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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION 

INSTITUTIONAL AND PROGRAMMATIC 

ELIGIBILITY COMMITTEE 

SESSION 1, DAY 1, AFTERNOON 

January 18, 2022 

On the 18th day of January 2022, the 

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

to 4:30 p.m., before Jamie Young, Shorthand Reporter in 

the state of New Jersey. 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

P R O C E E D I N G S 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, welcome back, 

everyone. I hope you've got a chance to step away from 

your screen on that brief lunch break where we left off, 

and Greg, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, was 

teeing up still on the Ability to Benefit Section 

668.156 Approved State Process if you want to kick that 

off for us. Oh, just briefly, on the topic of your 

federal colleagues, we have Denise Morelli joining us on 

behalf of the Office of General Counsel for this 

section. So welcome, Denise. 

MS. MORELLI: Thank you. 

MR. MARTIN: I'll reiterate that. 

Hello, Denise, and yes, Brady, we are ready to go on to 

668.156 the Approved State Process. And we I think we I 

think we read through the I think we read through the or 

if I'm not mistaken, I'm trying to remember, yeah, I 

think we did, we read through that section and we were 

still taking comments on paragraph A, so I wanted to 

make sure that there were no further comments on 

paragraph A. Before we move on to paragraph B. 

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, any additional 

feedback, comments, guidance for the Department on 

paragraph A? David, yes, please. 

MR. SOCOLOW: Only just to say that 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

you've got at the end before approving the state 

process, the Secretary is going to verify that the 

sample comply with the definition of an eligible career 

pathway under 68 668.2 above. But the sort of real meat 

which I know we're getting to later, of how you're 

really defining an eligible career pathway with more 

granularity is in 668.1.57 and I guess I would recommend 

that that be where you refer to what you're going to use 

as your measurement as to whether that sample complies. 

157, not dot. 

MR. MARTIN: Right, I see what you're 

saying because one-fifth, in 157, which is the how the 

school demonstrates, I think what we're doing here is, 

well, we'll certainly take that back and have our folks 

look at that because I think I think here we're saying 

is, you know, we're keying to the definition as opposed 

to the ways in which the school has to verify that it 

meets that definition. But, you know, that comment we'll 

take and see if we can, if there's a way to, I see what 

you're saying, that it's beyond the definition that it's 

incumbent upon a school to meet that definition. But 

really what we're doing here, so, you know, before 

approving the state process, the Secretary will verify 

the sample. So, we will be looking like so we will be, 

you know, necessarily applying the standards of 157 to 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

that process butMR. SOCOLOW: I figured that was 

implied, which is why I'm asking you just to make that 

explicit. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, I'll take let's 

I'll start [inaudible] to make a note of that and we 

will, we'll look at that. Thanks. I see what you're 

saying there that, you know I do believe it's certainly 

heavily implied, but it might be that and I think we can 

do that, so I'm going to say that the Department can do 

that and so noted. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, David. 

Ernest, I saw your hand go up and then down quick and 

back up, did you have a comment? 

MR. EZEUGO: Yes, but I'm happy to be 

in this in this order. 

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, I gotcha. Alright, 

Yael, go ahead. 

MS. SHAVIT: It's a small technical 

point. I mean, I think given the additional substance of 

the methodology by which schools can or by which 

programs can demonstrate kind of that they meet the 

definitions I thought I had earlier in the definitions 

section, just as a final separate subsection to say, as 

demonstrated by with the cross reference to the 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

substantive portion delineating what schools need to 

demonstrate. And I would say I think that would give me 

a little bit of peace of mind that the definition is 

connected to what I believe are or at least should be 

significantly more granular descriptions of what would 

need to happen to demonstrate the applicability of the 

definition. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, I think we could 

accommodate that. I think that's understandable that you 

want, you know, people want the reference to the to the 

to one to the items in 157. So, I think we can do that. 

And when we come up, we'll incorporate that into a 

revised amendatory text. 

MS. SHAVIT: Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Yael. Thank you 

to the folks in the chat who were plus one'ing that, we 

appreciate that. Ernest, go ahead. 

MR. EZEUGO: Yeah. So first off, thank 

you for giving us your time today. I want to ask you to 

clarify maybe a set of clarifying questions around one 

here. I'm sorry in advance of this, it takes us a little 

bit of the course of the Approved State Process, but I 

had some questions regarding is this satisfactory 

completion of at least six credit hours and/or 

[inaudible] coursework? But am I right in understanding 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

that otherwise, right outside of the state process, a 

student attempting to qualify for ATB would be asked if 

not doing this, not participating in a you know the test 

would be asked to pay for or find a way to pay for six 

hours of credit before being approved for the process? 

And therefore, getting federal aid or am I 

misunderstanding that? 

MR. MARTIN: No, the six credit, 

obviously the six credits or the more the 225 clock 

hours would have to be earned outside of the Title IV 

eligibility process, because at that point, the 

student's not eligible, so yeah, that is a concern, I 

think the schools that did that go that way that there 

is a possible there is a possible expense to the student 

for that, we don't we don't, we don't regulate that. 

It's a Congress put that in as a way that students could 

demonstrate satisfactory academic progress, it's 

reflected in our regulations. But if yeah, to your 

point, if that could wind up that could that be an issue 

for some students, the six credits? I suppose it could 

be, I don't know, you know, and I'm just speaking 

anecdotally, and it might be that some of our colleagues 

here on this panel who do that could want to address 

that, might want to tell the Committee what they do at 

their school. Sometimes there might be non-Title IV 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

types of aid that these students are eligible to receive 

while they're doing this. But I think that how that 

occurs is not something we would regulate as far as what 

expense the student might incur, to what extent the 

school might be willing to front the expense for that. I 

just don't know exactly what's going on out there in the 

world with respect to that. So, I invite anybody on the 

panel to comment. 

MR. ROBERTS: Any immediate response 

to that? 

MR. EZEUGO: I was wellMR. ROBERTS: Sorry, go ahead, Ernest. 

No, please. 

MR. EZEUGO: No, yeah, I just wanted 

to yeah highlight before I would, I would also love to 

hear what other, what institutions might do to kind of 

support students in that first six hours. I just wanted 

to clarify before other folks began to comment that, as 

Gregory kind of alluded to, I do have a little bit of 

concern about and I would love to see if the Department 

of Education might have or be able to get data overall 

about like how students essentially fill the gap, how 

institutions help in that process or not. Because I 

would certainly just to kind of voice it, my concern is 

that the expectation for students who might not be able 
 

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to afford that kind of entry level into eligibility may 

be taking out private loans. We obviously know how 

different and [inaudible] then. Excuse me, federal 

student loans and/or institutional loans that that, you 

know, I don't think I need to go too deep into how that 

could be problematic and how that has historically been 

problematic at some institutions. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, your point, your 

point is noted, I as far as like what we can do well, 

the six credits, I would say, well, let's start with the 

fact it's statutory. So that's our regulations mirror 

what's in statute. It's when the students are taking 

those six credits, they're not eligible students and 

therefore the Department has no real authority to 

regulate what happens to it in that regard. There's no 

mechanism established by Congress or whatever to fund 

students at that point. So, I think it's possibly 

difficult for students. Again, I don't know because 

there might be ways in which schools are dealing with 

this. I'm just not aware of what they are. As far as 

data would go, we don't have any data on, you know, the 

data that we have for students’ would be through our COD 

system would be through us through NSLDS. Those are all 

mechanisms that report on students who are regular 

students enrolled in eligible programs. So, we would not 
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be able to provide any data as to how many students are 

we know how many students we do know how many students 

accessed ATB through this process of getting the number 

of credits, but we do not know and cannot obtain how 

they how they paid for them. That would be something we 

wouldn't be able to do. The only thing I'd be able to 

offer if maybe someone on someone on this panel has 

access to people who might know you know if they can 

find that out through their colleagues and maybe come 

back and give us a brief description of maybe how that 

works, I would be curious to hear that as well. But 

right now, I think that's about I know it's probably not 

as fulsome response as you would like, but that's pretty 

much all I can offer. I know we have no data on that, on 

those things. 

MR. EZEUGO: No, I appreciate your 

sharing, and I appreciate the statutory kind of 

complications of doing much about it. It was largely 

just curious on the data. So happy to take here other 

folks share you know or institutions that provide 

support or help or have any answer generally to these. 

MR. MARTIN: You know, I will say 

this, let me just say one more thing about it. That I 

think, you know, yes, it could be that cost could be an 

issue, but I think that when you look at the mechanisms 
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for establishing Ability to Benefit that, we all know, 

of course, the ECPP must be there, ECPP must be there. 

But so, absent the state process, which is just starting 

to ramp up in states, you traditionally had the tests 

and the credits now, you know, for students who are not. 

Some students are not good test takers, right? They're 

not. They're nervous test takers. They don't their 

aptitude doesn't come through on tests. People have 

problems with that. Other students might not have that 

might not be able to demonstrate aptitude on a test when 

they come in. But once they come into the school 

situation and start taking classes, they begin to shine. 

Maybe they get some, some tuition there in the 

background. So, I think even though it has potential 

pitfalls, it's a valuable alternative because otherwise 

students would have been left with the test and that was 

it. For some students, that's not a viable option, so 

I'll leave it at that. 

MR. ROBERTS: Great, thank you. 

Emmanual, I see your hand is raised, but your off camera 

right now. Do you have a do you have a comment or a 

question for the committee? 

MR. GUILLORY: I apologize. I do not 

now, I think that was just my error. 

MR. ROBERTS: Not a problem, not a 
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problem. Just wanted to make sure I didn't miss you. 

Alright, Will, go ahead. 

MR. DURDEN: Thank you. Kind of, I 

think on Gregory's invitation, if I could just share a 

piece of information from Washington about that point 

that Ernest raised. Ernest, your 100 percent right on 

that six-credit option is an alternative to testing, 

which is a great thing, but it itself is a funding 

barrier for students. And while we see some institutions 

looking for ways to chip in, other types of workforce 

funding to fill that gap, it's exactly why we wrote the 

state plan the way that we wrote it and why it's so 

important for us to protect the integrity of the state 

plan process. Because our state plan dictates that when 

a student co-enrolls in one of our I-BEST programs and 

high school completion because the success rates are so 

high for that dual enrollment that that student would be 

deemed ATB eligible quarter one. And so, our solution 

was directly to address the financial barrier that the 

six-credit option still creates to get students into 

those supported pathways funded from the first quarter. 

MR. MARTIN: Thank you for that 

clarification, Will, that was very helpful. 

MR. ROBERTS: Great, thank you. Anyone 

else? I'm not seeing any hands in the queue, but folks 
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are more than welcome to raise their hands if they have 

anything they'd like to add. Okay. In that case, Greg, 

do you want to walk us down to paragraph B or do you 

want to do a quick check on A? 

MR. MARTIN: Let's do a quick check on 

A, see where we are. 

MR. ROBERTS: Sounds good. Alright, if 

folks want to come on camera, just a quick temperature 

check to see where the committee is right now on the 

language as proposed for Section A. Raise those thumbs 

high. I've got a very tiny screen. Alright. At minimum, 

not seeing any thumbs down. Thank you all for that. 

Anything else the Department needs on section or 

paragraph A, Greg, or are you ready to move down? 

MR. MARTIN: I'm ready to move down, 

and I'm going to propose that we look at B and C. And 

so, we'll look at B and C next. Okay, so let's walk 

through these, these proposed changes. So, for a state 

applying for approval for the first time, so bear in 

mind this is for the first time, the Secretary may 

approve the state's process for a two-year initial 

period by going back remember referencing that two-year 

period because of the need to have data. If the state 

administering the process can demonstrate that the that 

the students it admits under the process without a high 
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school diploma or its recognized equivalent and who 

enroll in participating institutions have a success rate 

and the state's process satisfies the requirements 

contained in A, C, and D of this section. And the state 

process must allow participation of only those students 

under 668.32(e)(3) of this part, so they must be 

eligible. And monitor on an annual basis each 

participating institutions compliance with requirements 

and standards of the state process. Require corrective 

action if an institution is found to be in noncompliance 

with state process requirements and terminate the 

institution's participation in the state process if the 

institution refuses or fails to comply with the state 

requirements. And I think we'll just move on. Yeah, let 

me move on to move on to Do because it's sort of 

holistic. The Secretary response to the state's request 

for approval of its state process within six months 

after the Secretary's receipt of that request. If the 

Secretary does not respond by the end of six months, the 

state's process is deemed to be approved. Again, that 

keeps back the statute, and an approved process must 

become a state process becomes effective for purposes of 

determining student eligibility for Title IV of this 

process on the date the Secretary approves the process 

or six months after the date, which the state submits 
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the process to the Secretary for approval if the 

Secretary neither approves nor disapproves the process 

during that six-month period. So entertaining discussion 

on paragraphs B, C and D. 

MR. ROBERTS: Any comments for the 

Department or any questions? Will and then Johnson. 

Will, go ahead. 

MR. DURDEN: Thanks. Yeah, I have a 

general overarching question about this, this section, 

which has to do with what's I'm not the concern of the 

impetus for it isn't immediately clear to me. I'm just 

wondering what what's the real central concern driving, 

wanting to do kind of an overhaul of this, this piece? 

And if there's any evidence that you've been working 

with of kind of defective applications of this that are 

that are requiring this these proposals? 

