8 borrower defense.

9 At a certain point in time, the 

10 disclosure aspect of borrower defense was turned 

11 over to this group because it was related to 

12 disclosures, though we don't have any disclosures 

13 in this section.

14 So it -- that's what happened. So 

15 there was some uncertainty over what part of that 

16 the borrower defense group took back. So in this 

17 paper, it's written -- we do have on 11 that the 

18 -- the part that is highlighted that we're not 

19 going to deal with has to do with pre-disputed 

20 arbitration. 

21 They took that up and considered it in 

22 borrower defense. So we have nothing to say 
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1 about that at all here. However, the areas 

2 related to striking out the -- those disclosure 

3 requirements related to the trigger and also the 

4 warnings were not -- were not considered there. 

5 So we have to consider them here.

6 PARTICIPANT: And they're struck out.

7 MR. MARTIN: They are. Yes. Their 

8 being struck out indicates that the Department --

9 the Department proposed to strike those, and 

10 there was no consensus reached at that -- that 

11 negotiating session. So that's the way it 

12 remains, with the Department proposing to strike 

13 these.

14 MS. BUCK: So Whitney, and then 

15 Kirsten.

16 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: I still don't 

17 understand what I'm doing. So would this be 

18 imputed somewhere in the rule that we're working 

19 on now.

20 MR. MARTIN: This has nothing to do 

21 with the rule we're working on now. Absolutely 

22 nothing. This would not have any effect on what 
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1 we're doing -- this particular rule. This is 

2 related to borrower defense.

3 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: So why am I 

4 voting on it?

5 MR. MARTIN: I -- the best I can do is 

6 to tell you that we were tasked -- this group was 

7 initially tasked with looking at all matters 

8 related to disclosures, because we are dealing 

9 with disclosures, though I will admit that, yes, 

10 our disclosures are not borrower defense 

11 disclosures.

12 There was some confusion as to whether 

13 or not the borrower defense team had taken that 

14 back, but a portion of that was back. 

15 Apparently, this -- these two items were not 

16 wholly considered by the borrower defense 

17 negotiating team. Therefore, we have to consider 

18 them here.

19 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: So given -- I 

20 mean, I didn't follow borrower defense very 

21 closely. So how am I to contextualize this 

22 within borrower defense if that's not a rule that 
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1 we have negotiated or followed?

2 MR. MARTIN: I'm going to -- I will 

3 turn that over to counsel.

4 (Laughter.)

5 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: I'm not trying to

6 be difficult. I just want to make an informed 

7 vote, and I don't -- I don't know what any of 

8 this is or does.

9 MR. FINLEY: So this is Steve. This 

10 is just to give Greg a break, and so I can say 

11 the same thing that he has been saying to you.

12 (Laughter.)

13 MR. FINLEY: So we can take turns. 

14 This is a -- the proposal to strike these 

15 provisions was shifted over to this group because 

16 we're dealing with other disclosures, and these 

17 were disclosures. It's the trigger that would 

18 have been required if one of the financial 

19 responsibility standards had been caught that had 

20 been in the original borrower defense proposal.

21 And a loan -- a more detailed loan 

22 repayment rate disclosure is what it looks like 
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1 to me. But the proposal for the Department was 

2 to just strike those provisions from the 

3 disclosure section, so they were given to us to 

4 note in these discussions, that the pieces were 

5 being struck.

6 And this third part about the 

7 arbitration agreement evidently did get language 

8 that was proposed that did get taken back and 

9 discussed in the borrower defense group. So it's 

10 -- that's the best explanation I can give you.

11 MS. BUCK: Kirsten?

12 MR. RAMIREZ: Let me just jump in real 

13 quick, because I don't want to waste too much 

14 time on this because it -- if I -- if I 

15 understand this part correctly, the vote is more 

16 for procedure and formality, because borrower 

17 defense there was no consensus. It is being 

18 drafted, and their final rule will include 

19 elements of this, which is being drafted by the 

20 Department right now anyways.

21 So the outcome will be for advisement 

22 purposes, but not necessarily for approval. 
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1 Would that be accurate?

2 MR. MARTIN: Just as a clarification, 

3 Javier, it will -- the Department's rule will not 

4 include H and I because they are being -- they 

5 are being struck.

6 MR. RAMIREZ: Okay. Okay.

7 MS. BUCK: I think -- I think Kirsten 

8 was next, or did you want to say something? 

9 Sure.

10 MR. MARTIN: One second here.

11 MS. BUCK: Sure.

12 MR. MARTIN: We're bringing up -- this 

13 is Amanda Ayman (phonetic). She is one of our 

14 attorneys who worked on borrower defense. Amanda 

15 is going to contradict me, apparently, so since I 

16 don't know anything about this subject, or very 

17 little, there is no offense taken -- taken or 

18 offered. So --

19 (Laughter.)

20 MS. AYMAN: Hi. Amanda Ayman. These 

21 two disclosures were -- have always been part of 

22 the gainful employment portfolio. We just 
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1 haven't discussed them.

2 The Department is proposing for this 

3 group to vote on that we strike these two 

4 disclosures. The first disclosure, financial 

5 protection, that one does relate strictly to 

6 borrower defense. The idea was that in borrower 

7 defense there are triggers that if the -- if 

8 certain events happen that could potentially 

9 jeopardize an institution's finances, then they 

10 would have to issue a letter of credit to the 

11 Department. 

12 Most of those triggers have been --

13 they have proposed to eliminate. So there was no 

14 consensus on that. The Department is considering 

15 what triggers there should be, but in reality it 

16 would -- there would no longer -- it would no 

17 longer be this robust structure under which 

18 letters of credit would be required.

19 So we think that the Department's 

20 position is that this probably wasn't ever a 

21 particularly useful disclosure for consumers. We 

22 had never come to agreement on what language we 
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1 would use in that disclosure, and we also think 

2 it's a bit of a moot point now, since most of 

3 that -- those provisions have been eliminated --

4 or we propose to eliminate them. This --

5 PARTICIPANT: This does, however --

6 PARTICIPANT: I know what you're going 

7 to say.

8 MS. AYMAN: The second one is not 

9 limited to borrower defense. It's a loan 

10 repayment warning that was solely applied to 

11 proprietary institutions, because the Department 

12 is now not treating proprietary institutions 

13 different from other institutions. And because 

14 we are taking up loan repayment issues through 

15 the -- our new regulations, we don't think it's 

16 appropriate any more to have this additional 

17 disclosure.

18 MS. BUCK: I think Kirsten was next.

19 MS. KEEFE: Yeah. That was 

20 essentially my question. If the issues were 

21 (inaudible).

22 MS. BUCK: Jennifer?
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1 PARTICIPANT: I think I'm okay now, 

2 especially on -- what I was going to ask is, do 

3 we have to vote for these together in one vote? 

4 Because H makes a lot of -- I mean, to me, it 

5 makes a lot of sense because we're having a whole 

6 conversation. And loan repayment rate has 

7 flip-flopped between two different NAG-regs 

8 (phonetic) for a while. 

9 And so the inclusion of this here 

10 makes sense to me, because we're dealing with it 

11 in this rulemaking. And it wasn't dealt with in 

12 the other one, so it makes sense.

13 The other disclosure, honestly, that's 

14 a little bit out of left field because it was 

15 never in gainful, like ever. And so this one --

16 I seems a little bit out of left field for us now 

17 to -- so, to me, there are two sort of votes, 

18 because I might vote different. I mean, I don't 

19 know for everybody, but it -- I think people can 

20 wrap their heads around loan -- the loan 

21 repayment rate piece.

22 And then I would just say, honestly, 
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1 I'm not sure why you even included the 

2 arbitration piece in here if we don't have to 

3 vote on it. It's like your technical correction 

4 but not ours. So -- yeah, so it probably 

5 shouldn't have been in this document, because I 

6 think that's part of the confusion.

7 MS. BUCK: Tony? So do you want to 

8 have a temperature check of each of these 

9 separately, then? Do you want to start --

10 MR. MARTIN: We're okay with that.

11 MS. BUCK: Okay. So do you want to 

12 start with I? Pages 4 through 7. Okay. Do you 

13 want to -- thumbs, put up thumbs? 

14 PARTICIPANT: Five. Five down.

15 MS. BUCK: Five thumbs down. At 

16 least. Not sure everybody voted, but five thumbs 

17 down.

18 So now we will go to H, which is pages 

19 7 through 9. You look puzzled. Oh, I'm sorry. 

20 You wanted to say something, Jeff? I'm sorry.

21 MR. ARTHUR: Yeah. I was just going 

22 to make one comment before we voted on the next 
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1 one. The warning language that is there was 

2 developed prior to understanding that the 

3 national repayment rate was what it is. It was 

4 thought to be considerably higher than it 

5 actually was, and so it never got adjusted after 

6 that. So it's a really inappropriate warning 

7 that would apply to 53 percent of everybody in 

8 higher ed.