MR. MARTIN: Well, the primary focus 

behind this is two-fold. The first the first one, 

obviously, is to bring the state process into the into 

its perspective and you know bringing it regulatory into 

perspective as it relates to the requirement for a for 

there to be an Eligible Career Pathways Program. 

Secondly, you know, if you look at the text that was 

eliminated, the state administering the process, this 

was before initial application. They've had to have 
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demonstrated that the students [inaudible] of the 

process without a high school diploma and who enroll in 

participating institutions have a success rate that is 

within 95 percent of the success rate of students with 

high school diplomas. What we alluded to earlier, the 

problem with that is these state processes are 

relatively new. They've just come into they've just been 

coming into being so there is no data in existence to 

support or on which to calculate the 95 percent rate 

success rate, so the way the regulations are currently 

written sort of makes that very important determining 

factor difficult, if not impossible to look at, which 

puts the Department in a position of either saying, 

well, you can't provide it, so we're not going to prove 

it, even though it couldn't be provided for finding some 

way to, what's the proper word I'm looking for? Find 

some find of some way to facilitate that, despite what 

everybody knows that there can't be a rate established 

if there's no data on which to establish that rate. So, 

this regulation introduces that that sort of 

introductory period to allow the program to exist and 

then for it to have data where we can monitor, we can 

evaluate rather at that point the success of the 

program. So, I think that's the current regulations just 

don't work for that. And we also want and as you'll see 
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when we go through the when schools reapply to 

participate, the additional data we want from 

institutions on which we can do a more robust evaluation 

of the program and that's just not supported by current 

regulation. So, I guess that would be my response to 

why, why, why we're doing this. 

MR. ROBERTS: Will, any follow-up or 

good to go? 

MR. DURDEN: Is it alright if I if I 

raise my hand again later in this section? 

MR. ROBERTS: Totally, totally fine. 

Johnson, go ahead. 

MR. TYLER: Hi, Greg, you kind of 

answered it, but not quite. So why are success rates 

still discussed in this provision for new you know, 

initial applications, if there's no data, it's a little 

confusing. I understand that conundrum, but we seem to 

be reinforcing it here by keeping that language in this 

regulation. 

MR. MARTIN: Are you referring to 

where we say this, where the where they have where they 

have demonstrated. They have a success rate to your 

initial period of the state administrative process can 

demonstrate the students it admits under that process 

without a high school diploma and who enroll-
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MR. TYLER: Yeah, exactly, (b)(1) 

right before the mark out. You have success rate that 

they need to demonstrate again in the application. 

MR. MARTIN: Let me let me I'll take 

that one back. Let me give me a minute or two to work on 

that. I want to make sure I give you a full response on 

this. 

MR. ROBERTS: Got it, thanks. Yael. 

MS. SHAVIT: Apologies if I'm just 

struggling with the red lines here. But I'm wondering if 

in it's getting away from me. I'm wondering if where it 

says that the state needs to include the state process 

needs to include the monitoring on an annual basis of a 

participating institution's compliance with the 

requirements and standards contained in the state's 

process if it wouldn't be helpful to there again, even 

if it's implied, include kind of a cross reference or 

some notion that the state's process that that needs to 

include annual monitoring to ensure that the 

institutions meet the definition of an Eligible Career 

Pathway Program under the federal regulations, not just 

the standard. 

MR. MARTIN: Okay. I'm not sure quite 

what you're asking, so you want your saying about the 

because they are because the programs will the programs 
 

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will have to the programs will have to meet the federalMS. SHAVIT: Right. 

MR. MARTIN: Federal standard. 

MS. SHAVIT: Right, so the part of the 

state process is the requirement that, you know, and 

again, I think this might be implied, but if part of the 

process is that the state needs to annually ensure that 

the programs meet its the state's requirements, that it 

be made explicit that those requirements include 

complying with the requirements for the definition of an 

eligible career. And again, I think this might be 

overcomplicating it, butMR. MARTIN: Okay, you mean reference 

back to you mean reference to the reference back to 

that. 

MS. SHAVIT: Yes. Again, I expect this 

is the expectation of the draft. I just wonder if it 

could be made more explicit. 

MR. MARTIN: It is, but I'll take that 

back. I see what you're saying there. I think it does. 

Again, I feel we have certainly stated that the program 

must meet the state process. The process can be what the 

State deems is appropriate and those might differ across 

states. But the only programs that can participate in 

the state process would be those that meet the 
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definition of found on 668.2 and demonstrate that 

through what's in 668.157. 

MS. SHAVIT: Right, I guess my thought 

is that including it in an annual requirement would 

ensure that there's a touchpoint that State goes through 

to make sure that programs that might have qualified at 

one point in time continue to qualify. 

MR. MARTIN: Okay, we'll take that 

we'll take that back. 

MS. SHAVIT: Thanks. 

MR. MARTIN: Second here. Just wanted 

to do that, and I want to point out as far as so going 

referencing back to the question regarding the success 

rate. We note here that we are promote, we are proposing 

to remove the requirement and replace it with 

[inaudible] quality metrics that better align with the 

data programs that states will be able to provide. So, 

we are asking for feedback as to the quality metrics we 

should consider for initial applications to demonstrate 

effectiveness because we understand that those states 

will not be able to show the program is yet effective 

for students in the ATB process. So some things we would 

throw out there would be whether the median earnings for 

students who have a high school diploma degree or its 

equivalent and are already enrolled in the program at 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

the institution exceed those of typical high school 

graduates in the state, whether [inaudible] rate exceeds 

the required withdrawal rates for initial institution's 

participation of 33 percent for students who have high 

school degree or equivalent and are already enrolled in 

the program and we are, we're also proposing setting an 

appropriate maximum number of students to be allowed 

into the program first, so those would be the like I 

don't know if that's the actual measure of success, but 

something that we would be able to pick up initially 

anyway to make a to do an assessment of the program 

until we have the data. 

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. Denise, I saw your 

hand, but did you want did you want to clarify any 

additional points on this subject? 

MS. MORELLI: I just I think what the 

concern is, is people keep raising, we want to make 

sure, I guess whether it's the State reviewing the 

institutions or the Department's reviewing the 

institutions that we also reference the 157. I think 

that's what everybody's raising. I just want to make 

sure that's the clarification that everybody's asking 

for. Thank you. 

MR. MARTIN: I think we can do that. 

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah, thank you, Kelli, 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

go ahead. 

MS. PERRY: And I may be saying the 

same thing as what some of the other negotiators have 

said, but I feel like we're being a little duplicative 

in A and B because in A we're saying that (a)(2) states 

application for approval of the state process must 

include and then it lists a number of things and then we 

get to B and it says for a state applying for approval 

for the first time, the Secretary may approve if and 

then it lists a whole bunch of other things, so do the 

other things in B need to be included in the initial 

application even if it's a certification to those 

things? I just feel like we're saying that we're kind of 

saying the same thing twice, but with additional items 

in B that are in A. For example, this monitor on an 

annual basis and require corrective action, you know, 

terminate an institution participation. Those are things 

that I'm assuming a state must represent to for you to 

for the Department to approve them, and if that's 

something that they must represent to, why wouldn't they 

represent those in their application? 

MR. MARTIN: Well, to A and B, I mean, 

you know, when you're looking so first, if you go back 

to A, this is just a representation of what the of what 

the what the application must include. And remember what 
 

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we're doing here when we get down to when we get down to 

B, we're talking about institutions [audio] the first 

time, so we're making we're going to be making a 

delineation between what institutions applying for the 

first time must have to include. And then when we get to 

E, we're going to be looking at after the initial twoyear period what when they reapply, what must be in the 

application. So that's why we're. That's why we're 

breaking it down here. And when you look at this is just 

all that must be in the application, but B talks about 

what in addition to what must be in the application, 

which is what's addressed in A, all these things that it 

must include like the certifications, the requirement 

that they meet the Career Pathways Program under 668.2. 

There also must be, I mean, what we're doing here with 

this initial period, we are allowing that for and 

acknowledging that there is this initial period where 

there may not be you know as much data as we need to do 

the full evaluation of the program. But there's still 

we're still not we're not allowing for this initial 

period to be like a I'll do whatever you want, period, 

or, you know, a period where there's no monitoring 

required, or no assessments required. It's certainly not 

as robust is what's required when we get to the 

subsequent application or the reapplication, but we are 
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requiring that the state process do does rather do some 

monitoring during this initial two-year period, and 

that's really what we're talking about in B. 

MS. PERRY: So, the application in two 

or in (a)(2) is meant to be initial application and 

reapplication? 

MR. MARTIN: So, yeah, any time a 

school, any school that wishes to participate. So, the 

application, whenever they whenever they apply, they 

must give us this, this this certification that all it 

meets all of these meets all these criteria. But so that 

always comes with any application. But B is just that 

sort of, I don't know what you want to call it. Sort of 

a lighter process for what the state must do during 

those first two-years. Understanding that there may not 

be as much data as it can rely on. That's all, that's 

all the breakdown is. And it's and the so if you and if 

the question is, so I think what maybe you're asking is 

does what is in A apply to all, all applications? The 

answer is yes, it does. Whether it's the initial or 

whether it's the initial or the reapplication, it's 

applicable for any application. So, what we're saying 

here is that any application that the State makes, it 

needs to include these this information and this and 

this certification, so that would be for any one of 
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them, and then when we get down to B and C and all the 

way to E, we're breaking it up between the initial twoyear period and after the initial two-year period. So 

far, we've only talked about the initial two-year 

period. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Greg. Will, oh, 

sorry, go ahead, Greg. 

MR. MARTIN: No, no, that's quite 

alright. 

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. Will, go ahead. 

MR. DURDEN: I'd like to address then 

kind of this idea of the quality metrics, and I think it 

comes back to this earlier idea we looked at where there 

would be some more criteria or guidance for how people 

feel comfortable that they really are offering Eligible 

Career Pathway Programs and that they've done the due 

diligence to know what that is and to feel good about 

that. Rolling out a state process is slow and 

cumbersome, with a lot of apprehension on the part of 

the colleges because it's a new concept, this ECPP. It's 

not something that the FSA folks are, that the Student 

Aid folks are really used to or super conversant in. 

They're getting introduced to adult ED, which is not a 

world that they've necessarily spent a lot of time with, 

because that's traditionally non-credit because it's 
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traditionally not engaged in Title IV. So, what we don't 

have in our state is a bunch of colleges calling 

everything under the sun a career pathway program with 

us needing to do a bunch of monitoring to try to make 

sure that they're on the straight and narrow. What we 

what we have is a lot of very conservative institutions 

wanting to make sure that they're doing it right. So, 

for us, additional metrics or additional quality checks 

are really not needed and I think would actually inhibit 

efforts further, adding more anxiety, yet another sense 

of wow, the regulations have changed once again. We just 

don't want to touch this. And so, I think that providing 

further guidance on what an ECPP is and how to feel good 

about offering that will go much further toward having 

folks use this. And so, I would argue that neither the 

success rate nor any upfront metrics in that two-year 

period would be that useful. I think cueing to the ECPP 

because an ECPP will have good results because those are 

high quality. Those seven or whatever A through G, A 

through H. Those are good criteria. Those are the 

hallmarks of well-researched IHE programs. So, let's 

emphasize those, not create new metrics that distract 

from the quality of an Eligible Career Pathway Program. 

That's what we'd advocate for. And if I may, finally, on 

the issue of years, given the rollout and the slow 
26 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

rollout from a state process perspective, I think five 

years would be more appropriate than two. I don't know 

that we would get enough participants and enough 

adequate information to make any reasonable research 

conclusions after two-years. 

MR. MARTIN: So, you would be 

suggesting then that you feel that B is too descriptive 

for the for the initial period, and that the initial 

period should be longer than two-years? 

MR. DURDEN: Yes. 

MR. MARTIN: Well, I'll address, you 

know I'll certainly, we'll certainly take that back with 

us. I do want to point out the Department's the 

Department's concerns in this process is that while we 

recognize the need for this introduction, this this 

beginning period or introductory period, we are 

obviously from a from a standpoint of program integrity, 

we are understandably a little nervous about extending 

the horizon for approval longer than we have already 

done, so, I mean, because that that that that's going to 

kick the can down the road for the time, it was where we 

actually assessed the effectiveness of the program, but 

I've will definitely take down your concerns. I would 

ask the panel. Any discussion around those points? 

MR. ROBERTS: Carolyn, I see you 
27 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

raised your hand. Johnson, is it a point relevant to 

what Greg just raised? 

MR. TYLER: You can go to Carolyn, I 

can wait. 

MR. ROBERTS: Gotcha. Okay, Carolyn, 

go ahead. 

MS. FAST: I have some concerns about 

both things that were just raised by Will. One, I 

disagree with the idea that it would not be a good idea 

to have metrics of measuring whether the program is 

fulfilling its requirements, especially a new program. I 

think that this is a very vulnerable population. We've 

seen abuses in the past with schools targeting this 

population and that it would be important to, at the 

outset, evaluate whether these programs are in fact 

quality programs, and that it is important to come up 

with metrics that could measure whether these programs 

are successfully fulfilling their goals with respect to 

this vulnerable population of students. And I also would 

be concerned with extending the initial period past twoyears for the same reason that I would be concerned that 

this would potentially create a situation where students 

are you know at risk of investing their time and energy 

into a program that may not be a quality program that 

should be supported here. 
28 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

MR. MARTIN: Thank you for that, I 

also want to point out that, you know. A comment that 

was raised as far as like as far as the rigor of the 

state process, I understand that and the Department 

understands that some states will be extremely rigorous 

in their in their selection of participants, and maybe 

apply a higher standard to this than even we even 

require. However, we can't be sure of that. I mean, I 

guess I would say, you know, anecdotally, I would 

imagine that most states, maybe all will do an excellent 

job of this, but I don't think I don't think we can, or 

regulations can't, can't simply accept that we believe 

that will be true, even if we would expect that to be 

the case. So, I think that's we can't write the 

regulation to perhaps the best performers and the fact 

and the and the reality that they might not need this. 

So, I would offer I would offer that as well because we 

have potentially all the states applying for this 

process. 

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, Johnson, we'll 

head back to you. 

MR. TYLER: I mean, it seems Greg what 

you're trying to get in (b)(1) with the demonstration 

and success rate is some detail as to why the applicant 

think this is this is going to work and maybe just 
29 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

putting in some other words, if that's the case into 

this might provide more guidance and the otherwise 

success rate seems like an endpoint of perhaps an 

organization that hasn't actually done it before unless 

you think there's something equivalent that I'm missing 

here. 

MR. MARTIN: No, I don't I don't think 

so, I think the regulations just proposed regulations or 

these, these proposed amendatory text rather reflect you 

know, reflect a situation that is that we want to offer 

this initial period of eligibility, we don't want to say 

that you have to provide a success rate as defined as 

the previous definition was in previous paragraph H 

that, or current paragraph H rather, I should say that 

requires that you produce that success rate when you may 

not have anything to base it on. On the other hand, we 

don't want to just say, well, you know, here's two-years 

we'll do we'll just do nothing for those two-years and 

come back and come back later. So, I think it recognizes 

the need to be looking at the program and to have the 

states looking at those programs or rather during that 

during that period. And that's really what it's what 

it's about. I think in a nutshell, just, you know, we're 

offering this this period, but there must be some 

parameters put around it. 
30 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

MR. ROBERTS: Actually, Jamie, we'll 

head to you. 

MS. STUDLEY: I think Beverly was 

before me. 

MR. ROBERTS: Oh, was she? I 

apologize. Beverly, go ahead. 

DR. HOGAN: I think Carolyn spoke to 

some of the things that was on my mind, but I was, I 

think I would probably look at a, I would probably be 

more comfortable with a three-year period of looking at 

the program. And I also was thinking that we might need 

to look at some evidence-based indicators. That's kind 

of two-prong, looking at the program as well as the 

desired student outcomes, because I'm I guess I'm a 

believer that if we are to have these ECPPs in our 

institutions, then there needs to be some real strong 

support systems so that that would enable these students 

to be successful. And it's a disservice to the students 

if they're brought in to participate without these clear 

guidelines and without the support systems that totally 

support systems that would best equip them to be 

successful. 

MR. MARTIN: So, so are you suggesting 

anything particular for that or toward that end? 

DR. HOGAN: I know that there's a 
31 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

process for the ECPP to have certain things as part of 

their programs, and I think that should I think that 

those should be looked at and maybe codified, but also 

looking at students, you know, what are the desired 

outcomes in this program? What do what do the 

institution want to see happen with the students and in 

during a certain period of whether it's two-years of 

three years, what will they like to see? And I think the 

institutions must be clear on that, as I believe that 

the Department of Education must be clear and in the 

language that it put forth to the institutions, because 

sometimes nebulous language leaves everyone scrambling 

around to find their place and subject to 

interpretation, depending on who you get. So, I really 

think this is critical to have clear language and how 

the institutions that have clear goals for the student’s 

achievement, desired outcomes, and programmatic goals 

that can be measurable by the by the Department of 

Education that they'll know they need to reach and have 

clearly included in in the programing proposals that 

they send out. 

MR. MARTIN: Well, I, you know, as far 

as the program itself goes, as far as the you know, the 

demonstration is successful, we do have that in 157. I 

think that and it's important to remember that you know 
32 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

that the E, the Eligible Career Pathways Program, the 

ECPP, ECCP, ECPP, I keep getting it wrong. I should just 

stop using the acronym and just say it every time so 

that it that that is required irrespective of the state 

process. So certainly, if there's a state process that 

that is there, I think the things you're talking about 

would hopefully be addressed in any in any state 

process. And we would expect to see that. So, with the 

state process, I think we'll get that now. There also 

will be schools that implement Eligible Career Pathways 

Program outside of the state process that's allowable as 

well. I mean, and right now, the what we would have 

would be what is in 157 if people want to look at that 

and, you know, because we haven't gotten to that yet, 

but think about if there's anything else that you know 

we should require schools to demonstrate to meet that, 

we can certainly entertain that when we get to that, we 

get to that point. But I think the things you're talking 

about, I would, I think, are addressed in sort of the 

very essence of a state of a state process. You know, it 

might be different in each state, but I think that it's 

something that would be inherent in the, you know, in 

setting up a state process. And I wanted before we move 

on, I want to mention something, you know. So I want to 

see if we have some comments on this, so we are removing 
33 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

the current regulation for success rate for first time 

applicants, right in reducing this period of time, this 

two-year period of time, and some have said it should be 

three or five, but we've fixed on two and for now, and 

what so again, we cannot be in a position that people 

have expressed opinions on either side of this from, 

there should be more, more standard schools need to meet 

it, maybe less. But we're removing it so, what 

alternative success measures, because we're still going 

to be looking at success. We're not going to eliminate 

the necessity for success. So, what other metrics do you 

think would allow us to assess the potential 

effectiveness of the state process during this period? 

I'm interested in what that would be you know because 

the situation here is that states will not be able to 

show the program is yet effective for students enrolled 

to the ATB process. So, what other metrics could we what 

might we look at? And just to reiterate some of the ones 

that we came up with as potentials, whether the median 

earnings for students who have a high school degree or 

equivalent and are already enrolled in the program or at 

the institution exceed those of typical high school 

graduates or whether the again came back to if you have 

withdrawal rates data, you might be familiar that in in 

the administrative capability requirements we require 
34 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

for initial participation that there be a withdrawal 

rate of no more than 33 percent? Or can you think of any 

other metrics we might apply during that two-year period 

that would be appropriate? 

MR. ROBERTS: So, I see four hands up. 

Does anyone specifically want to speak to that question 

that Greg just raised, the question of additional 

metrics? 

MR. SOCOLOW: Yes. 

MR. ROBERTS: Go ahead, David. 

MR. SOCOLOW: So, I think there's an 

issue here with parts of speech with tense because you 

just said, what should we do during the two-year period? 

But this is about what the Secretary will approve the 

process if in the future. I mean, you can't know what 

you're miss- So I think what you're saying, please 

clarify, is what you're saying that you're trying to set 

up a set of things that must be spelled out in the state 

plan against which the plan will be measured two-years 

later to see whether it gets re-upped. Is that what 

you're trying to do? 

MR. MARTIN: No, no, when we get to 

the section on reapplication after two-years, we do have 

specific standards that schools will have to have met 

that or to or rather data they'll have to submit to us 
35 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

and various areas we'll be looking at. This is for the 

initial two-year period. 

MR. SOCOLOW: So then we so then what 

we need are metrics about something that hasn't existed 

yet to be in a plan or alternatively, you could put into 

the plan to get approved just for the initial two-year 

period certain quality standards of what is an evidencebased program, as Beverly mentioned, that has a good 

likelihood of being successful, we'll find out in twoyears. But that there must be super strong quality 

constructs about the prospective programs that are being 

allowed to be included in the state process. And there 

is a whole list of things you could have here, none of 

which are here that would be about what makes a good 

integrated education and training program that has you 

know, a true, robust partnership between adult ED and 

Title IV that would have to be demonstrated to get your 

plan approved for the initial first two-years. 

MR. MARTIN: Well, I mean. Yeah, I do 

recognize we do recognize the difficulty of showing us 

data for that, for a program that you know, has just 

begun, but the part of the issue here is that statute 

does not statute does not delineate between the initial 

participation period and a subsequent period. It 

requires success, a measure of success through for 
 

36 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

everything. So we cannot simply wave that for the first 

for the first two-years, but I do understand it's not to 

say that I'm not the Department's not understanding of 

the of what you point out, trying to come up with ways 

of doing that when the program, which, as you point out, 

will probably be very successful, has yet to yet to 

establish data to show that so. But I think that seeing 

as simply not requiring anything is not an option. We 

must have some; we must have some measure there. And I 

and I know it might not be easy to come up with that. 

But I but I ask for anything that you might have to 

establish that. But I do understand where you're coming 

from. I don't want to be dismissive of the comment 

because I think it is it is a difficult thing to do to 

show, to show that early in the program when it is a new 

program. 

MS. SHAVIT: I don't want to, I'm 

sorry, I don't want to jump out of turn, but I'm 

wondering if it might make sense for David to clarify 

because I didn't take David's comment at all as 

suggesting not including a notion of what would be 

successful, but rather a construct that would get there 

and I think probably serve the interests of students and 

the Department. 

MR. SOCOLOW: Yeah, thank, thanks, 
37 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

Yael. Yeah, I did not say have no measure at all that 

the Department would base its initial approval on, and I 

want to start again by applauding the Department for 

splitting this up into a two-year initial approval and 

then a renewal subsequent for states. I think that will 

go a long way to getting real programs built for 

students that will help this vulnerable population 

achieve success. The idea here is because it's a 

prospective application, and everything in C is what's 

going to be in the state process. C is all about the 

process is going to have corrective action plans and 

monitor and this and that. B is how your state plan, 

your state process that's getting approved by the 

Secretary, you know, can get approved, what can get it 

approved? And it seems to me that the Secretary could 

say that since you, if it's a program that you haven't 

run before, if you've built it on a successful model 

that has evidence based behind it, that is a measure of 

success. If you're doing something fanciful that no 

one's ever tried before, then maybe that's not a good 

candidate for a state process. That's what I'm 

suggesting. 

MR. MARTIN: Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm 

trying to get off mute here, so you so you're suggesting 

that that that that that that an institution would be 
38 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

able to show the model that they built the program on 

having been that model demonstrates success. That what 

it's built on demonstrates success, even if the program 

itself is new and can't show that initially, right? 

That's what you're saying? 

MR. SOCOLOW: Yeah, and I mean, again, 

I think the unit of analysis here is the state, not the 

institution. This is the state process. And so, it's 

that the State will demonstrate that it has admitted 

into its state process or will admit into its state 

process a list of institutions because that's required 

in the state plan. You've got to specifically name the 

institutions and name the programs and that those 

programs all demonstrate to the to the satisfaction of 

the Secretary that the state has done a really good job 

of delineating what they are and what they're supposed 

to do. And if they have not been run before in that 

state or at those institutions, that they're based on 

evidence and specific models that that are called out in 

all of the ancillary career pathways definitions which 

we are going to get to later with regard to integrated 

education and training, true robust partnerships between 

adult ED and the Title IV occupational training. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, I think that does 

get to, you know, that does get to a process, I think 
39 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

we'll certainly take that back and I think we need to 

consider that. I I'm concerned that with that alone that 

we don't have any we'd be looking at, you know, 

certainly the process on which the state built that that 

model or built that program, the model in which it built 

that program, but we wouldn't have. Wouldn't necessarily 

have any data elements associated with that, correct? I 

mean, as far as like actual performance of the program 

or rather any data on students orMR. SOCOLOW: You could point to data 

in other programs that have built that way, but know 

that existing program doesn't hasn't been started yet, 

right? I mean, unless what we're saying is state 

processes only succeed as if they're just allowing 

something that someone else did in the state already, 

what's the what's the need for a state process at that 

point? There's a reason this third option is in the 

statute. It's in the statute because there are times 

when a state will recognize that neither the test option 

nor the six credit or equivalent clock hour option work. 

And there's a third way to get people into ATB. But that 

needs to be very narrowly tailored, and the Secretary 

needs to approve it for a two-year initial startup and 

then a renewal. And so that is what we're trying to 

define what could be possible for a state to try and 
 

40 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

then get some evidence with two years of data to see 

whether it worked. It shouldn't just be anything that 

they just want to take a flier on, it ought to be as in 

concert with the statute specific reference to career 

pathways with all seven elements of the career pathway 

definition, something that fits that based on all of the 

research that's been done on career pathways and what 

works, I mean the Institute for Education Sciences as a 

whole research paper on what works and career pathways 

and Title IV. I commend it to you. 

MR. MARTIN: So, yeah, I think I think 

that, you know, you make some very interesting points, I 

we would be interested in seeing some specific language 

if you can provide that to us because I think these are 

good points, but would have to be reflected in you know, 

something we could work into amendatory text, so we are 

open to any suggestions for what language we might 

include in there. 

MR. SOCOLOW: Okay. 

MR. MARTIN: So, if you want to submit 

something, we'll certainly look at it. 

MR. SOCOLOW: We'll work on that. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, but we are 

certainly amenable to seeing that. 

MR. ROBERTS: And so, Jamie, your 
41 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

head's up for a while, but I just saw, did you lower 

then raise it? We can jump back to you. But for now, 

Amanda, I see your hand is raised. So go ahead. 