9 PARTICIPANT: So the one we're about 

10 to vote on.

11 MR. ARTHUR: That's the H that comes 

12 after I.

13 MS. BUCK: Okay. So now we're on to 

14 H, pages 7 through 9. So do you want to show 

15 thumbs on that one?

16 I think there are at least five down. 

17 So five down for each, it looks like.

18 So thank you. 

19 MR. MARTIN: I want to thank Amanda 

20 for her able assistance, and also thank all of 

21 you for your indulgence.

22 MS. BUCK: So now I think we're back 
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1 to the changes that were proposed for Issue Paper 

2 6. Is that right?

3 MR. MARTIN: Correct. Hold on one 

4 moment while I pull that up. Okay.

5 PARTICIPANT: We just need -- we just 

6 need another minute to get it up on the board.

7 MR. MARTIN: Okay. No problem. We 

8 can wait.

9 (Pause.)

10 MR. MARTIN: Since we have dead air, 

11 I'll just say that for all you liberal arts 

12 people out there, of whom I include -- I include 

13 myself among you, since yesterday was Pi day, 

14 which I never have much interest in -- my 

15 daughter loves that kind of thing. But today is 

16 the Ides of March, so that is more of, you know 

17 --

18 (Laughter.)

19 PARTICIPANT: Beware.

20 MR. MARTIN: Beware of the Ides of 

21 March. And my colleagues have told me I'm not 

22 allowed to make any jokes about who is to be 
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1 praised or buried, so I'm not going to go there. 

2 So --

3 (Laughter.)

4 MR. MARTIN: But I would sorely love 

5 to go there, but I'm not going to. I could make 

6 some bad jokes, but no. I don't know what it 

7 means, but the Ides of March mean that much --

8 but you can remember, those of you who had Latin, 

9 the teachers always loved, you know, dressing up 

10 on that day or something, whatever, wearing a 

11 toga.

12 (Pause.)

13 PARTICIPANT: Daniel, may I suggest, 

14 you know, giving a time limit? Just the 

15 technical difficulties of getting this on the 

16 screen continue.

17 MS. BUCK: So that we could just go 

18 forward without it, you mean?

19 PARTICIPANT: Yeah.

20 MS. BUCK: Okay. So maybe one more 

21 minute, and if it's not up, we'll just have to 

22 talk through it. Okay? And we appreciate all 
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1 the efforts of the people who are working on it.

2 PARTICIPANT: No pressure, Erin. 

3 MS. BUCK: Look, there's something on 

4 the screen now.

5 MR. MARTIN: Okay. Are we live? 

6 Okay. This is Greg for the record.

7 So in looking at this again, when we 

8 went back over lunch and looked at 13-I, we -- so 

9 we believe that this does -- what we currently 

10 have here does satisfy what -- what we were 

11 talking about in rereading it and considering it 

12 more closely.

13 So we're talking about whether the 

14 program does or does not satisfy. So in the 

15 disclosure, the school is -- is stating whether 

16 it does or does not --

17 MS. BUCK: Just a second. What page 

18 is it? I'm sorry.

19 MR. MARTIN: Page number 4.

20 MS. BUCK: Okay. That's where I was. 

21 I just wasn't in the right place.

22 MR. MARTIN: Page number 4, Issue 
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1 Paper 6.

2 MS. BUCK: Yeah.

3 MR. MARTIN: About halfway through. 

4 13, Romanette one.

5 So if we look at A, the applicable 

6 educational prerequisites for the professional 

7 licensure or certification in each state within 

8 the institution's MSA. So we already have that, 

9 and we already have the applicable educational 

10 prerequisites for professional licensure or 

11 certification in any other state for which the 

12 institution has made a determination.

13 So what we're saying here is that the 

14 institution is -- must disclose for its MSA, 

15 which just to make it simple would be -- so for 

16 Washington, D.C., it would be Washington, 

17 Maryland, and Northern Virginia, right? So 

18 whatever the MSA is.

19 And then the applicable educational 

20 prerequisites for any other state for which the 

21 institution has made a determination. So if 

22 they've made any determination about that, then 
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1 they would have to -- to certify whether -- not 

2 certify, but disclose whether the program does 

3 not -- does or does not satisfy the applicable 

4 requirements for those states for which they have 

5 made the determination.

6 Now, if you drop down to Romanette two 

7 there, for any states not described, a statement 

8 that the institution has not made a determination 

9 with respect to the licensure or certification 

10 requirements of those states. 

11 So we have not required institutions 

12 to list every state for which they haven't made a 

13 determination, but -- but pretty much the -- on 

14 the template, that's pretty much inferred. If 

15 you haven't made a determination for that state, 

16 those other states you have not made a 

17 determination for.

18 We have included on here the -- just 

19 to note the template will include a notification 

20 to students that they need to be aware of the 

21 requirements for states; any state for which the 

22 institution has not made a determination.
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1 So we feel that that adequately covers 

2 the MSA and any other states that the institution 

3 is -- is stating that it has made a determination 

4 about professional licensure for.

5 (Simultaneous speaking.)

6 (Pause.)

7 MR. MARTIN: I was just waiting for 

8 that language to be pulled up. At the bottom 

9 there you can see in B the only language we added 

10 was "And it is incumbent upon students to know 

11 the licensure or certification requirements for 

12 states. The institution has not made the 

13 determination with respect to their licensure or 

14 certification requirements."

15 PARTICIPANT: Hey, Greg, there was 

16 also some agreement on consumer testing language, 

17 the language that Jennifer had proposed in the 

18 morning. I thought that there was some agreement 

19 on that as well to include that.

20 MR. MARTIN: There was, yes. We -- we 

21 agreed to include that. What's here doesn't.

22 PARTICIPANT: So that's not included 
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1 in this draft; is that correct?

2 PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)

3 MR. MARTIN: Okay. It is included. 

4 We'll pull it up.

5 Yeah. The new language is at the 

6 bottom here. "The Department will conduct 

7 consumer testing to determine how to make the 

8 disclosure template as meaningful as possible."

9 MS. BUCK: All right. So, Chris, did 

10 you have a question or comment?

11 PARTICIPANT: So, you know, I just 

12 feel like it's -- it got worse, I guess, from my 

13 perspective and not better in asking the student 

14 to try and figure out on their own whether the 

15 program -- you know, I guess, I'll just kind of 

16 -- I don't want to repeat what I said before. 

17 I mean, I just think that the schools, 

18 if they're enrolling students, I mean, this is 

19 most important obviously for the distance 

20 education programs, that students need to know 

21 whether the state that they're living in is one 

22 that they are able to get a license if the 
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1 license is required to be able to work there.

2 MS. BUCK: Other questions or 

3 comments? Daniel?

4 MR. ELKINS: Chris, thanks for 

5 addressing that. I need some clarification 

6 because as I was reading this I, unfortunately, I 

7 guess came to the opposite conclusion that you 

8 did. 

9 So, Greg, as Chris has posed the 

10 question, is that your understanding of the -- of 

11 how it's written?

12 MR. MARTIN: Yeah. We are -- to 

13 clarify, we are not going to require institutions 

14 to -- to provide -- to disclose this, whether it 

15 meets the certification requirements for every 

16 state a student may reside in.

17 There are numerous reasons for that. 

18 First of all, I mean, I am -- I perceive this is, 

19 to a large extent, meant to deal with distance 

20 education, and students could be in a variety of 

21 different states. They could move. Military 

22 people could move about. We just don't think 
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1 it's a -- it's a requirement that we are prepared 

2 to place on schools to do that.

3 With respect to the student being 

4 aware, you know, I -- we feel it's perfectly 

5 reasonable for any -- the schools may -- the 

6 school has to disclose whether or not it --

7 whether or not the program meets those 

8 requirements for any state that they are making 

9 those assertions about, so if the -- so -- or 

10 that they made a determination about.

11 So if a school has made a 

12 determination that the program satisfies the 

13 licensure requirements in North Carolina, South 

14 Carolina, Virginia, then they would have to 

15 disclose that that's the case. We're not 

16 requiring the schools to -- to disclose 

17 information about any other -- anything else 

18 other than that.

19 So, no, we're not requiring -- the 

20 answer would be we're not requiring schools to 

21 look at every state in which a student might 

22 reside.
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1 MS. BUCK: Daniel, did you have 

2 anything else? Other questions or comments?

3 Then are you ready to take a 

4 temperature check on Issue Paper 6 as revised? 

5 Okay. So let's see thumbs. One, two, three, 

6 four, five, six.