MS. STUDLEY: Brady, who were you 

calling on? We couldn't hear you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Oh, apologies. I saw 

your head's been up for a while, but I saw it go down 

and come back up again. So, I didn't know if your point 

had been covered or not. 

MS. STUDLEY: I was jumping up and 

down. The I think what David is saying, it is very 

interesting, and Will made some important points about 

not overregulating and this is Greg, Greg said it well, 

this is the classic problem of regulating to protect but 

also not constraining opportunity and the availability 

of programs. The point is to let things be offered that 

don't exist right now, that would give people more 

career opportunities. The risks faced here are 

constrained to naturally by the size restriction that 

the Department can apply. It literally can allow for 

experimentation by making it of a scale that lets new 

things happen, but with necessary controls about the 

state's quality. If these are happening within community 

colleges, they are also accredited, so there is another 

institutional screen for quality. In many cases, they 
42 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

are also state approved in some fashion for the 

institution. So, there are belts plus suspenders, But 

Greg to the extent that you were looking for some 

metrics. One thought is the high school graduation 

metric. A personal favorite of mine has the advantage of 

being in use, and I don't know whether it's going to 

come back into the scorecard but using it as a suggested 

or default or use this unless there's another that works 

well for you that might address, you know, allow the 

states the room to use a common metric. But if it is a 

brand-new program to provide some other identification 

of the way that they are judging student success, I see 

David's note in the comment. The it's not that these 

people graduate from high school, it's that you're 

comparing it to what a high school graduate would make 

if they didn't have the advantage of this program. So, 

it's not that you need these people to have been high 

school graduates. You're comparing it to is there on an 

earnings level and advantage to receiving the benefits 

of this program or are you not getting any edge? So, I'd 

like to see the data that Will has asked for about where 

these programs are. But I think the combination of 

community accredited community colleges that are state 

regulated and often public, and the need for some 

innovation room argues for allowing them to make those 
 

43 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

judgments about quality and success. 

MR. MARTIN: Alright, thank you for 

that. I think, yeah, that's certainly giving us a lot to 

think about and I know I do acknowledge that that it is 

it is a difficult thing when you're talking about brand 

new programs, you know, trying to establish data that we 

can look at. And I don't. That's one of the reasons why 

we're reaching out to people asking for any feedback you 

can give us on those points because we are interested in 

making it accessible and yet maintaining, you know, 

program integrity. So that's a sometimes a difficult 

balancing act to pull off. Any other comments? 

MR. ROBERTS: I'm just briefly Greg, I 

see, Denise, you have your hand up, and I just want to 

note that Emmanual is just going to step in for a 

question on behalf of private nonprofit institutions. 

But first, Denise. 

MS. MORELLI: Just wanted to answer 

Jamie's question. My understanding from my colleagues is 

that for the state process, most of the institutions are 

community colleges. We will get the background data, 

but, Jamie, I think from my understanding, from my 

colleagues, it has been mostly community colleges. 

MR. ROBERTS: [Inaudible] Amanda, I 

see your hand next. Amanda, Will, and then Emmanual, 
44 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

when you're on camera, that's who I have on my screen. 

MS. AMANDA MARTINEZ: [Inaudible] So, 

currently there's been a lot of discussion around the 

table, and I really appreciate everyone's different 

perspectives and expertise on these parts specifically, 

I think. I just want to center and remind us of all like 

the impact and the reason why we're here today, right? 

Ultimately, we're looking at regulations that 

potentially open Federal Student Aid to specific 

programs that would then be regulated or ensuring that 

this program is whether they pass the state process or 

through these different pathways, which is what I'm 

understanding, conceptually, they would have access to 

Federal Student Aid. And ultimately, we're here to 

ensure that Federal Student Aid this is taxpayer money 

that is being given to programs and to students that 

will ultimately benefit and have better outcomes for 

their educational opportunities or their career goals. 

This is a federal law. The Higher Education Act, which 

is really built on a foundation that no matter what the 

Federal Government's role into accessing this aid is to 

ensure that students, wherever they're given the 

opportunity to hopefully make a choice in their pathway, 

are going to quality programs. So, I think I'm just 

trying to refocus that that's the ultimately the 
45 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

Federal's goal is to ensure the best possible solution 

and equal opportunity for all students. And you know I 

think it's an interesting point that I understand that 

there's effective, potentially you know performing you 

know evidence-based practices of what states do for 

their pathways into ECPPs, and I think that's great. But 

ultimately, you're asking you're calling on the Federal 

Government to assure these or make sure that you know 

you want access to additional aid, which is great to 

provide opportunity, but at the same time, we must 

balance that quality assurance. If the programs are 

great, they should be able to provide some type of 

success rate. And I think that you know we can all 

debate whatever that success rate is or at what point in 

time the application process [audio]. But ultimately, 

the Federal Government, you know, that program, if it's 

worthy of Federal Student Aid dollars, it needs to show 

that it's worth it. And you know they can do without 

federal aid on their own in their own state programs. If 

the State wants to back it up, they should maybe find 

other ways. But I just want to recenter the conversation 

about what we're here today and who is going to impact, 

which is potentially most likely vulnerable communities 

that are always taken advantage of. So, I really hope we 

can come to a discussion about how to ensure quality, 
46 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

not just by looking at best practices. I'd really like 

to see a very strong metric attached to some of these 

programs in the application process. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Amanda. Will, go 

ahead, you're up. 

MR. SOCOLOW: Yeah, I think just to 

come, come back, and shore up some input on this metric 

piece, certainly in favor of metrics and performance, 

and the goal is to is to bring students to traditionally 

don't have access to high quality pathways to give them 

access, funded access to high quality pathways that lead 

to living wage work and further educational 

opportunities. So, a big fan of metrics, but always 

cautious when numbers get picked without knowing what an 

appropriate number might be. And with that, having the 

impact of choking off program growth right at the point 

where we're starting to get some traction. I think 

that's to Beverly's point in the comment. So actually, 

mostly agree with just about everything everyone said 

here. I think we need high quality metrics. I think we 

need to establish a baseline before we start picking 

percentages and targets. We've never offered a state 

plan before as a state, you know, there's a few states 

in the nation doing this for the first time ever. Give 

us a little time to assess how many people we get 
47 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

enrolled in these programs in the first place. What 

240,000 you've said for ATB nationwide, I would imagine 

those in a state process is quite small. In fact, it 

sounds like we don't even have a method for tracking 

that yet federally, although we do in Washington State, 

we have created a method for tracking that because we do 

take the success rate of these students very seriously 

and do want to protect them, but simply would like a 

little bit of time. I think someday the state process 

could have some metric targets up front once we've 

learned a little bit more, it feels a little premature 

right now when we're still enrolling so few students 

because of the institutional apprehension around a lack 

of clear guidance on what counts as an ECPP. 

MR. ROBERTS: Greg, I see your hand if 

you want to respond, please. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, so I mean, I think 

that you've got you've got the core of what this is 

about, you know, ensuring access and still making 

certain that these programs are serving students. And 

you know, our trepidation about offering any period over 

which we're not getting that data is you know difficult. 

But we do want to throw out there the suggestion that, 

you know, any of you have text you want to provide to 

us. Please do that. I also wanted to gauge how people 
 

48 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

felt about the possibility of us imposing a cap on the 

number of students who can participate during this 

initial period of time or any caps the Department my 

place on that, would that be because that doesn't 

involve looking at past you know data for the past, it 

does involve you know placing caps on those on those 

programs. How would you how would you see; how would you 

view that? We'd like to get some thoughts on that. 

MR. ROBERTS: Seeing some hands. 

Emmanual, I'm seeing your hand first. 

MR. GUILLORY: A few quick things, so 

Greg to address what you just asked about the cap, since 

we're going to be talking about GE at some point later 

in the session, I know that in the 2014 rule, there was 

that 30-student threshold for determining any sort of 

outcomes with GE programs. So, unless these Eligible 

Career Pathway Programs are going to be held liable to 

GE, I know we haven't talked about that, then maybe it 

should be under 30 students if that's still going to be 

the threshold. So that's just one thought. The second 

thought is I really liked what David was saying about 

just these new programs, just trying to or the new state 

processes trying to take place. And it made me think 

about when institutions apply for new discretionary 

grant programs that they've never done before, they must 
49 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

basically tell the Secretary how they plan to spend the 

money right. Like here's how we intend to further 

develop students in this area. And here's our plan and 

in the Secretary then follows up annually to make sure 

they're on course with what they said in their 

application. Well perhaps a secretary could approach 

this in a similar way. So instead of requiring states to 

already have a success rate of something, improve or 

even try to scale up because there haven’t been many 

states that have had these processes for very long. So, 

this is all kind of new for states from what we heard 

today from the Department. So perhaps it can be in a 

state application, they give out their plan of how they 

plan to ensure that there is a complete a high 

completion rate of this Eligible Career Pathway Program. 

And then there's retention at the institution. You know, 

the student will continue to go on and maybe completion 

comes in at some point in time. I don't know. But have 

there be some sort of metrics that way that the 

Department can then follow up annually, so then this 

could be a three-year process, maybe or keep it at two, 

however, but have it be that approach so you're holding 

the State accountable to what it said it would do in the 

application, and if it doesn't do that, then they can no 

longer continue versus this way. 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, yeah, go ahead, 

Greg. 

MR. MARTIN: No, I think I've heard. I 

think, you know, thank you for that. I think there is 

some there seems to be some support for far more 

process-based analysis, but I do want to acknowledge 

that there are there are people on the panel who also 

have reservations about going in that direction entirely 

because of the need to safeguard the interests of 

students. So let me, I think this is a good discussion. 

Let me take that back with me, discuss it and you know, 

and come back. But a good discussion, and I think it was 

it was helpful. And I understand the difficulty of this 

particular in this section where we're talking about 

these initial participants or initial participating 

programs, I should say. 

MR. ROBERTS: Will, I see your hand. 

MR. DURDEN: For more to talk about 

these this piece a little bit more in our state, we're 

talking about a handful of institutions, a handful 

offering ATB through the state process and frankly, the 

other two processes to a handful of students. So, and I 

realize that picture won't be the same state to state. 

For us, a cap would be both premature and just 

completely unnecessary. It's not like we've erupted to 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

suddenly just serving thousands of students with no 

checks and balances. That's hardly the picture at all, 

so a cap wouldn't help us manage this. It's the numbers 

are quite small, and to the other comment about maybe 

restricting how many ECPPs an institution would offer, 

that's a real equity point for us. That would be 

devastating to our efforts because a danger will come, 

whereas an institution might just say, okay, well, we 

have one eligible pathway program and it's a low wage 

entry level healthcare program, and now that's the one 

option that you're offering your adult education 

students for career pathway advancement. If you've got 

seven career pathways in a range of high demand fields, 

wouldn't you want students to be able to choose from any 

one of those pathways? So, we would absolutely advocate 

for keeping an institution able to offer as many ECPPs 

that go through the process and meet those, and that we 

would still be encouraged to serve as many students as 

we can, knowing that the numbers are still quite low. 

MR. MARTIN: Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Not seeing any 

hands. So, recognizing that the Department has several 

items to provide feedback on, there is still a little 

bit that remains to be the Department owes the committee 

on this. I'd still like to take just a brief temperature 
 

52 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

check to survey the entire committee where they stand on 

the reg text, as it is currently proposed, with the 

caveat that that obviously the Department does owe a 

response on some things, but as it stands, how the reg 

text is currently presented to the committee. So, if I 

could just briefly see that and we'll move on to the 

next issue, if that's okay. 

MR. SOCOLOW: Just B and C together? 

MR. ROBERTS: Correct. Yes. So, what 

is the entirety of page entirety of page six and then-. 

MR. MARTIN: Through D. 

MR. ROBERTS: Through D, yeah, 

correct. 

MR. MARTIN: Through D. Because we 

haven't gotten to the after the initial two-year period, 

which we're going to do next, so it's up to the end of 

the initial period. 

MR. ROBERTS: Right. If you wouldn't 

mind a thumb sideways live with it, down reservations, 

thumbs up support. Thank you, seeing everyone's thumbs, 

there are currently no thumbs down. Thank you for that, 

I appreciate it, and Greg, I think we're ready for you 

invested to tee us up for Section D. How far down do you 

want to go? 

MR. MARTIN: I want to take we're 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

going to start with E and carry it through because 

that's the one in the interest of time. Take it through 

to the end of that so that we can move on to Eligible 

Career Pathway Program definition. 

MR. ROBERTS: Sounds good. 