7 PARTICIPANT: Six down.

8 MS. BUCK: Six to seven thumbs down. 

9 So thank you.

10 So we have now gone through I think 

11 all the issue papers to some extent, as well as 

12 the technical and conforming changes. Before the 

13 Department of Ed proposes something overall for 

14 you to respond to, we are thinking it would be,

15 as I mentioned before lunch, helpful to the 

16 Department of Ed to hear from each of you briefly 

17 -- we're thinking of maybe about two minutes per 

18 person, and certainly you can pass -- what you 

19 particularly want them to remember that was 

20 important to you. So, you know, any sort of 

21 final words from you, special words from you, 

22 thoughts that you really want them to remember 
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1 from you.

2 So we thought we would go around in a 

3 circle, not that you're in a circle, but you know 

4 what I mean, and we could start with whoever 

5 feels ready to speak. Anyone want to begin this?

6 PARTICIPANT: And just for -- just a 

7 little bit more, just to kind of give you an 

8 understanding of where we're going next because 

9 after your comments, we plan on taking a 

10 consensus vote on the -- on the entire package, 

11 right?

12 And that entire package, to be clear, 

13 is going to be the package that we start off with 

14 at the beginning of the week with the 

15 modifications that you all just vote on in 6, as 

16 well as on Issue Paper 8 on program eligibility 

17 there was a modification there that you all 

18 agreed to.

19 But apart from that, it is the package 

20 proposal that we started off with at the week. 

21 So what we want to do is make sure that everyone 

22 has an opportunity, if you'd like -- you don't 
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1 have to -- to make any comments before we --

2 before we take that vote.

3 MS. BUCK: Daniel?

4 MR. ELKINS: Just so I can be crystal 

5 clear, so you're saying we're going to combine 

6 all issue papers together and take an up/down 

7 vote on all of that.

8 PARTICIPANT: That's correct.

9 MS. BUCK: I think the Department of 

10 Ed is going to propose that after this round. 

11 But I -- we'll get to that and you can certainly 

12 comment on that.

13 Johnson, did you have a question or 

14 comment?

15 MR. TYLER: I am ready to --

16 MS. BUCK: Oh, you're ready to start.

17 MR. TYLER: (Inaudible.)

18 MS. BUCK: Oh, great. So can we start 

19 with Johnson.

20 MR. TYLER: I'd like to thank the 

21 Department of Ed and Greg and Steve for being 

22 here. I know this is a difficult thing to deal 
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1 with, that there is a change of administration. 

2 And thank you to all of the other negotiators who 

3 are here. It's -- I really enjoyed getting to 

4 know you and participating in this.

5 I think, you know, the idea that the 

6 marketplace can police this is -- is a valid 

7 point, but I don't think it's a valid point if 

8 they're not meaningful sanctions. Banks, 

9 stockholders, investors, creditors, they all are 

10 involved in higher education. And if there is a 

11 meaningful sanction that it percolates down to 

12 those entities who make decisions on where they 

13 want to put their money. 

14 If the idea is full disclosure results 

15 in students making more informed choices, I'll 

16 all in favor of that, but I don't think that will 

17 result in protecting taxpayers or in protecting 

18 students.

19 Thank you.

20 MS. BUCK: So, Chris, are you ready to 

21 go next?

22 MR. MADAIO: Sure. From a consumer 
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1 protection, you know, Attorney General 

2 standpoint, you know, I can definitely say that 

3 our office has investigated, you know, schools in 

4 the for-profit sector and found that there is --

5 that students are being poorly affected in a 

6 variety of ways.

7 And I think that that's what the 

8 gainful employment language in the Higher 

9 Education Act is trying to get at, and that's 

10 what I think that the previous rule with a 

11 sanction that related to loss of disclosure was 

12 trying to get at. I'm all for disclosures. I 

13 said loss of disclosure. I meant loss of Title 4 

14 funds. I'm glad we had that video.

15 As far as -- I'm all for disclosures, 

16 but, you know, I think that could be a separate 

17 rule or a separate rulemaking sessions, if we 

18 wanted to have disclosures for all institutions 

19 to be able to compare numbers across the sector. 

20 I'm not opposed to that, but I am opposed with 

21 taking away something that would protect students 

22 in the ways that we heard from the student 
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1 comments and in ways that my office and multiple 

2 other state attorneys general offices have found 

3 not just the fraud in the sector but the high 

4 debt and poor outcomes, which burdens students, 

5 and thereby also burdening states.

6 MS. BUCK: So certainly everyone 

7 doesn't have to speak, so what we'll do is we'll 

8 go around and just ask the people whose tents are 

9 up, so that people don't feel compelled to speak 

10 or no one has to.

11 Laura.

12 MS. METUNE: I, similar to Johnson, 

13 want to thank the Department and the rest of the 

14 negotiators. I also enjoyed the opportunity to 

15 get to know everyone, and I really do understand 

16 the situation that the Department is in. And I 

17 support the role of civil service generally, and 

18 I appreciate your willingness to be here and to 

19 go through this process with us.

20 I also want to say that we know we 

21 have a problem in this country with bad actors in 

22 the for-profit sector, and the truth is, if we 
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1 all admit it to ourselves is that none of us 

2 called those institutions who we can now point to 

3 bad actors before they folded. 

4 We all stood up and defended them, or 

5 many of us did, until the day that they folded. 

6 And I think we need to take that into account 

7 when we're trying to design a rule that helps us 

8 identify those bad actors before they shut down.

9 I'm really disappointed that we were 

10 forced into a conversation about applying a 

11 relatively meaningless disclosure to all 

12 institutions, and I understand the concern that 

13 my fellow public and nonprofit institutions have 

14 raised about that.

15 I'm concerned that the Department is 

16 reducing staffing at a time when it's clear that 

17 they are creating a structure that will require 

18 more staffing to use these tools in any sort of 

19 meaningful way. So I'll leave it there, and 

20 thank everyone for this opportunity and the 

21 chance to participate.

22 MS. BUCK: Thank you. 
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1 Jennifer?

2 PARTICIPANT: Okay. Sorry, I didn't 

3 think I was going to be next. So I really just 

4 -- I mean, I think we all probably have -- share 

5 -- hopefully have the same sentiment that -- and 

6 I said it this morning, that I actually always 

7 see value in negotiated rulemaking because it 

8 does allow for the opportunity for the community 

9 that doesn't have rare -- very rarely, you know, 

10 has consensus on points of view. But I think 

11 just the sheer process of talking through issues, 

12 I hope it informs the Department in the 

13 negotiation process.

14 There were places where we did, you 

15 know, reach some form of -- I forget what we 

16 called it instead of consensus, but, you know, 

17 some form of common understanding. And so I do 

18 hope that the Department will take those pieces 

19 back. It certainly helped inform me, as I said 

20 earlier today, on what might be helpful during 

21 the comment process, too. 

22 So I just want to voice appreciation 
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1 for the other negotiators and for the Department.

2 MS. BUCK: Thank you. Jeff?

3 MR. ARTHUR: Yeah. When I started 

4 this process, I saw it as a real exciting 

5 opportunity to be the genesis to start providing 

6 data to the public that they have never seen 

7 before and to help them make better decisions on 

8 higher education.

9 This is really a massive expansion of 

10 accountability across higher ed from what is six 

11 percent of the enrollment in higher ed to the 

12 vast majority of the enrollment in higher 

13 education.

14 The data -- I mean, I don't want to --

15 when we're -- we don't need to blame the 

16 Department. Or, yeah, when you don't have data 

17 to make decisions, I mean, it's kind of like a 

18 Catch 22. We've got to get the data first before 

19 we start setting metrics.

20 And so I think that's why today it's 

21 important that we err on choosing some guardrails 

22 that may -- that are clearly appropriate, but not 
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1 make mistakes that result in unintended 

2 consequences and end up doing something to some 

3 institutions and some populations or particular 

4 programs that we wouldn't have intended.

5 And I also want to clarify that there 

6 has been a lot of talk about who the bad actors 

7 are, and I can tell you -- I can give you 

8 examples of bad acts across all sectors. I could 

9 -- if you want to talk to me afterwards, I'll 

10 list several. It is not -- this is about -- this 

11 whole process is about improving information for 

12 students in higher education, and that's why I 

13 was excited to participate in this.

14 I hope that that's something that 

15 comes out of this, and I would really feel 

16 satisfied if we really transformed the way 

17 students see higher ed and make their enrollment 

18 decisions.

19 MS. BUCK: Tony?

20 MR. MIRANDO: Yes. Tony Mirando. I, 

21 too, want to thank all of my colleagues around 

22 the table. It has been a pleasure meeting and 
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1 spending time with you all, getting to know you a 

2 little bit better.

3 I can say walking away this week after 

4 the three sessions that I have a different 

5 perspective on a lot of different topics now, and 

6 I appreciate that. I want to thank the 

7 Department and all of you for all the work that 

8 you do. I know this is not an easy task. I 

9 don't want to be in your shoes, but I know that 

10 it has to be done.

11 The one thing that I hope that -- that 

12 you walk away with today is that the metrics that 

13 you all have proposed, what you have used in the 

14 past, what some -- some individuals have proposed 

15 going forward, doesn't work for all. I have said 

16 this every single time I have been here, and I'll 

17 continue to say it going forward, that you are 

18 trying to fit a round peg into a square hole, and 

19 it just isn't going to work. But I do appreciate 

20 the energy that you are trying to get something 

21 accomplished.

22 I know I speak for everybody in this 
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1 room when I say we all are trying to get the bad 

2 actors out of the system. That's what I do every 

3 day, and so I do appreciate at least what we're 

4 heading towards.

5 MS. BUCK: Thank you. Mark?

6 MR. McKENZIE: Thank you. Mark 

7 McKenzie.

8 Like everybody else, thanks to the 

9 Department and everybody else that is at the 

10 table. This is my first time in negotiated 

11 rulemaking. And, well, when you get into the 

12 weeds it can be a lesson in frustration and 

13 patience at the same time.

14 The positive I think is something that 

15 Jeff said. Even though I think everybody is 

16 leaving somewhat unhappy with the potential 

17 outcomes at the end of the day here, the result 

18 is that there is more information available to a 

19 greater number of students about the processes 

20 involved.

21 And so even though it may not be at 

22 the level that I think anybody really wanted, is 
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1 that -- is that a positive? I actually think it 

2 is, and that's where I'm going to try and hang it 

3 rather than getting caught up in what could have 

4 happened.

5 I was hoping that this group could 

6 actually come together with a consensus, and I 

7 guess the biggest thing from my perspective, 

8 leaving with the Department to consider, from a 

9 regulatory perspective when you don't have enough 

10 information to be able to understand the 

11 long-term impact of a decision on a metric, there 

12 has to be a way to create a regulatory framework 

13 that allows you to adjust that metric downstream 

14 once you do have that data.

15 And if you could create that, I 

16 actually think you could come to consensus on 

17 metrics if people know that there is a way to 

18 adjust that. So I'm going to leave it there, and 

19 thank you very much.

20 MS. BUCK: Thank you. And you're all 

21 staying very close to the two-minute mark. We're 

22 timing it, and we haven't had to stop anyone. 
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1 Whitney?

2 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: I'll try to break 

3 that record. 

4 (Laughter.)

5 MS. BARKLEY-DENNEY: I'm just kidding. 

6 Thank you, first, to everybody around the table. 

7 I think remarkably sometimes when we are able to 

8 just talk among ourselves or talk offline we make 

9 further progress than we do when other actors are 

10 involved.

11 But I just want to say really quickly 

12 and make really clear why, from a consumer 

13 perspective, disclosures are not enough. Nothing 

14 about a disclosure is going to help someone pay 

15 back $30,000 in student loans when they can't get 

16 a job that they were supposed to get from that 

17 program.

18 Similarly, in other places I work, 

19 nothing about a disclosure helps somebody pay 

20 back a 400 percent payday loan or get rid of a 

21 car, you know, that they couldn't afford that was 

22 given to them at too high of an interest rate. 
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1 So I think we need to be really realistic about 

2 what a disclosure does.

3 Hopefully, for the most sophisticated 

4 borrowers who have parents or colleagues or other 

5 students or family members guiding them, it will 

6 keep them from making a bad decision. But the 

7 ones I'm concerned about are the ones who I 

8 worked with every day when I was in Mississippi 

9 who didn't have that kind of guidance to whom the 

10 disclosures don't really mean anything, and who 

11 find themselves with an education that doesn't 

12 actually help them build the life that they 

13 thought that they were going to build.

14 So in everything that I have done 

15 around this table, I have always kept those 

16 people in my mind, you know, who went to a truck 

17 driving class only to find out when someone told 

18 him because he was illiterate that it was a 

19 chauffeur license, not a truck driver license.

20 Or, you know, people who went into 

21 pharmacy tech with drug felonies on their 

22 records. So those are the people who are always 
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1 at the center of my mind, the center of my heart, 

2 and the people who I'm sitting around this 

3 negotiating table for.

4 MS. BUCK: Thank you. Tim.

5 MR. POWERS: So thank you to everybody 

6 around the table, particularly those who had to 

7 travel to get here. For better or worse, I live 

8 here. It was really easy for me to get here, but 

9 I know it wasn't for a lot of you. So, really, 

10 thank you.

11 Thank you to the Department, some of 

12 the guest stars who have made appearances over 

13 the last three weeks, Brian, Sarah, Cynthia. All 

14 of you, thank you.

15 Thank you to the three of you, and 

16 thank you to the public as well. It's I think 

17 really useful when these meetings are open and 

18 transparent. I was sitting out there for the 

19 borrower defense negotiations. I know how brutal 

20 and dry it can be, so thank you to all of you as 

21 well.

22 You know, obviously, we're in a 
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1 difficult position here to make policy that we 

2 think is inappropriately targeted towards 

3 bachelor's degree programs. But I also just want 

4 to say philosophically how lucky we are to be 

5 able to have this conversation, because not every 

6 department, and in fact very few departments, 

7 have a process anything near what we have here, 

8 which is the chance to come together and actually 

9 hash these issues out with our different 

10 perspectives.

11 So I'll just very briefly sum up what 

12 the private nonprofit presidents support, which 

13 is accountability, it's transparency, it's useful 

14 data, both quantitative and qualitative. And 

15 then, first and foremost, it's about protecting 

16 students.

17 So if we can walk away from this table 

18 with those principles intact, I think that we 

19 will feel proud to have participated even though 

20 I think, you know, we certainly have our qualms 

21 with where we think this is headed. 

22 But the last point I want to make is 
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1 just generally -- and several others have talked 

2 about this -- but the difficulty of a 

3 one-size-fits-all model. I think the diversity 

4 of the institutions and the students that we 

5 serve has come out over the last three weeks, and 

6 whenever flexibility and context can be 

7 considered, when the Department looks at data and 

8 when we try to facilitate this information to our 

9 students, I think it's the best for everybody 

10 involved.

11 So, once again, thank you to 

12 everybody. Todd is on a flight back to Ohio. 

13 I'll send his regards as well. And if you ever 

14 want to talk, email me or call me. We're happy 

15 to have these conversations further with all of 

16 you. Thank you.

17 MS. BUCK: Thank you. Jessica.

18 MS. BARRY: Hello. Jessica Barry. I 

19 do -- I'm going to echo the same comments. I 

20 want to thank the Department, and I want to thank 

21 all of you. I really feel like you listened to 

22 the challenges that those of us who have lived 
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1 with GE now for I feel like a lifetime -- of what 

2 we have really experienced.

3 I really feel like you listened to us, 

4 and thank you. I think that's very important. 

5 And I think you made a good faith effort to find 

6 ways to resolve some of those issues that led to 

7 so many unintended consequences, which that's 

8 what we're trying to resolve.

9 And, honestly, I don't want to see 

10 those unintended consequences happen in other 

11 sectors where other good programs are eliminated 

12 for the same reasons that we have been dealing 

13 with. I don't think any of us came here to 

14 protect bad schools, and I don't want that to 

15 come across that way.

16 I came here to protect the students 

17 who are enrolled at really good institutions that 

18 were suffering from the unintended consequences 

19 from the GE rule.

20 I applaud the Department in finally 

21 viewing us on the same plane as other sectors. 

22 That's very, very frustrating to me, that we are 
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1 always kind of seen as I think what was called 

2 the stepchild a few times. I really feel like we 

3 have been viewed in that same light, which has 

4 been refreshing.

5 And just the last thing I want to say 

6 is, you know, even if you totally disagree with 

7 the Department's direction right now, we are 

8 about to give students more data on debt, on 

9 earnings, than they have ever had before. And I 

10 don't know how that could ever be a bad thing.

11 So I hope you're all proud of the work 

12 that you've done here, and, again, thank you so 

13 much for just listening to our concerns.

14 MS. BUCK: Thank you. Neal?

15 MR. HELLER: Couldn't let this last 

16 opportunity go.

17 (Laughter.)

18 MR. HELLER: Anyway, no, it was -- it 

19 really is a pleasure to work with everybody 

20 around the table. There are some very smart 

21 people who have some great ideas in this room, 

22 and it's very much appreciated. So to hear 
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1 different perspectives is always enlightening, 

2 and I hope that others feel the same way.

3 The Department -- I want to thank the 

4 Department because, honestly, it is the first 

5 time in a long time that there has been an 

6 open-minded and sort of pragmatic approach, and a 

7 real look at what gainful employment meant to a 

8 lot of schools that got caught up in it, 

9 inadvertently in many cases.

10 And I hope that that open-mindedness 

11 will remain as you draft your final proposals, 

12 and that we remember those little old certificate 

13 programs that everybody wants to throw dirt on. 