MR. MARTIN: It's a little bit 

lengthy, but I think because it's all deals with the 

with the with the subsequent application, I want to take 

it all as one and I do want to thank everybody for the 

check. And I know the Department has a little bit of 

work to do on that and we will do that. Okay, so we are 

moving on to E after the two-year initial period that we 

just discussed and described, the state must reapply for 

continued participation and then its application 

demonstrate to students that the students it admits 

under the process have a success rate as determined of 

the paragraph F, which we'll get to in a moment of this 

section that is within 95 percent of the success rate of 

students with high school diplomas. And demonstrate that 

the state's process continues to satisfy the 

requirements in A, C, and D of this section. And I do 

want to report before we say before we move on here that 

we do seek feedback as to whether the current threshold 

in regulation is the right threshold for success. So, 

and just talking about that need the demonstrated 
54 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

threshold for the state process needs to be that 95 

percent of the of the success rate for students with 

high school diplomas, we're keying off of the current 

regulation there and we are throwing it rather seeking 

comment from the negotiators on whether that is an 

appropriate rate and if not, what would be an 

appropriate rate. So, do you have any suggestions for 

that? We'll look at that as. And moving on to (3) report 

information to the Department on the enrollment and 

success of participating students by program the race, 

gender, age, economic circumstances, and educational 

attainment to the extent available. And let's see where 

and then we are looking at and again, this information 

is required by statute. We are looking at that with as 

indicated in your in your issue papers as so that we can 

do we can perform equity audits on that information to 

see where the program stands with respect to equity and 

the and the criteria mentioned here. Moving on to F. The 

school must calculate the success rate as referenced in 

paragraph (e)(1), which we just talked about, that 95 

percent success rate. And you see the formula for doing 

that, determining the number of students with the high 

school diplomas who during the applicable award year 

described in (g)(1) of the section enrolled in 

participating institutions and successfully completed 
55 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

the education and training programs, remained enrolled 

in education or training programs at the end of that 

award year, or successfully transferred to and remained 

enrolled in another institution by the end of that award 

year. So, this is the current definition, our current 

calculation that we have. Determining the number of 

students with a high school diploma who enrolled in 

education or training programs in participating 

institutions during that award year. Determining the 

number of students calculated in paragraph (f)(2) of 

this section who remained enrolled after subtracting the 

number of students who subsequently withdrew or will 

were expelled from participating institutions and 

received 100 percent refund of their tuition under the 

institution's refund policies. Dividing the number of 

students determined in (f)(1) of this section by the 

number of students determined in (f)(3) and making the 

calculations described in (f)(1) through (f)(4) of the 

section for students without a high school diploma or 

its recognized equivalent who are enrolled in 

participating institutions and for purposes of paragraph 

F of this section, the applicable award year is the 

latest complete award year for which information was 

available that immediately precedes the date on which 

the Secretary on which the State requests the Secretary 
56 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

to approve the state process, except that the award year 

must award year selected must be one of the latest two 

completed award years preceding the application date. 

And then we say here if no students are enrolled in an 

Eligible Career Pathways Program through a state 

process, then the success rate will not be required in 

the subsequent application, as described in F of this 

section, and a state must submit reports on its state 

process in accordance with deadlines and procedures 

established in the Federal Register by the Secretary 

with such information as the Secretary requires. The 

Secretary approved the state process as described in 

paragraph E of the section for a period not to exceed 

five years. And the Secretary withdraws approval of a 

state process if the Secretary determines that the state 

process has violated any of the terms of this section, 

or that the information that the state submitted as a 

basis for approval was inaccurate. The Secretary 

provides a state with the opportunity to contest the 

finding that the state process violated any terms of 

this section, or that the information that the state 

submitted as a basis for approval was inaccurate. So 

that is the those are the requirements for reapplication after the two-year period. And let's go back 

then to the beginning of E and ask if we have any 
57 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

comments or questions regarding that process. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. Emmanual, I 

see your hand up, if you wouldn't mind putting on your 

camera to ask if possible. Well, I think you're muted 

right now, sorry. 

MR. GUILLORY: My hand was not up 

intentionally. I don't know. 

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, not a problem, not 

a problem. David, go ahead. 

MR. SOCOLOW: It's just a question 

about the state process is being renewed, being approved 

for another five years based on data and at the 

beginning of E, it says that the data is broken out by 

program, which I assume is by program of study and the 

programs of study are aligned with eligible career 

pathways. So, you could have a state process that has, 

let's say, five different career pathways, one in 

manufacturing and one in healthcare, whatever. Is the 

everything else does not have that breakdown, and so is 

the state process approved if there's good results 

between non-high school diploma students compared to at 

least 95 percent of the success rate of those with high 

school diplomas in four out of the five and three out of 

the five? Like, how is this going to work? 

MR. MARTIN: I think. Let me before I 
58 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

speak to that, I want to just I'm going to put that on 

the back burner for a minute and get some feedback from 

our staff on that. But I yeah, we'll take that question. 

I'll take that question back and hopefully get a 

response for you soon. I'm not 100 percent sure I want 

to make sure I answer correctly. 

MR. ROBERTS: Not seeing any other 

hands. Okay, Jamie, go ahead. 

MS. STUDLEY: I know this is a hard 

question, but how did you derive the 95 percent for the 

relationship to high school graduates? 

MR. MARTIN: The 95 percent threshold 

is the current is the current threshold established in 

regulation, and we are just keying off that because it's 

an established threshold, the Department's not permitted 

to be arbitrary in coming up with any threshold, so 

we're keying it to one currently established in 

regulation. There is no threshold, there is no threshold 

established in in statute. So, we're going off what is 

in what, as I said before, what is in what is in 

regulation. 

MS. STUDLEY: Has it been used? Has it 

been shown to separate programs from each other? I'm 

just wondering if it if it if there's enough experience 

with it to know whether it's effective as a bright line 
59 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

or a screening tool? 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, that's a that's-. 

MS. STUDLEY: It may be that it hasn't 

that you haven't got enough cases or experience toMR. MARTIN: Yeah, as I said, we've 

only had we've only had a few states and there's really 

been no way to demonstrate that success rate in as much 

as the programs are or the state the state process 

rather is new. So, I don't think we really can 

[inaudible] something right now as to how effective that 

that calculation is. I don't I don't I can inquire of my 

colleagues. I do not think that we've had been able to 

calculate one with preexisting data the way it's 

currently set up in the regulations because, you know, 

it's not that that the that the protocol for calculation 

is wrong, it's just that the data, the data was not 

there. But and I don't I don't I don't recall the 95 

percent I was not whenever that was established in 

regulation, I don't recall exactly what the what the 

discussion around it was at that at that time as I 

wasn't involved in those conversations. So I wouldn’t 

want to speculate why that why that standard was 

reached. 

MS. STUDLEY: I'm not trying to put 

you in a hot spot. It's always hard to you know unless 
60 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

there's a lot of experience with a metric to know what 

it's telling us. But I was just you know wondering if it 

had been seen in action because we're going to, we're 

going to have that kind of challenge all the way through 

wherever there are specific levels with consequences. 

Thanks. 

MR. MARTIN: Right. Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks. Kelli, I see 

your hand next, and Kelly, just as a reminder, is back 

in at the table on behalf of nonprofit private 

institutions of higher education. 

MS. PERRY: Thank you. This is kind of 

going off what Jamie was just talking about it and maybe 

more of a general question as it relates to the state 

process, right? Because that's what we've been talking 

about for the last hour or so. For those of us that are 

unfamiliar with what that state process might be and the 

fact that you've mentioned that there's only a few 

states and some of them were approved simply because of 

timeframe. Did the one state that you did approve meet 

some of these requirements that were in here or has any 

state met any of these requirements that are in here? Or 

is this something that's brand new that we're kind of 

trying to set without any history? 

MR. MARTIN: Okay. So, yeah, we proved 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

one state. Others were approved by just the fact that 

the six months elapsed between, you know, and then they 

be they automatically were approved. The approval of the 

one-state was I said technically, technically that the 

success rate as exactly as it would have been required 

in the existing regulations was not possible to 

calculate that way. That state was approved at the time. 

That was that happened during the previous 

administration that was approved. And I really can't 

speak to you know the specifics of that application, 

except to say that that it was approved and we never 

really and doing all of this, we've never really 

received anything from any state that would allow us to 

calculate the rate as it is required. Currently, I think 

it's, I think, its current age. So, I mean, that's one 

of the reasons why we're here doing this. So, I can't 

really say too much more of that, except if you're if, 

you know, just to be completely honest, was the data 

they're necessary to calculate the rate as it was as it 

is in the regulations in those states application? No. 

MS. PERRY: But as a just as a general 

question for, like I said, because I'm not part of a 

state and I don't understand the process, you know, this 

is an additional mechanism for you know somebody to be 

eligible for this program and Title IV funding. What is 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

an example of what a state program would do or what it 

would look like and to that would be approved? Like what 

is it? What does it look like? 

MR. MARTIN: Well, first, it's not a 

state program, it's a state, it's a state process, so. 

You know, it is it as far as what it would look like, I 

mean, they all. I don't think there's any, you know, 

we've done, we've received several applications for four 

or five. We've received those and they're different. We 

don't other than the fact that obviously the any program 

involved must meet the Eligible Career Pathways Program 

definition, that's a given for any of them. We don't 

stipulate you know what, the what the state must what 

the state has to do. They it's an alternative, it's an 

alternative to the test or to the credits, and you know, 

the are only requirements are those that we're talking 

about in the regulations here that you know what they 

have to do for, for monitoring that we've that we are 

that we are discussing in this in this particular 

regulation, so I don't know. I mean, what the state must 

do, I don't, you know, as far as like what the states 

show, I would not I've not looked at the at the 

applications necessarily. So, I don't and I don't know 

that there is other than what we require with the 

Eligible Career Pathways Program aspect of it, the state 
63 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

can come up with its with it’s with the requirements 

that the participating institutions must meet in order 

to in order to offer that eligible pathways program 

through the state and so. And we say here they must 

provide us with the criteria used to determine student 

eligibility for participation in that state process, so 

how the state does that because it is separate from the 

test, which don't require the ATB test, nor the credits. 

What that is a separate is a separate thing. So, I mean, 

I could ask. I mean, I could ask the gentleman from 

Washington to tell us a little a few elements of what 

they require, but that would just be for their state. 

MR. ROBERTS: Anything additional on 

this topic? I saw a few hands come up and then come 

down. But I can give folks time if they want to weigh in 

additionally. Greg, I'm not seeing any additional hands. 

Does the Department need anything else on this section 

or you want to just do a quick temperature check before 

moving on to the definition of Eligible Career Pathway 

Program? 

MR. MARTIN: Let's do a quick 

temperature check before we move on to 157. 

MR. ROBERTS: Great. So, if everyone 

wouldn't mind taking a quick glance at Sections E to H 

with I with that one, addition, just a quick temperature 
64 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

check on the proposed regulatory text as it currently 

stands. Thank you. Waiting on just one or two more 

constituency groups, sorry, just keep them, at minimum, 

not seeing any thumbs down. Thank you very much. And 

with that, Greg, and Vanessa, if you wouldn't mind 

teeing up for this last section on Ability to Benefit. 

MR. MARTIN: Sure. So, we are going to 

move to 668.157 where we have the definition of an 

Eligible Career Pathways Program. And so, one more 

moment here, bear with me. Okay. So, in 157 under the 

definition of an eligible career pathway, Eligible 

Career Pathways program, an institution demonstrates to 

the Secretary that a student enrolled in an Eligible 

Career Pathways Program as required under 668.156 (a)(3) 

of this part. By documenting that the student is has 

enrolled in or is receiving both an eligible 

postsecondary program as defined in 668.8. That's the 

definition of a of an eligible program and coursework 

training or other support services that enable a 

student, an individual to attain a secondary school 

diploma or its recognized equivalent. The Program aligns 

with the skill needs of industries in the state or 

regional labor market in which the institution is 

located based on research the institution has conducted, 

including government reports identifying occupations 
65 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

with the greatest hiring demands in the state or 

regional labor market, or surveys, interviews, meetings, 

or other information obtained by the institution 

regarding the hiring needs of employers in the state or 

regional labor market. The skill needs described in 

paragraph (a)(2) of the section align with the specific 

coursework and postsecondary credential provided by the 

postsecondary program or other required training. 

Program provides career counseling services that assist 

students in obtaining jobs aligned with skill needs 

described in paragraph (a)(2) of the section and 

identifies the individuals providing the career 

counseling services. The education is offered 

concurrently with and in the same context as workforce 

preparation activities and training for a specific 

occupation or occupational cluster. The program is 

designed to lead to a valid high school diploma, as 

defined in 668.16(p). This is one of our proposed 

changes that we'll go over and administrative capability 

in defining a high school diploma. For Eligible Career 

Pathways Programs that do not enroll students through a 

state process as defined in 668.156 of this part, the 

Department will verify the eligibility of Eligible 

Career Pathways Programs for Title IV HEA program 

purposes and the Secretary will provide the institution 
66 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

with the opportunity to appeal any adverse eligibility 

decision. Okay, so I would entertain any comments or 

questions on 668.157 Eligible Career Pathway Program. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, David, feel 

free to kick us off. 

MR. SOCOLOW: Well, first, I want to 

commend the Department on the third to last line of 

this, which says that the Secretary is going to the 

Department's going to verify for every single pathway, 

every single piece of mode of ATB, whether it's the six 

credits road that an institution might set up, whether 

it's the test that an institution might set up, or 

whether it's the state approved process that you'll 

verify and give some clarity to the field about what's 

an Eligible Career Pathway Program. That is fantastic. 

That's been missing since 2014 when this came back with 

the career pathway in it. That's to be commended. That's 

my first point. My second point is I think we can 

tighten up the definition of career pathway a little bit 

more here by making it 100 percent clear at the 

beginning that what you must demonstrate to prove that 

the students enrolled in an Eligible Career Pathway 

Program is you must document a true, robust partnership 

on integrated education and training. It's not enough 

for the Title IV institution to do its thing and for 
67 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

them just to ship the student off to totally unrelated 

GED classes and call that a career pathway. That is not 

a career pathway. Lots of guidance from [inaudible] and 

from Labor Department and from other people. We've built 

career pathways now for seven to eight years under WIOA. 

That's not a career path. If it's not a partnership 

between adult ED and the Title IV institution, a true 

partnership with integrated education and training dual 

enrollment, IET, then it's not a career path. And that's 

what we're really hoping to see here in various parts of 

this. We could wordsmith it little by little here, but 

I've spoken enough on this topic that those are the 

additional. I could think of four or five places where 

you could write words in here to make it clear, and I 

would welcome the opportunity to work with the 

Department to tighten this up. But that's the general 

point. 

MR. MARTIN: We would, you know, if we 

would be interested in seeing anything that you have if 

you have some proposals for text that you could submit. 

MR. ROBERTS: And as always, if folks 

do have text regulatory text amendments, feel free to 

share them in the chat or email them to Cindy and the 

facilitation team will make sure the Department and 

every everyone else on the committee gets a chance to 
 

68 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

see that. So, Johnson, go ahead. 

MR. TYLER: Hi, I'm afraid I'm going 

to show my utter ignorance and really what you're doing 

here, but I thought career, I thought Eligible Career 

Pathway Programs, you could have a high school diploma 

and enroll in it. Is that not, right? 

MR. SOCOLOW: Who are you asking? 

MR. TYLER: Anyone. 

MR. SOCOLOW: Yes, yes, of course. So, 

this is the special case of adult education. So, the 

implied in huge amounts of the seven elements of the 

WIOA and Higher ED Act and Perkins definition of career 

pathways is that when it comes to individuals without a 

high school diploma, adults without a high school 

diploma, they mean something specific. There's obviously 

lots of other people, dislocated workers and others who 

are getting career pathway programs in other contexts. 

But in the context which ATB is of adults without a high 

school diploma or its equivalency, you're talking about 

a set of coordinated programs with adult ED. 

MR. TYLER: But these two, these two 

definitions of Eligible Career Pathway Program would 

apply because you're going to be comparing the outcomes 

of people with high school diplomas without them. 

They're going to be the same program. Correct? 
69 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

MR. SOCOLOW: Correct. 

MR. TYLER: So. So does this, so I 

guess this goes the Greg does the (a)(6) that says it's 

the program is designed to lead to a valid high school 

diploma. Is that being that somehow, contradictory 

because some of the students will be in this program 

already with high school diplomas, they don't need to 

read it? 

MR. MARTIN: No, I think let's go back 

to what Johnson was just explaining that so we're 

looking at this from our perspective today as an 

Eligible Career Pathways Program as defined in 668.157. 

We're talking about it within the context of Ability to 

Benefit. So necessarily then we're looking at here for 

purposes of defining this program, students who do not 

have a high school diploma. If they had a high school 

diploma, they wouldn't be it wouldn't be necessary to 

establish their eligibility for aid via the ATB process 

or even having to do with it. It would be, let me put it 

this way it would be neither here nor there if they were 

enrolled in a career pathways program, right? They would 

have a high school diploma if it was an eligible 

program. Otherwise, we wouldn't care if it was career 

pathways, whatever else, they would have established 

eligibility through the criteria criterion rather of 
70 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

having a high school diploma. Here they do not. So 

that's what we're talking about here. So that's why when 

Congress brought back the ATB in limited circumstances, 

it can only be through the mechanism of an Eligible 

Career Pathways Program because as part of that, the 

student must there is this requirement that the program 

be designed to lead to a valid high school diploma to 

get both. So, it's important to remember that whenever 

we're looking at it in the context of these regulations, 

we're only thinking about students who don't have a high 

school diploma, which doesn't preclude admitting other 

students to a career pathways program who do have a high 

school diploma. Think about it from an eligibility, from 

an eligibility standpoint, what makes the student 

eligible if he doesn't have a high school diploma or its 

recognized equivalent? ATB. What are the options for 

ATB? Test, credits, or state process. With all three of 

those, what's the one thing you must have for all three 

of those? Eligible Career Pathways Program as defined 

here, so this is not just with respect to the state 

process. This is with respect to any ATB. 

MR. TYLER: Okay. 

MR. MARTIN: Hope that helps. And I 

want to thank Johnson for that, that excellent 

explanation 
71 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

MR. TYLER: It was David, give David 

the credit. 

MR. MARTIN: David, I'm sorry. You 

know, I'm not good with names I really apologize for 

that. I'd make a poor salesman, which is probably best 

that I went into the field I did but thank you for that 

excellent explanation. It was very good. 

MR. ROBERTS: I suspect we'll have 

ample time to learn one another's names in the coming. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, I think so. I might 

have it all down by middle of March, just in time for us 

not to have any more needs. 

MR. ROBERTS: Greg. I'm not seeing any 

other hands on this. Do we want to do a quick 

temperature check? And then I believe we're at the 

conclusion of the issue paper on Ability to Benefit. 

Does that sound alright? 

MR. MARTIN: That sounds fine to me. 

Yes, please. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. So, on this 

section of the definition of Eligible Career Pathway 

Program, can I see a brief temperature check? All thumbs 

if possible. So, David, I am seeing your thumb down, and 

I know that you've expressed concerns, is there anything 

additional that you want the Department or the Committee 
72 

Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

to be aware of or know, moving away from this topic? 

MR. SOCOLOW: So yeah, I mean, I will 

submit specific language to try to build in what I 

discussed about really this is your quality screen more 

than anything. And several people, you know, made 

comments earlier about the quality screen, you know, 

having it be real career pathways and not I mean, I 

think the concern the Department expressed can be better 

explained through several sections of this 157. So, I 

will submit language, which I think would go a long way 

to improving this, but I think it's a good start. I just 

can't approve it right now. 

MR. MARTIN: Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. So having 

concluded this topic, I know that we shortchanged folks 

a little bit on lunch today, so if it's okay with the 

committee, I'm going to request a 13-minute break just 

so we can get back together at the top of the hour at 

3:00 p.m. Eastern Time and we will pick right up with 

issue paper two Administrative Capability. So, with 

that, I will see everyone in about 12 minutes. Thank 

you. Welcome back, everyone. Hope you enjoyed the break. 

We have about an hour left of committee time and then we 

are going to go right into our first public comment 

period of this negotiated rulemaking. So, we're going to 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

start with issue paper two, which is Standards of 

Administrative Capability. But before we jump in, just a 

few quick housekeeping items. One, if you have received 

confirmation that you are set to speak at today's public 

comment period, try to log on about 15 to 20 minutes 

early just so we can make sure your name sounds right 

and we can just confirm folks are here for their 

speaking slot. And you can always email the individual 

that confirmed your speaking slot if you're having any 

trouble. And then second, I just want to welcome back to 

the table Steve Finley on behalf of OGC and welcome 

Barmak Nassirian on behalf of service members and 

veterans’ groups who will be stepping in as primary 

negotiator for this issue. So, with that, Greg, I'll 

turn it over to you and Vanessa to walk us through this 

issue paper. 

MR. MARTIN: Thanks, Brady. And before 

we start, I want to welcome Steve as counsel, and I also 

want to thank everybody for the excellent discussion 

that we had on Ability to Benefit that went well. I 

learned a lot and I think it was a great, a great 

opening to these, to these discussions that we're having 

here on all these issues. So, let's move on to issue 

paper two as a Brady pointed out, Standards of 

Administrative Capability. We are seeking to make some 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

changes to admin capability, and we give you the 

statutory site there. Of course, this is in this is 

reflected in regulation at 34 CFR 668.16 of the general 

provisions. And just as a review, the statute does 

require that institutions be administratively capable to 

retain eligibility for Title IV. However, while current 

administrative capability regulations include a host of 

requirements, we are aware of some compliance concerns 

and activities that are currently not reflected in those 

rules. And accordingly, we are proposing to add to 

revise the admin capability regulations and add to them 

so. Let's talk about what our overall proposals are 

here. Before we go into the regs themselves, the 

additional proposed administrative capability standards 

would require an institution to provide adequate career 

services to students who receive Title IV HEA program 

assistance and the determination of adequacy would be 

made based on the share of students enrolled in programs 

designed to prepare students for gainful employment in a 

recognized occupation, the number and distribution of 

career service staff. And the presence of institutional 

partnerships with recruiters and employers who regularly 

hire graduates. It is important that institutions help 

students identify career opportunities and access wellpaying jobs after completing their programs. However, 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

some institutions do not provide adequate support. Thus, 

the Department proposes to establish these regulations 

for adequate career services. So, this expresses our 

concern that there are instances out there where 

institutions advertise these services available to 

students. And while we feel these services are important 

and schools should be doing this, we it's equally 

important that or maybe more so that the service is 

provided as advertised. And so, we seek to add that to 

administrative capability. The second element here is 

the second addition we want to make is make a reasonable 

effort to provide students with clinical or externship 

opportunities required for completion of a credential or 

licensor in the recognized occupation as applicable 

within 45 days after completion of the coursework. This 

is in recognition of the fact that though many programs 

do require a clinical or externship for completion of 

the program, again, a good thing, especially in, you 

know, we're talking about fields where students are 

going to be practitioners, but we are notice we have 

seen and identified cases where students have been left 

to their own devices to have to identify their own 

externships, they are only offered externships that are 

geographically distant, so not reasonable for the 

student to even get to or don't meet the credential or 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

licensing requirements. And in some cases, we've seen 

students not even provided with the externship or 

clinical opportunity for extended periods of time that 

make it basically impractical for the student to get 

that, to get that requirement and to graduate and to 

seek and seek employment. That's what the Department 

proposes. Also, we have the proposal to disburse funds 

to students in a timely manner consistent with students' 

needs. This is something else we've been noticing over 

the over the past number of years. Some institutions are 

substantially delaying disbursements to students in some 

cases. This is resulting in students not receiving funds 

until long after tuition payments are due, and costs 

have been incurred. And this could affect students' 

ability to remain in school and ultimately graduate, 

especially if the students are depending primarily upon 

Title IV funds. And we know that there are a significant 

number of students from especially economically 

disadvantaged backgrounds first-generation students, 

many of whom rely almost entirely on Title IV funds if 

they're not dispersed in a timely manner. That is a 

problem for those for those students. So, what we are 

proposing here, thus, the Department proposes that an 

institution will not be administratively capable if we 

determine that it has failed to make timely 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

disbursements in ways that best meet the student's 

needs. And this is language which is already included 

under the Pell Grant, SEOG and TEACH Grant Program, and 

we give the citations there. Violations may be 

determined based on student complaints, high rates of 

withdrawal that are attributable to delays and 

disbursements, disbursements being delayed until after 

the withdrawal date requirements are also a problem we 

have. We have addressed that, and I believe there was a 

preamble to I forget the year the R2T4 regulations where 

we said that institutions are not allowed to delay with 

disbursements to get past the 60 percent point. So, we 

made that clear in preamble language, but again 

stressing that here we're also acknowledging that 

sometimes disbursements are being delayed to comply with 

90/10 rules as well. We're also adding that schools do 

not engage in misrepresentations as identified in 34 CFR 

Subpart F for aggressive recruitment because both 

misrepresentation and aggressive recruitment increased 

risk to students and taxpayers, particularly with 

respect to Borrower Defense claims. We proposed in 

recent regulations that was back on table one to further 

define each of these terms, and we propose to 

incorporate them into the Standards of Administrative 

Capability. So, this aggressive recruitment was 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

discussed on table one, which were loan issues, and we 

are incorporating them here. Finally, developing follow 

up procedures to evaluate the validity of a student's 

high school completion, including the collection and 

maintenance of appropriate documentation of such 

completion. And while institutions are currently 

required to verify completion status for students, they 

may suspect may not have the appropriate credential, 

some have avoided verifying this even when they have 

held suspicions, and the Department later determined 

that students did not have appropriate credentials. So, 

with that overall explanation, I think this is something 

that most of you are probably familiar with. So, I 

don't, I think we can move into the actual discussion 

itself, and I will begin with the counseling provision, 

so I think we'll walk through each of these individually 

and discuss them as individual requirements. So just to 

start here to begin with, they continue to participate 

in the Title IV HEA programs. An institution must, we 

have changed that from shall to must, to make our 

regulations clearer. And I'm a big supporter of this 

where we're requiring some an institution to do 

something, we should say must demonstrate to the 

Secretary that an institution is capable of adequately 

administering the program under each of the standards 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

established in this section. And then we lay out what 

those are in 668.16. And again, you're not seeing all 

the provisions of administrative capability. Only the 

ones that we are, we seek to add through this table. So, 

let's start with H. This is new. So, this is not what 

you would not find this in the current regulation. 

Provides adequate financial aid. Well, this part you 

would but provides adequate financial aid counseling to 

eligible students who apply for Title IV HEA assistance 

in determining whether an institution provides adequate 

counseling. Secretary considers the sourced amount of 

each type of aid offered, the method by which the aid is 

determined and disbursed or delivered, and the rights 

and responsibilities of the student with respect to 

enrollment at the institution and receipt of financial 

aid. The information includes the institution's refund 

policy, the requirements for the treatment of Title IV 

HEA program funds when there was a withdrawal under 

668.22, its standards of administrative capability and 

other conditions that may alter the student's package. 