14 Only kidding.

15 But, seriously, that -- we do remember 

16 that, you know, we were not the reason that we're 

17 here, and I'm glad that we were able to 

18 participate, and I think we did open some minds 

19 and get people thinking a little bit more about 

20 the types of programs that the cosmetology and 

21 the beauty world provides and the students that 

22 we serve.
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1 But thank you very much, and go 

2 'Canes.

3 (Laughter.)

4 MS. BUCK: Chris Gannon.

5 MR. GANNON: First of all, I just 

6 wanted to say that Ahmad couldn't be here today, 

7 but Ahmad and myself are very thankful for this 

8 opportunity and thankful for -- to the Department 

9 for giving it to us.

10 And we're in our early twenties, so a 

11 lot of stuff we're hearing for the first time at 

12 this table, but it was really enlightening and 

13 really special to hear all the different input 

14 that everybody gave at the table. And I 

15 appreciate also everybody that came to public 

16 comment and spoke on every side of the issue and 

17 participated in that.

18 I think it's really important to 

19 mention that the loss of Title 4 funding is the 

20 only reasonable sanction. That's the only 

21 sanction that is really going to protect students 

22 in this, and I want the Department to know that 
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1 if we really do want to protect students we have 

2 to include loss of Title 4 funding. There is no 

3 way to do that without including the loss of 

4 Title 4 funding.

5 And disclosures aren't enough, and 

6 also, I think I heard earlier that this is 

7 expanding the accountability for everyone. And 

8 this isn't expanding accountability, what we've 

9 seen so far. It's dismantling it, and it's not 

10 protecting students.

11 So just I thank everybody for their 

12 input and for meeting all of you, and thank the 

13 Department for this opportunity, and I hope that 

14 they take some of what I have said and some of 

15 the other consumer negotiators, what they have 

16 said, and take it back and implement it in the 

17 rule once they write it.

18 Thank you.

19 MS. BUCK: Thank you, Chris. 

20 Kelly?

21 MS. MORRISSEY: Kelly, for the record. 

22 And like my colleagues before me, I really 
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1 appreciate having had this opportunity to have a 

2 voice at the table and my voice being that of 

3 financial aid administrators.

4 Going into this when I was selected 

5 last year, I was eager to represent all of us in 

6 demonstrating that the former gainful employment 

7 rule we felt really placed an undue 

8 administrative burden on colleges and financial 

9 aid administrators in particular. 

10 I am very happy to see that most of 

11 that administrative burden has been removed in 

12 the elimination of reporting, but I do feel that 

13 has happened at the expense of losing some 

14 important data, namely that of private loan debt 

15 and direct costs that were covered by federal 

16 borrowing because I feel that that information is 

17 very meaningful for students, especially as we're 

18 moving towards a disclosure-only regime.

19 So I'm kind of not sure if that was a 

20 win, to give up that administrative burden. I 

21 also feel that at the same time expanding 

22 disclosures to all higher education programs will 
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1 result in additional burden at all of our 

2 institutions and providing all of those metrics 

3 for all programs. 

4 And I'm not sure that I feel it's 

5 appropriate to be viewing all higher education 

6 programs through the lens that was formerly known 

7 as gainful employment. Where we've seen in some 

8 of the small amounts of data that we were 

9 provided, we see that there are certain programs, 

10 certain institutions that have very high 

11 repayment rates. 

12 So I'm not sure how the students that 

13 are enrolled in those programs who already are 

14 savvy enough to seek data and to seek information 

15 about the programs and the institutions where 

16 they're enrolling, I'm not sure what benefit 

17 we're providing them by doing disclosures at 

18 those institutions and at those programs.

19 And this will indirectly result in

20 higher costs to those students at those 

21 institutions because of the administrative burden 

22 that results in doing that additional reporting.
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1 MS. BUCK: So it has been two and a 

2 half --

3 MS. MORRISSEY: Okay. Done.

4 (Laughter.)

5 MS. BUCK: Andrew?

6 MR. HAMMONTREE: Well, Kelly said most 

7 of what I was going to say, so I won't belabor 

8 all of it. But I do -- my biggest concern when I 

9 came here was the administrative burden on 

10 financial aid administrators. I think there were 

11 a lot of innocent schools that were good schools. 

12 I'm thinking primarily community colleges and 

13 low-cost schools that were impacted by the 

14 current GE rules that I really was sympathetic to 

15 because I saw them spending way too many 

16 resources on administrative burden that I think 

17 that you guys have recognized. 

18 And I do appreciate you taking away 

19 the reporting requirements, especially when you 

20 can get most of that information through NSLDS, 

21 and taking out the direct distribution and active 

22 confirmation and programs that were passing and 
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1 clearly weren't in any danger of putting the 

2 students in a bad situation.

3 So I appreciate you guys listening to 

4 that. I think that's very, very helpful. I 

5 think this whole conversation is going to shift 

6 dramatically now that we're opening it up to all 

7 sectors. I think there is still going to be a 

8 lot of administrative burden placed on schools, 

9 and I'm concerned about that, and I just hope 

10 that you will continue to think about how this 

11 impacts the financial aid office.

12 Our jobs are so complicated, and we 

13 have so many complicated things that we have to 

14 explain to students. The more complicated you 

15 make our lives, the more complicated you make it 

16 for the students, too.

17 They are already confused enough. So 

18 I just hope that you will keep that in mind as 

19 you develop these new regulations.

20 Thank you.

21 MS. BUCK: Thank you.

22 Jordan?
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1 MR. MATSUDAIRA: Thank you. So I also 

2 wanted to thank everybody around the table and 

3 especially give thanks to the career staff at Ed 

4 for handling this issue and just express my 

5 gratitude and admiration for all of you, many of 

6 whom were former colleagues during a previous 

7 stint in government.

8 So I wanted to make three points. One 

9 was that from my position at the Council of 

10 Economic Advisors, I was involved in the last 

11 rulemaking around gainful employment. And I just 

12 wanted to stress something that I've raised 

13 before but that a lot of the changes that are 

14 being made here, most of the key changes that are 

15 being made here really are contrary to all the 

16 additional evidence that have come out since that 

17 rulemaking. So I wish that when we were kind of 

18 crafting the rule that was being made back in 

19 2013, 2014, that we had access to the information 

20 that we do now.

21 I think the most important things are, 

22 you know, the elimination of sanctions in the 
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1 rule, the elimination of the consequence of the 

2 loss of Title 4 eligibility, when we have so much 

3 information in the literature that disclosures

4 alone are not sufficient. They have a small 

5 impact on student choices, but the benefits tend 

6 to be concentrated among students who are 

7 relatively affluent and have access to a lot of 

8 resources to help them process that information.

9 And the removal of the graduate 

10 programs from the scope of the rule I think is 

11 also really contradicted by a lot of recent 

12 evidence that suggests growing and growing shares 

13 of loan balances, and especially loan balances in 

14 default, are accounted for by graduate schools, 

15 many of which are in the gainful -- current 

16 gainful employment scope.

17 Now, that research is not perfect. 

18 The Department, in many cases, has much better 

19 information than is available to researchers.

20 So if the Department had the interest 

21 in making its case, it could do so with a lot of 

22 the data that are available right now, and I 
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1 really encourage the Department to use the 

2 infrastructure, to use its own administrative 

3 data, to produce relevant analyses for this kind 

4 of policymaking that a lot of people, some of 

5 whom are in the room, worked very hard to 

6 accomplish, you know, only a few years ago.

7 So things like estimating repayment 

8 rates is something that is trivial for the 

9 Department to do. You know, I welcome somebody 

10 to change my mind about that, but I insist that 

11 it can be done --

12 MS. BUCK: Okay. So that is --

13 MR. MATSUDAIRA: -- in very finite --

14 I'll close in a second -- in very finite time. 

15 So I'd just ask you to use the data that you have 

16 in making the rule.

17 And the last thing is just the one 

18 thing that I think really can be done that is 

19 consistent with the spirit of the change here is 

20 something that others have mentioned. But just 

21 if we're going to rely on getting this 

22 information and having that be the way that we 
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1 help students in this rule, given the removal of 

2 sanctions, really invest in putting that 

3 information in the hands of students by making it 

4 available through tools like the scorecard, and 

5 so on, and reach out for help in thinking about 

6 how you're going to do that.

7 For example, how are you going to have 

8 a repayment rate for non-completers? What 

9 programs are you going to assign them to? There 

10 are tricky issues like that that need to be waded 

11 through, and I hope the Department reaches out 

12 for help on things like that. 

13 And my offer to bring a bus of 

14 graduate students stands.

15 MS. BUCK: David?

16 MR. SILVERMAN: David Silverman, for 

17 the record. I want to thank the Department. You 

18 all did some great listening. I want to thank

19 everyone at the table. You did some good 

20 listening. And everyone else did some good 

21 listening I hope.