So that's current regulation. Here we're adding provide, 

and here's where we're beginning to add, adding another 

element to admin capability that's under I. Provides 

adequate career services to eligible students who 

receive Title IV HEA program assistance in determining 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

whether an institution provides adequate career 

services. The Secretary will consider the share of 

students enrolled in the programs designed to prepare 

students for gainful employment in a recognized 

occupation, the number and distribution of career 

service staff, and the presence of institutional 

partnerships with recruiters and employers who regularly 

hire graduates of the institution. So, let's open the 

floor for discussion on that element. That is Element I, 

adequate career services. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, thank you. 

Greg, Brad, I see your hand, but just very briefly want 

to announce. And Vanessa, would you mind unsharring the 

document just for the discussion? Thanks. That Jessica 

is in on behalf of legal aid. We have Debbie in for 

state agencies and I believe I'm missing one other 

person and I apologize. Anne is back in for community 

colleges. Apologies. So, Brad, please. 

MR. ADAMS: Thank you, Brady. Just to 

start off, I would like to say we're generally 

supportive of the Department's efforts to update the 

administrative capability rules. Administrative 

capability is an important part of Title IV eligibility, 

and there is no question in my mind that institutions 

that participate in Title IV should meet administrative 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

standards. Accountability is paramount for all 

institutions in higher learning. There are a handful of 

suggestions I hope to make on several of these bullets 

today. These suggestions are primarily aimed at 

clarifying the standards for schools and give them all 

clear, measurable benchmarks that can be achieved to 

ensure compliance. Several of the ideas being introduced 

provide significant discretion to the Department, but 

with no clear benchmark for institutions to follow. So, 

I look forward to working with the committee to put a 

finer point on these concepts. Schools know what they 

need to comply with and to distribute, demonstrate 

administrative capability, know exactly what they must 

do to get there. So, I'll get back in queue, but I've 

got a few comments. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Brad. Kelli, go 

ahead. 

MS. PERRY: Yes, just a question on 

really, I and J, I guess both, would be how would the 

Department plan to measure these things, for example, 

the number and distribution of a career service center 

staff? 

MR. MARTIN: Well, yeah, I mean, here 

we don't there is not a there is not a formula for you 

know, determining an actual formula for determining, you 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

know, the actual the number. We do give the items that 

we that we take into, we will consider the number and 

distribution of the services. The I think that there is 

a an element of, you know, there is a latitude to 

Department has here in determining these, these and many 

of the elements of administrative capability, and we 

haven't we didn't regulate, well in these proposed 

rules, we've not regulated, you know, a formula that a 

school of a certain size or a certain number of enrolled 

students would have to have X number of career services 

staff. As been as has been pointed out, the Department 

does have a fair amount of discretion here, but I our 

view of this is that its discretion the Department needs 

to address a very real problem out there, and that's and 

I want to point out before I say this that I think the 

many, many, many schools that take this very seriously 

and make certain that career counseling is available and 

real and substantive. And of course, career counseling 

is never a guarantee of a job. It's not. It's not a 

guarantee of a certain level of success. But it must be 

real, and we've seen a lot of instances where what's 

being offered is just simply negligible. And I don't 

know that we can get to a to an actual number. We are 

open to any suggestions that people might have from 

participants might have as to how we might better 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

qualify this, but I would remind you that we have a 

similar requirement for financial aid staff that there 

be adequate number of financial aid staff. Now I know 

that some organizations out there that are comprised of 

aid administrators have put together formulas to do 

this. But we don't have it. So, you know, but we need 

that latitude to be able to go to that discretion, 

rather to be able to go to a school that's not 

providing, let's just say, an adequate, adequate 

financial aid support for students and to say, you know, 

you're not you're not doing that. And any write up of 

administrative capability, that is sort of a it is it 

just was, to an extent, a sense that the Department has, 

you know, an opinion Department has that this isn't 

being provided. So, I think that while you know whenever 

we can provide something more concrete, that's better. I 

don't think that because we can't provide actual numbers 

here that that that obviates the necessity for this, 

because I don't, it doesn't. We need this is something 

that we feel we need to make certain that if these 

career services are being if they are not just on paper, 

that they exist. 

MS. PERRY: So, I guess let me ask my 

question a different way, you know, if this was going to 

become an issue for an institution, one, how would that 
 

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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

issue be raised and two, what criteria would you use to 

determine whether someone didn't need these? Is it all 

subjective? 

MR. MARTIN: Well, you know, is there 

a certain amount of discretion applied by the 

Department? Yes. Discre- subjective? There is. There is 

arguably and an element of subjectivity involved in in 

something like this. And I don't think you can get 

around that. How would it be applied? Well, a school's 

lack of administrative capability, if that exists or 

where a school falls short on these elements, is 

identified in a compliance review, a program review or 

audit. And the school would in the case of a program 

review, there would be a finding relevant to this 

requirement or an audit. There would be an exception. 

And with the institute with it, with it being written up 

with the incumbent upon the auditor to review it, to 

write up why he or she feels the school did not comply. 

And with the school having the opportunity to respond to 

that to that finding, that's generally how it would how 

it would go. I'll ask my counsel, Steve, do you have 

anything you want to add there? 

MR. FINLEY: Yeah, thanks, Greg. Most 

of the time this is going to come up when it's 

identified as something a school isn't doing, and it's 
 

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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

just a clearer basis to explain why this is a problem 

and it's an enforcement issue for the Department. So, 

there's going to be some mismatch between the number of 

services the school, an institution the school should be 

providing to its students versus the services that are 

not being provided or just not being provided to enough 

students. Suggestions for how to narrow that and capture 

it you know in a more accurate way would be welcome. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, Debbie, I'm 

seeing your hand next. 

MS. COCHRANE: Thank you. You know, I 

know that you, the Department's put forth several 

important proposals. You know, I appreciate the drive 

for them. And I also wanted to know if you would be 

opened to hearing other opportunities for ways to 

strengthen this this regulation, 668.16. And I was 

looking at H, which was, as we showed in the red line 

text, it's existing regulatory text now around providing 

adequate financial aid counseling to eligible students. 

I, you know upon reading it, I thought kind of similar 

to what has been said in other ways, whether it might 

also be worth calling out, not just adequate but 

accurate and transparent financial aid information, and 

then specifically mentioning not just the source and 

amount of each type of aid offered, but also whether 
 

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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

each form of aid offered needs to be earned or repaid. 

You know, that is certainly an issue that we see where 

students are promised aid, but not exactly the nature of 

that aid. And then finally, the other option, the other 

idea I would put out for consideration by the Department 

for potential inclusion is the notion of accurately 

reporting information to the Department. You know, I'm 

not sure what the language would be, but I'm thinking 

through IPEDS to NSLDS and potentially any other data 

reporting initiatives, whether it's the gainful 

employment rule or anything else, just to give more 

incentive to make sure that those reports are accurate, 

given how heavily they're relied upon. 

MR. MARTIN: So, I will point out that 

in talking about H just be included that there but 

aren't making changes there. You would like to see you 

would like to see more specificity. I would point out 

that I believe in, and I'll ask my colleagues to maybe 

give me some more. In 668 in the notices and 

authorizations in 668.165 I think we do require that. 

Nohere do we require award letters. We don't mention 

award letters. They're not mentioned anywhere in 

statute. I used to always do that in training. When I 

trained new aid administrators, I said, you know, I'll 

give you a thousand dollars if you find the word award 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

letter in anything that we any statute regulation. So, 

we don't do that. We do have a requirement in, and 

notice is that the school must notify the student of the 

amount of aid, the type of aid. And I think also they 

must notify the student whether the loans are involved 

and if they're subsidized or unsubsidized. So, we 

already have that not reflected here so much, but that's 

already in that's in in 165. So, I'll, so I would point 

that out. What I would ask you to do if you want to look 

and check in 165 and see if there's something else, 

you'd like to have in there, I know you noted 

transparency. So I mean, that's an issue even you know 

when schools inform students of the amount they're going 

to receive, it's a common criticism that sometimes these 

awards or notices of funding, if you want to call them, 

that can be opaque to students, especially, who don't 

understand don't understand how Title IV works or how 

financial aid works. We have tried to address that with 

the with, let's see if I get it right used to be the 

shopping sheet, but the college financing plan. Schools 

aren't required to use that. We encourage it. As far as 

transparency, I take your point and I think that's a 

very important point. However, the devil will be in the 

details to just to describe exactly what transparency 

means, especially when you're dealing with things like 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

schools that use an institutional methodology and have a 

federal methodology as it relates to federal aid. And I 

do commiserate with schools in trying to make something 

that's inherently complicated, simple. That's hard to 

do. And I, you know, I'll even say this. I won't say 

anything more about [inaudible], but my own daughter, 

when I got my own financial aid offer from where my 

daughter goes, I had to read it a couple of times and 

I've been doing this for 30, 31 years. So, you know, not 

that I didn't understand it, but it wasn't, you know, 

you must. I understand that wholeheartedly. We could 

take that back. But I would, if you know, to entertain 

that, I want to see what is meant by transparency. I 

don't want to regulate schools to something that that's 

such an intangible they won't know what that means and 

to make schools argue with reviewers and auditors as to, 

you know, well, I think it's transparent. Well, I don't. 

And then some things are just awfully hard to make you 

know clear. You know, I'll point out one thing, you 

know, try to talk to someone who doesn't have any 

background in aid about cost of attendance. And you 

know, they don't understand that not everything 

reflected in cost of attendance is direct cost. Trying 

to make people understand that can be very difficult to 

do and you know, but I take your point, but I would ask 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

you to go back and look at 165 and see if there's 

something else there that you think we're not informing 

students of adequately. And I'll leave it at, I'll leave 

it at that, but if you have draft language or something 

you want to introduce, we'll certainly look at it. 

MS. COCHRANE: Well, I thank you for 

that. I will. I was draft something up and send it 

along. Can I just ask also for a clarifying question? I 

will look at 165. Obviously, you know, the agenda paper 

talks about misrepresentations and baking those in which 

misrepresentations are prohibited in other areas of the 

regulations as well. But they're being proposed to add 

here. So where, what is the Department's, what is what 

is the kind of rule of thumb of whether when something 

gets added here versus when you rely solely on other 

regulations? 

MR. MARTIN: Well, you know that's a 

that's a good question, too, like I think what really 

what we see here is that these tend to be areas that 

we've identified where you know, obviously there's lots 

of regulations, not all of them reflect on admin 

capability, but we've, these are the areas that we have, 

you know, determined that there needs to be a you know, 

or a where the where the element does key to the 

institution's administrative capability and also some of 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

the also statute requires that, then that a school 

administratively capability, administratively capable as 

well. So, there is statutory requirement there. There 

are things in regulation. Obviously, we're adding some 

things here. So, these are areas we just have concerns 

about; misrepresentation, high school diplomas, issues 

that we've noticed are prevalent, mostly these we're 

adding today, or not today through this process that we 

propose to add are largely results result of the people 

at the Department who are involved in oversight and what 

they see when they go out to schools. 

MS. COCHRANE: Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Marvin, your hand is up 

next. 

MR. SMITH: Yeah, I just want to make 

sure that I'm clear that this administrative capability 

applies to all colleges and universities in Title IV aid 

and that has, you know, providing adequate career 

services to a large four-year public of 30,000 students, 

we need to be very clear on what the metric is as to 

what is adequate or reasonable on career services. And 

just a reminder that any type of regulation that you 

come up with has costs that are then passed on to the 

students at public and nonprofit institutions. So, I 

think that I'd be very concerned about this and thinking 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

about ways to address this without providing more 

regulatory burdens for all colleges to meet. And then 

one more comment is, you know, underfunded financial aid 

offices are also a concern. And I don't know if we'll 

get into this, but the administrative cost allowance 

that's helping schools provide quality financial aid 

counseling and services, that has that's a concern 

across the country for a lot of my colleagues. 

MR. MARTIN: I could speak to those 

issues. The administrative cost allowance, of course, is 

something we don't have control over. The with respect 

to that, to your question about how about the increase 

of burden, it is not our intent here to add, and I think 

that's one of the reasons why we haven't said, you know, 

if your school has 30,000 students it must have X amount 

of, you know, X number of career counselors, this this 

rule should and I imagine I think I think you have to 

just look at it in terms of that we wrote, we proposed 

this rule to allow us to take action against those 

entities who don't who don't meet this at all. I would 

imagine for most of you who are earnestly providing this 

service, this is not even a consideration. So, I don't 

think you should view it as an attempt by the Department 

to overregulate an area. I think it's more of an attempt 

to give us some give us something by which we can. We 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

can act against those institutions that offer that offer 

none of this and especially advertise they do, but 

don't. So, I mean, I mean, I cannot remove 100 percent 

of the subjectivity from it. I get that. But I think 

that's about all I could say. And I also want to say 

that, yes, it does apply to all institutions, not just 

one segment. I'll leave it at that. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Greg. Brad, 

we're back to you. 

MR. ADAMS: Thank you. I just want to 

agree with several of the comments that have been made 

here that the changes to the standard provide 

significant discretion to the Department with no clear 

or workable standard for an institution to follow. We're 

having trouble following what does it mean to have 

adequate services or reasonable efforts for timely 

disbursements or high withdrawal rates. Right now, those 

changes are just so vague that I'd like to see some 

subregulatory guidance explaining what the Department 

believes to be adequate regarding these current 

unmeasurable statements. Thank you. 

MR. MARTIN: Thanks for your comment. 