22 To remind everyone else, this is not a 
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1 for-profit rule. The newspapers say it's a 

2 for-profit rule. The representative said it's a 

3 for-profit rule. I'm a not-for-profit. I'm part 

4 of this.

5 You know, we felt threatened by 

6 especially the original GE regulations, and, you 

7 know, moving forward it's not -- this is for 

8 not-for-profits, too. So just want to remind 

9 everybody.

10 I met -- I didn't know too many 

11 for-profit owners, schools, before I got here. I 

12 met a number of them. We have third generation. 

13 We have a former student that is now running her 

14 own school. We have Neal and --

15 (Laughter.)

16 MR. SILVERMAN: He wasn't -- he wasn't 

17 as cranky before GE, I have a feeling.

18 (Laughter.)

19 MR. SILVERMAN: So these are good 

20 people. I mean, these are -- these are good 

21 people. You're portrayed a robber barons in the 

22 newspapers, and you're not. And, you know, you 
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1 care about your programs. Not-for-profits care 

2 about our programs. You're good people.

3 So, I mean, you know, the public 

4 should realize when -- when you see the newspaper 

5 and it's all these robber baron for-profits, it's 

6 not. They're good people, and there's 

7 not-for-profits as well.

8 Lastly, you know, it's very easy to 

9 say take away Title 4, close these schools, close 

10 down -- I don't know if you realize what you're 

11 doing when you're saying that is, you know, you 

12 take away my students and I can't pay -- I can't 

13 pay my employees and my employees can't pay their 

14 mortgage. They can't pay their rent.

15 I said this, how would you like to 

16 come home and say -- for the people that don't 

17 run a school, you come home to your spouse and 

18 say, you know, "We achieved an 8.01 on this 

19 metric instead of 7.99. And, by the way, kids 

20 can't go to camp this summer. We can't pay our 

21 mortgage this week -- this month."

22 So go after the bad actors, but, you 
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1 know, a lot of good actors got sucked up into 

2 this, and it could affect -- it could affect 

3 people's lives. So when -- it's very easy to say 

4 close people's doors, take away their funding, 

5 but, you know, you've really got to think deeply 

6 into what it could do to schools and to people.

7 MS. BUCK: Thank you. Sandy?

8 MS. SARGE: This is Sandy, for the 

9 record.

10 Thank you to everybody. I want my 

11 whole two minutes. I appreciate everything that 

12 I've gotten to learn here. I came here 

13 relatively young in this world of higher 

14 education. I had a whole other career, two of 

15 them, before I got into this.

16 So this was my first exploration into 

17 the policy-making side of things, and I learned a 

18 lot, probably learned more of what I shouldn't do 

19 than what I should do. But with that being said, 

20 I came here from the perspective of CFOs and 

21 business officers because I think that finance 

22 people feel very strongly about consistency.
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1 We feel strongly about metrics that 

2 make sense and can't be pulled apart, and I 

3 wanted to make sure that some of those got on the 

4 record.

5 So with that, I also believe in good 

6 math. And so rah, rah, to Sarah back there.

7 I feel that -- I feel the same way 

8 that David does. There are a lot of schools out 

9 there that are not -- do not get always -- they 

10 do sometimes, they don't always get the student 

11 that was the straight A student. I was 

12 valedictorian of my high school. I wasn't going 

13 to be a cosmetologist or a graphic designer. I 

14 was going to go off and do great things, at least 

15 according to my counselor.

16 So our schools oftentimes are the ones 

17 that are dealing with the students in the back of 

18 the room that are a little bit bored in high 

19 school, that are scratching in the next comic-con 

20 game that is going to make a billion dollars. 

21 They're not your traditional learner 

22 or your traditional student, and they're not 
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1 guided oftentimes by parents who have had that 

2 direct experience. These are -- they don't know 

3 what borrowing is.

4 And, quite frankly, in this country we 

5 don't talk about money in our families. It's a 

6 taboo. It's up there with religion, politics, 

7 sex, and money. You don't talk about it in 

8 families. So it's hard for students and their 

9 parents to understand what's going on.

10 So all of us are trying I think, quite 

11 frankly, to do the right things, but not just for 

12 the elite students but for all students. And, 

13 yes, we're not going to get it right.

14 And believe it or not, there are 

15 parties out there on all sides of this equation 

16 that are gaming the system. All sides. And it's 

17 tough. So with that being said, I'm going to try 

18 my best to respect Ramona. And thank you guys 

19 for listening. But at the same time, let's not 

20 vilify. Let's look for really good, weighted on 

21 both sides, issues. Not just one sided; let's 

22 look at the whole thing.
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1 Thank you.

2 MS. BUCK: Thank you.

3 John?

4 MR. KAMIN: Yes. I'd like to just 

5 echo what a couple people have said before, and 

6 that's, number one, to thank the Department of 

7 Education for hosting this. I don't think it 

8 should be lost upon us what other agencies are 

9 going through right now. 

10 And the fact that we are at the table 

11 discussing this in a nuanced matter is really 

12 impressive, and that's contingent on the people 

13 at the table bringing their A game. And I think 

14 that's what everybody did here today in terms of 

15 coming forth and discussing in practical -- a 

16 practical matter what the problems are and what 

17 proposals are for solutions.

18 I came into this pretty cynical based 

19 on what I believe to be a way to maneuver gainful 

20 that effectively killed the rule. That was our 

21 big concern going in, and the only thing that we 

22 really wanted was to keep the ember alive and for 
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1 -- to keep the intent of gainful.

2 And I am -- I have to say that I am 

3 encouraged to see that we weren't alone in 

4 thinking that this rule matters, and that it does 

5 need to -- there does need to be an 

6 accountability piece to it. What that is and how 

7 it gets corrected, I think that people gave a lot 

8 of feedback to talk about what the proper way of 

9 doing that is, and I think -- I'm encouraged that 

10 the Department of Education is receptive in terms 

11 of the guidelines they gave of how that could 

12 happen.

13 Certainly not -- can't say we're 

14 leaving happy with it, obviously, but it --

15 again, it's keeping the spirit and the intent 

16 alive. And I think that goes far above what 

17 --some of the actions we have seen. 

18 I know Daniel is going to talk a 

19 little bit about some external factors that we're 

20 also kind of considering right now in the field. 

21 So really appreciate learning from everybody on 

22 this, and look forward to seeing what the next 
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1 steps for this are, and we're always here to 

2 provide background support in ways that the 

3 lessons we learn on the military side or from the 

4 Title 38 side, from the GI Bill, how that can be 

5 applied for any of them.

6 So thank you guys again.

7 MS. BUCK: Thank you.

8 Daniel?

9 MR. ELKINS: I wanted to thank the 

10 Department, specifically Greg, Steve, thank you 

11 so much. You guys have done an amazing job. 

12 Department staff, thank you. 

13 I don't believe anyone has thanked our 

14 negotiators yet, but I wanted to thank you guys 

15 as well for keeping this process ongoing. We 

16 appreciate it.

17 The sound guy in the back, thank you 

18 for letting us be heard as well as our -- I 

19 believe the people -- yeah, taking notes in the 

20 back. So I think that -- and for the public for 

21 coming as well.

22 Two or three things that we wanted to 
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1 say. I echo the comments of my colleague, John, 

2 from a veteran's perspective. We're very, very 

3 glad to hear and to participate in these 

4 negotiations and to hear that the Department has 

5 taken the feedback. 

6 And we have generally kept the idea 

7 that this -- this rule, the idea of gainful 

8 employment, is important, and it's being expanded 

9 to all schools at all institutions, and I think 

10 it's going to be fascinating to see the data 

11 moving forward, and then to continue to work with 

12 all of the groups at this table moving forward.

13 We do know that HEA is coming up. And 

14 although you guys do not comment on Congress and 

15 what they're doing, I have the ability to comment 

16 on that, and I think that that provides an 

17 interesting backdrop that this is still a 

18 relevant topic to be discussed to protect 

19 students across all institutions.

20 And then I will -- I will close with 

21 the idea that there are some within the community 

22 that have stood up and specifically named names 
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1 and discussed schools. And I know we're not 

2 technically supposed to name a school, but I 

3 think I'll be as transparent as possible.

4 We know that there are some schools 

5 that have recently decided to transfer from 

6 for-profit status to nonprofit status, and we 

7 would encourage the Department to strongly look 

8 at the implications of that. And that being 

9 said, thank you very much for allowing us to 

10 participate in this gainful NAG-reg. 

11 Thank you.

12 MS. BUCK: Thank you.

13 Chad?

14 MR. MUNTZ: I'm afraid to get too 

15 close. Okay. There it is.

16 Thank you, guys. Thank you, 

17 everybody, the Department of Ed. I especially 

18 enjoyed meeting almost everybody. I think I 

19 talked to almost everybody in this room at some 

20 point. It's been fun working with you, getting 

21 to know a little bit about your background, your 

22 struggles. 
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1 I appreciate those with gainful 

2 employment regulations already explaining the 

3 pitfalls and the areas that we need to consider 

4 when revising. I think that's one thing I would 

5 have for the Department of Ed is that the 

6 previous rule wasn't perfect. There was pitfalls 

7 to applying it to everyone. It also means there 

8 is going to be unintended consequences. 

9 So two things -- data and time. I 

10 don't think we had enough time. We didn't have 

11 enough data, and that's why I don't think we're 

12 quite there. The scope for us -- for everybody 

13 to be included, we're more than happy to have 

14 gainful employment programs in.

15 But for everybody to be in without 

16 seeing the data and having enough time to work 

17 out where the key points are to get the bad 

18 actors in all sectors makes it very hard to 

19 implement a one-size-fits-all rule.

20 As the universe gets bigger, you have 

21 to also be -- have a more nuanced approach to it, 

22 and you have to be very careful, especially if 
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1 you're going to apply sanctions with an unknown 

2 rule without knowing the consequences.

3 So I think even though some -- if 

4 something doesn't get settled here today, it 

5 doesn't mean we don't want to protect students. 

6 It just means we don't want to unintentionally 

7 kill institutions without realizing the effect 

8 that an arbitrary standard might have.

9 So I like the points that we have 

10 already talked about -- guiderails. I like 

11 having more data. We are about accountability. 

12 We are about more public information available. 

13 And we like it at the program level. 

14 So I think those pursuits and being 

15 able to come together and look at the data and 

16 determine exactly where in our analysis with the 

17 expertise, who have been working on this for, you 

18 know, 10, 20 years, we can pinpoint that exactly.

19 So, again, thank you. And I'll save 

20 the best for last.

21 (Laughter.)

22 MS. BUCK: Thelma?
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1 MS. ROSS: (Inaudible.)

2 (Laughter.)

3 MS. ROSS: Mark would not allow me to 

4 be last.

5 (Laughter.)

6 MS. ROSS: This is Thelma, for the 

7 record. Thank you to the Department, and 

8 specifically Steve and my, yeah, friend still, 

9 Greg. Sarah, for your generosity, thank you. 

10 Cynthia and Scott, thank you both. And to the 

11 public for being in this process with us for four 

12 days.

13 I'm not sure -- I'm not sure where 

14 we're going to land before we leave here. But 

15 what I would hope is that the Department -- and I 

16 know that -- and I know that you will take --

17 take a very, very careful look and listen at 

18 everything that was put on the table over the 

19 past three sessions.

20 There have been some really good 

21 suggestions from the consumer, from financial aid 

22 administrators, from all types of institutions 
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1 that are being served. But most importantly, 

2 there have been some really good feedback from 

3 the student representatives.

4 And at the heart of all of what we all 

5 do are students. And if we just take the time to 

6 think of this from a student's perspective -- and 

7 I know we all have a diverse population of 

8 students, we do. But if we keep them at the 

9 center of the decisions that are going to be made 

10 and the rule that you would ultimately write, I 

11 think that we may do something that could be 

12 meaningful to them, or for them.

13 But having said that, I also know that 

14 by including all institutions in this 

15 one-size-fits-all kind of model is going to open 

16 up in the disclosure world something that could 

17 be very problematic for those students. 

18 And so there has to be I want to say a 

19 careful consideration of what is in the final 

20 rule that you write. And I'm going to leave it 

21 at that. Just keep in mind that at the center of 

22 it all it is all of our students that will 
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1 benefit or not from what ends up being put out 

2 for the final regulation.

3 Thank you.

4 MS. BUCK: Thank you.

5 Kirsten?

6 MS. KEEFE: So I just want to add to 

7 the thanks to everyone. Really thankful for 

8 meeting folks in the proprietary schools. 

9 Jessica and I shared a cab over during the first 

10 session. I've had great conversations with Neal 

11 and Mark, and I have really -- it has been very 

12 helpful for me to hear from you and to hear from 

13 the non-robber-baron proprietary schools, which I 

14 certainly agree that you guys are.

15 I also want to thank Greg. I actually 

16 really appreciate your humor. You might not hear 

17 that a lot, so I want to put it on the record for 

18 you.

19 (Laughter.)

20 MS. KEEFE: But I really appreciate it 

21 in the back row.

22 One thing that I want to just say is 
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1 the data that Sarah presented this morning, the 

2 biggest message to me was that I really felt like 

3 that data showed that the deck is so stacked 

4 against low-income students.

5 And I certainly agree with you, 

6 Thelma, that I think the focus needs to, you 

7 know, remain the students, and I would go a step 

8 further to say that I would really hope, in 

9 considering whatever incarnation of the gainful 

10 employment rule you come up with, that you keep 

11 low-income students at the heart of it, because 

12 although the students that are scammed and go to 

13 the bad schools are certainly a minority of all 

14 the students out there.

15 The low-income students are a majority 

16 of those folks, and, you know, education has 

17 always been the key way in the United States to 

18 have upward mobility and to get ahead. And my 

19 fear is that -- not even my fear, it's an

20 acknowledgement already -- my fear is that it is 

21 just going to get worse and worse.

22 I work in a lot of different consumer 
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1 issues. You know, Whitney mentioned a couple 

2 others as well, and the profits are being made 

3 off of the backs of the lowest income people. 

4 And my fear is that education -- that is just 

5 going to become worse and worse.

6 And so, you know, I asked the 

7 Department to keep in mind the lowest income 

8 consumers out there, both when you're considering 

9 big things like getting rid of sanctions and 

10 small pieces of the rule like changing 

11 disclosures to an only online, which just like 

12 further stacks the deck against the lowest income 

13 people.

14 So that's all I have to say. Thank 

15 you.

16 MS. BUCK: Thank you.

17 I think we're over now to Steve?

18 MR. CHEMA: Like so many others, I 

19 want to express my gratitude to the Department, 

20 all of you who have participated in this, Greg, 

21 Steve, and Cynthia, Sarah, Brian, as well as --

22 Scott -- as well as those who are sitting and 
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1 listening, as well as those who accompanied me up 

2 and down elevators, especially if I was running a 

3 little late.

4 I want to thank my colleagues here for 

5 the passion and the energy and commitment to this 

6 that you have all shown, and also express my 

7 gratitude to the FMCS for shepherding us through 

8 this process.

9 Everybody who came here today to 

10 participate in this answered a challenge to 

11 tackle a pretty difficult problem. And it's one 

12 that I don't think is limited to just abuse in 

13 the federal student aid programs. I think the 

14 problem is affordability in higher ed.

15 And I have some reservations about the 

16 means chosen, a debt-to-earnings income I think 

17 -- or a debt-to-earnings comparison doesn't fully 

18 give you a picture of what the return on 

19 investment in an educational program is, or even 

20 help you understand how to decide if that return 

21 is adequate.

22 But, you know, I understand, you know, 
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1 the necessity for understanding cost. And I 

2 think certainly at the extremes it is easy to see 

3 when a program is very good and when a program is 

4 very bad, but there is all those grades in 

5 between, and all of the different factors we have 

6 talked about over these three weeks that 

7 influenced that, that make this such a difficult 

8 project to take on.

9 And so, you know, in closing, to the 

10 Department, thank you, again, and I would urge 

11 you, Greg and Steve, as you, you know, go forward 

12 on this project to continue down a path that you 

13 have been on that is, you know, deliberate, that 

14 is aware of the need to balance good policy with 

15 minimizing burden on institutions, on emphasizing 

16 the need for consistency and fairness.

17 And I think if you stay true to those 

18 approaches that you have demonstrated so far, you 

19 know, we may come up with a much better result.

20 MS. BUCK: Thank you.

21 And, finally, Marc.

22 MR. JEROME: It was the last week of 
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1 November in Orlando, Florida. I was at the FSA 

2 Conference, and I was introduced to -- the first 

3 time to a man named Greg Martin, who they told me 

4 was going to be leading the gainful employment 

5 negotiation.

6 I just told him I would be with him, 

7 and I looked forward to it. I'll never forget 

8 this. He looked at me and said, "I'm actually 

9 very nervous about it." And I want you to know, 

10 because it's now my second time through this, 

11 along with Whitney -- and John did it last time 

12 -- Greg has the hardest job of everybody because 

13 he has all of us coming to him at all sides. 

14 He has the career staff behind us and 

15 the political staff who have pressures on him. 

16 And if you noticed, during part of it, he was 

17 sick. And so I'd like us to thank him for 

18 leading us in a dignified way. I'm going to give 

19 you a little round of applause.

20 (Applause.)

21 MR. JEROME: And with a sense of humor.

22 I also just -- I do want to thank all 
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1 of you for your professionalism and collegiality. 

2 I learned a lot from you. I especially want to 

3 thank the career staff. And, Sarah, I hope you 

4 took all of my data submissions in the spirit of 

5 collegiality that they were given to you. So I 

6 thank you for dealing with that.

7 And then, lastly, I guess echoing 

8 Thelma and Kirsten, I always want us to focus on 

9 our first generation lower income students. And 

10 if all of us, including the Department, can keep 

11 focusing on completion, lowering student debt, 

12 lowering default, and just keep our eyes on those 

13 balls, on that -- those balls, we will be in 

14 better shape.

15 Thank you very much.

16 MS. BUCK: Thank you. And thank you 

17 to everyone for your thoughtful comments.

18 It seems like it would be a good time 

19 for a break. It's a little earlier than we 

20 usually take a break. So how about if we take 10 

21 minutes? Would that be okay?

22 PARTICIPANT: I'm willing to do that. 
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1 We are just going to call the vote. Does 

2 anybody have a problem with calling the vote? I 

3 call the question. I know we're not using 

4 Robert's Rules, but it's -- I always wanted to 

5 say that.

6 (Laughter.)

7 PARTICIPANT: Yes. 

8 PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible) taking a 

9 break.

10 PARTICIPANT: Yeah. There is 

11 consensus on that, right? All right. I'm not 

12 imposing it arbitrarily. Okay.

13 PARTICIPANT: Wonderful.

14 PARTICIPANT: I think we can just --

15 I think we can just proceed, Ramona.

16 MS. BUCK: Okay. So go ahead and 

17 propose it to us, then.

18 PARTICIPANT: Okay. We are just going 

19 to -- we are taking a vote on -- this is on 

20 consensus, not -- this is not a temperature 

21 check. It is a formality that we have to do at 

22 the end of these to take a -- we'll take a vote 
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1 on whether or not to approve the package as 

2 presented to you.

3 The position papers you received and 

4 the -- and the clean copy of the regulations, we 

5 had a lot of discussion, but we failed to reach 

6 consensus on any individual -- on anything here 

7 that would -- so that would lead us to change 

8 those rules. 

9 We did make those minor revisions we 

10 talked about, so we are voting on the rule with 

11 the revisions you saw this afternoon. So it's a 

12 strict up or down vote. I just want to make 

13 certain that you all understand that the version 

14 you're voting on is the version that you were 

15 presented with at the beginning of the week with 

16 those minor changes we made.

17 MS. BUCK: So can we have our vote? 

18 Thumbs up? Thumbs down? Thumbs to the side?

19 One, two, three, four, five, six, 

20 seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13. I think it 

21 was about 13 thumbs down.

22 PARTICIPANT: Yeah. I saw three to 
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1 the side. The rest were down. Almost a 

2 consensus at the end.

3 (Laughter.)

4 MS. BUCK: So I guess we are ready to 

5 do the closing aspects of the meeting, right? Is 

6 that right? Rather than take a break, do you 

7 want to just -- or --

8 PARTICIPANT: Yes.

9 MS. BUCK: Yes. Very good. Then, 

10 first, we just want to ask if there are any 

11 participant comments before we get to the public 

12 comments, and then we'll have closeout from us 

13 and from you.

14 PARTICIPANT: But we have participant 

15 comments, I believe.

16 MS. BUCK: All right. Daniel?

17 MR. ELKINS: Neal had conveniently 

18 gotten up to -- to take a moment when I was 

19 commenting, but I wanted to say that I believe 

20 many of us around the table think that you have 

21 gotten the VIP negotiator. You are many of our 

22 favorite negotiators with your antics, so I 
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1 thought that --

2 (Laughter.)

3 MS. BUCK: Chris Gannon?

4 MR. GANNON: I think I saw online that 

5 we have -- the first session's transcripts are 

6 out, but I don't think we have the second 

7 session's transcripts yet. I just want to know 

8 like when we're possibly going to have those, and 

9 also for the third session, when those 

10 transcripts might be available.

11 PARTICIPANT: Let me check with my --

12 my people back here about that, please. I'll let 

13 you know, but I just want to make sure I -- I 

14 don't want to give you a made-up answer, so --

15 MS. BUCK: And, Thelma, your name is 

16 up, but I don't think you meant it to be. Okay.

17 Any -- I'm sorry? Yeah, I know.

18 So no more participant comments, 

19 right?

20 PARTICIPANT: Can I say one thing? 

21 Sorry.

22 MS. BUCK: Okay. 
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1 PARTICIPANT: Ramona?

2 MS. BUCK: Yes.

3 PARTICIPANT: Behind you.

4 MS. BUCK: Oh. 

5 (Laughter.)

6 PARTICIPANT: The transcripts from the 

7 second session are up on the website. The audio 

8 recordings are not yet. We're working on those 

9 due to some technical difficulties. The third 

10 one will be up in a couple weeks.

11 PARTICIPANT: Thank you, Amy.

12 MS. BUCK: So, Ahmad, you wanted to 

13 make a comment?

14 MR. SHAWWAL: Ahmad. I propose that 

15 we keep the gainful employment regulations as 

16 defined under the Obama administration. I was 

17 hoping to get a consensus check on that.

18 (Laughter.)

19 PARTICIPANT: Yeah. You're going to 

20 take that hope with you.

21 (Laughter.)

22 MS. BUCK: Okay. I forgot to say at 
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1 the beginning that Christina had to leave, so for 

2 the record she wasn't here after lunch. But she 

3 knew we were going to go forward.

4 Now, let's go to public comment. Is 

5 there any public comment?

6 (No response.)

7 MS. BUCK: Okay. Then we will just 

8 say very brief remarks as facilitators, and then 

9 give Greg the last word. I just want to thank 

10 you for all your hard work and participation. I 

11 know it's not easy. 

12 I think you made a lot of good 

13 suggestions, and I think the Department of 

14 Education heard you. And even though you didn't 

15 reach consensus here, I think some of your ideas 

16 are going to appear. And this is a wonderful 

17 forum for them to hear from such different 

18 perspectives. So I appreciate that.

19 Do you want to say --

20 MR. RAMIREZ: All right. So I would 

21 say to the public, although I know that there has 

22 been some frustrating moments, I do -- and it was 
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1 said here, but I want to remind everyone that 

2 these regulatory negotiation processes, they're 

3 not mandatory things, right? And so the fact 

4 that the Department actually put this forward and 

5 gave the folks an opportunity to hear this thing, 

6 I really commend them for that.

7 And although there was no agreement, 

8 it was still very informative. And although 

9 there was no agreement, that doesn't mean that 

10 it's any less work. It's a lot of work, and so I 

11 really want to thank Greg and Steve as well. 

12 I don't want to say any of the 

13 Department names because I -- I have worked with 

14 a lot of them, and I know how much they're all 

15 putting in.

16 Tony, for the reasonable accommodation 

17 efforts over there, it is pretty impressive 

18 seeing what he does there. And as well as Bill 

19 on the audio. Apart from a few ear-piercing 

20 wakeup feedbacks, a fantastic job.

21 (Laughter.)

22 MR. RAMIREZ: Thank you. We really 
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1 appreciate everything you did there, Bill.

2 For the negotiators, your expertise 

3 and your time, just fantastic. What a great 

4 group. And just as -- being up here and having 

5 to work with you all, I really appreciate your 

6 professionalism. 

7 And as far as the group as a whole, I 

8 really hope that this not the end of the 

9 discussion but the beginning. So keep that up.

10 Thank you, all.

11 MS. BUCK: So I think, Greg, it's over 

12 to you to close us out.

13 MR. MARTIN: I'll confine my remarks 

14 to an hour, no more than -- no.

15 (Laughter.)

16 MR. MARTIN: First of all, I want to 

17 say that, though we didn't reach consensus, I 

18 think we had a very fruitful discussion here at 

19 the table. You certainly all kept me very 

20 intellectually honest and not allowed me to be 

21 lazy in any regard.

22 So I want to say it has been my 
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1 privilege to be the negotiator here for the 

2 Department, and I want to thank my management for 

3 having the confidence in me to put me in this 

4 position. And I want to thank all of those who 

5 came to the table to assist me -- Steve, Sarah, 

6 Brian Foo (phonetic), Amanda, Cynthia Hammond, 

7 and so all those people. Without -- and Scott, 

8 my able -- Scott, he is just scott.filter@ed.gov. 

9 That's the way --

10 (Laughter.)

11 MR. MARTIN: But so I just -- I just 

12 want to say thank you to all. And thank all of 

13 my colleagues behind the scenes who you may not 

14 -- whom you may not have met, but whose efforts 

15 are just as important as all of ours up here.

16 So, in closing, I just want to wish 

17 you all a safe trip home and say, again, that it 

18 has been -- it has been my pleasure to be up 

19 here.

20 Take care. Good-bye.

21 PARTICIPANT: Okay. Thank you.

22 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 
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1 above-entitled matter went off the record.)