We'll definitely look at that. Again, we don't want to 

be too prescriptive. It's not our intention to say that 

you know you must disperse you know within five days at 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

the beginning of a payment period or something like 

that, because we understand that there are different 

considerations at all different kinds of institutions. 

But we have we have seen and we know what's taking place 

that there are instances where students' disbursements 

are being delayed, and it's not in any way in the best 

interest of students, and we're concerned that students 

have adequate resources to pay for their education, and 

that's why we've put that in there, and I will agree 

that the Department does have discretion here, 

considerable discretion, but that we believe that's 

necessary to safeguard the interests of students. 

However, we are certainly open to any text you can 

provide or parameters you want to put around, you might 

want to suggest putting around any of this. 

MR. ROBERTS: Jessica, go ahead. 

MS. RANUCCI: Thank you. I just want 

to express support for the reasons behind the 

Department, putting these ideas into the regulation. You 

now, as a legal services attorney, I see things when 

they've gone the most wrong and these are some of the 

problems that we see in our office all the time, you 

know, people who report that the career services at 

their school were Craigslist.com, you know, like not 

even related to their field or program of study, people 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

who can't get licensure in their field because they 

can't get an externship or sit for the licensure exam 

without an externship, they can't get an externship and 

they're caught in this catch 22 of not being able to get 

experience, not being able to get licensed, can't get a 

license without experience, can't get experience without 

the license. And I think that the Department's goal of 

putting it and obviously maybe it goes without saying, 

but I'll say it, which is the misrepresentation piece is 

important, that's something we see all the time. You 

know, we help lots and lots of people who have strong 

Borrower Defense claims on similar basis. As to the 

regulatory text, I'm wondering if it may be helpful to 

think about rather than trying to define as a group what 

is adequate, we might it may be easier for us all to 

agree on what is inadequate if we're trying to make 

something a little clearer because I think some of the 

things I've seen, I would imagine everybody in this room 

would agree is inadequate. And it wouldn't be maybe 

difficult to get agreement on some of those where I 

understand there's a lot harder questions about defining 

what is adequate. 

MR. MARTIN: Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Jamie. 

MS. STUDLEY: Sorry. I'm also going to 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

speak right now just to the career services issue. I 

agree that career services are critically important. I 

headed an organization that provided career services in 

a professional field, and I'm fine with the notion of 

measuring capacity and effectiveness as part of the 

administrative capacity criteria. But I'm concerned 

about moving in a direction that sounds like counting 

noses about the number and distribution of career 

services staff when much of the Department's direction 

wisely goes to looking at outcomes, not inputs and 

results. So, I think it would be more helpful to look at 

coherence and effectiveness of student services, and 

adequacy can be measured in a lot of different ways. 

When you think about what good career services overall 

would look like, it involves faculty, adjuncts who know 

the professional field, potentially alumni and student 

services personnel who are doing counseling but not 

called career counseling staff directly. And I just 

worry about narrowing and tightening something when what 

you really want to do is admirable, which is to look at 

the adequacy of career services that are being provided, 

especially for an institution that has made claims about 

providing those services. Accreditors have standards 

relating to career services. So, there is already a 

consideration of the effectiveness and the adequacy of 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

what's being provided in the context of the type and 

mission of that institution. And finally, a detailed 

preparing for GE in a recognized occupation. Many 

schools provide career services to everybody, even if 

they don't fall within the statutory definition of 

gainful or regulatory definition. So, I think that you 

might want to lean harder on the fact that accreditors 

already do this and as you said, Greg, find ways to look 

at places that are genuinely deficient in either not 

meeting their own promises or not having an effective 

service overall. But it's really (i)(2) that I think is 

perhaps something the Secretary would want to consider 

later. The language I realize is considered is not a 

benchmark but putting it into the rule could drive 

people in the wrong, in a direction that is not what you 

want in terms of overall capacity. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, thanks for the 

comment, I think that well, I know it's not it was not 

our intention, and we didn't do it here to establish a 

numeric you know, a cutoff or some type of a formula. 

But again, when you don't do that, I mean, there's an 

upside a downside of that and not doing that, that that 

does leave it open to discretion and I'll take this back 

if people haveMS. STUDLEY: I might. 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

MR. MARTIN: -have language they want 

to give us or something to put parameters around that 

again, where we're willing to look at that. We're strong 

about the need, the need for this to be here. As I said, 

I have seen some instances, some abuses there I think 

warrant this, but I do want to keep the floor open for 

suggestions you might have as to how to maybe, if you 

feel there's some way to remove what some have 

identified as subjectivity. But we'll certainly we'll 

certainly take that back. 

MR. ROBERTS: Great. Barmak. 

MS. STUDLEY: Subjectivity plus wrong 

direction. I'll work on that, Greg. 

MR. MARTIN: Okay, sure. Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Jamie. Barmak, 

go ahead. 

MR. NASSIRIAN: I'm very sympathetic 

to what the Department is doing, but I candidly have to 

say this is so vague and fuzzy and subjective as to be 

basically meaningless. My best suggestion would be for 

the Department to limit itself to ensuring the veracity 

of any representations made by the institution about 

career placement and job placement. That is not a thing 

that the Department is doing particularly well today. 

Let's do that. Let's do that piece first and then get 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

more ambitious down the road to judge whether the 

philosophy Department does a good job of placing people 

in policy positions for better or worse. So, that would 

be my suggestion. I candidly again, I have enormous 

empathy for what you're trying to do. I don't think it's 

going to work. I think it's just going to be more text 

that nobody knows what to make of. I should also say 

there is a whole host of things that are missing in this 

section that I had hoped to see, which I hope we will 

have a chance to introduce, at least because just line 

edits to the text don't quite capture everything else 

that ought to be there that is missing. I'll stop there. 

Thank you. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah. And you know and 

well, first, I do have a lot of credits in philosophy, 

but that that was not my major. I just thought that was 

funny when you said placing philosophy Department placed 

in policy positions. 

MR. NASSIRIAN: I was referring to 

myself, Greg. 

MR. MARTIN: Oh, you were, yeah, you 

were referring to yourself there as a former philosophy 

person place. Well, you know, you've learned a lot of 

good things there you can, you can quote, you know JeanPaul Sartre, or something like that while you're doing 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

policy, that's fantastic, but yeah, and I do, you know, 

actually philosophy does it's a great preparation for a 

lot of stuff. I will say that it's not a bad, especially 

if you had to take courses in logic that can be good as 

well, though, as we all know, maybe logic isn't the best 

preparation some time. But I think that that's those are 

valid points. Let we'll if you want, as I said before, 

we're open to proposals for text if people want to share 

that with us, you know, trying to strike that balance 

between giving the Department authority to address these 

abuses and not being overly prescriptive. And I do, you 

know want to expand this, so while we're at this 

discussion now, I may just include these other things in 

the interest of time, but, you know, asking for you to 

comment on making a reasonable effort with respect to 

the clinical or externship opportunities required for 

completion of a credential in a recognized occupation 

within forty five days of the completion of the 

coursework and also in K, disperses the funds to 

students in a timely manner consistent with the 

student's needs. So, I'd like to hear some comments 

about those two things as well before we move on to 

misrepresentation. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, Carolyn. 

MS. FAST: I think, just a couple of 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

things, one is that I agree with what Jessica was saying 

that there is a real basis for concern about both the 

career services and the internship opportunities issues, 

something that we see a lot in experiences of students 

who were who came in with false promises that those 

would be available and that have difficulty making any 

use of their degree as a result of the lack of in some 

cases internships and clinical opportunities. So, I 

think this is very important, but I do hear the concerns 

that it is not you know measurable, and I thought I 

think there could be something potentially helpful in 

just a suggestion of perhaps identifying examples of 

what would not be acceptable, perhaps even in the 

language of the statute that might be useful. Sometimes 

it happens. And I also had some thoughts about the 

misrepresent- including the misrepresentation. Should I 

hold that comment for later or is this an okay time to 

say that as well? 

MR. MARTIN: Let's first hear if we 

have anything anybody else has any comments about the 

externship and disbursements and then we'll move to 

misrep. But hold that, hold your thought. We'll take 

that next after we get done with this. 

MR. ROBERTS: Next in my queue I have 

Anne. 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

DR. KRESS: Thank you. Again, I want 

to echo that, I think certainly we want to make sure 

that we're avoiding abuses and misrepresentation in the 

system, but I guess I'm looking for a little 

clarification about where the role of accreditors is 

going back to what Jamie was talking about. Where do 

creditors come in here? In most states also, there's a 

state office of licensed professions that provides 

oversight either in conjunction with the Department or 

as a separate board around a lot of the professions that 

you'd be talking about that would require clinicals or 

externships. And they're not those sorts of bodies are 

not referenced or mentioned at all in this document, 

even though accreditation is really one of the gates to 

accessing Title IV funds, period. So what is the 

interrelationship there? 

MR. MARTIN: Well, I think here, you 

know, we're establishing at the minimum, you know, I 

don't I mean, obviously, the requirements from 

accreditors, you know, run the gamut as far as these 

clinical and externship opportunities are concerned, and 

I do understand and the Department understands that it's 

not always easy to get to obtain these or to secure 

these types of opportunities for students. Nevertheless, 

if a program includes internship or externship, we 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

believe it's incumbent upon the institution to make 

certain that students have the opportunity to be to be 

in that in that opportunity without such things as you 

know, we've seen this happen where schools, I don't 

know, you know, I would imagine this is not in keeping 

with what their accreditor wants, but we've seen schools 

basically leave students to their own devices to secure 

their own internships and externships. And that to us is 

not an acceptable practice. Nor is it acceptable for 

student not to be able to complete his or her education 

because they must wait an inordinate amount of time for 

an externship or internship to begin. So, we feel that 

as how does this mess with accreditors? We don't. We're 

not attempting to regulate accreditors accreditation 

agencies here. We're simply saying that we expect this 

to be accomplished within 45 days of the completion of 

the required coursework. If that's a tighter rule, then 

than what an accreditor currently has, then. obviously, 

schools would be required to comply to comply with this, 

but I don't want to in any way belittle the role of 

accrediting bodies and in their efforts to make certain 

that the internships and externships clinicals are being 

offered as advertised, but we felt we feel that there is 

a compelling need to put this in here. And in this case, 

we are being specific with several days that we feel is 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

reasonable. And I think this is, you know, I will come 

right out and say this, I think this is perfectly 

defensible as a student, you know, were I a student 

enrolled in one of these programs where a clinical or 

externship is required, I think I would have every right 

to expect that that all things being equal, you know, 

assuming my academics were good enough to be in the in 

the externship. All things being equal, that that 

opportunity would present itself without my having to, 

you know, get it myself or wait, you know, six months 

for it. So that's my, you know, that's why I think this 

is very important, but it doesn't obviate the role of 

the accreditors at all with respect to these to these, 

these types of opportunities, it just provides a minimum 

number of days, a basis point for us to work from that 

we haven't had before and I think is necessary. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, so I see Kelli, 

Barmak, Jamie and they all have their hands up and if 

it's okay with the Committee, if we can conclude this 

piece with those four and then move right into the 

public comment just so we don't eat into that at all. 

But with that, Kelli, please go ahead. 

MS. PERRY: Thank you. Two, things, 

one, I just want to I'd like to add to what I was 

talking about earlier with the career services because I 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

understand the importance of what the Department is 

trying to do with this, and I agree with it. Something 

to consider would be just to leave I as the statement 

that an institution provides adequate career services to 

eligible students and so on, and remove one, two and 

three. So, remove the specific considerations because 

then it's not something that we need to interpret as an 

institution as to how we meet that adequate career 

services regulation. The second one comment relates to 

the disbursement of funds to students in a timely 

manner. If you could provide some clarity on what the 

disbursement of funds means, simply because the fact 

that it's already required as it relates to Pell, SEOG, 

and TEACH grant programs. What other fundings are you 

specifically trying to address here as far as 

disbursements? Because you've hit the major grant 

programs already and there's already regulations as it 

relates to refunds on credit balances and such. So, from 

a disbursement perspective of funds, what exactly are 

you trying to address here? 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, well, you're right 

that we already do address that to some extent in the 

Pell regs, SEOG, TEACH, where we say it's in the best 

disbursed. And by disperse, we mean you generally 

credited the student's account, right, at times that 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

best meet the students’ needs. We don't have any type of 

anything so far today with respect to DL, direct loan, 

which is a huge part of what we do, right? The only 

regulations that we have currently with respect to 

disbursement is that the disbursement be made at some 

point during the payment period, which can be huge, 

right, a huge amount of time. So that's what we're 

talking about here. Basically stressing that schools 

would not have the option of simply delaying 

disbursements for inordinate periods of time, that they 

have to look at what meets the what needs, what meets 

the needs of the student, timely, consistent with 

students needs and also looking at 668.22, even though 

we've said in preamble text that you can't delay until 

after the 60 percent point and also saying here we will 

address this in the 90/10 paper, but also not delaying 

disbursements to ensure the institution passes 90/10. 

So, these are all reasons for delaying disbursements 

that have nothing to do with the interests of the 

student, and that's what we're trying to regulate here. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, Barmak. 

MR. NASSIRIAN: Multiple screens, and 

I can't find my mouse. I'd like to address the 

externship and clinical issue. I don't quite understand 

why the metric being used is the reasonableness of the 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

effort rather than the rather than securing the 

internship or the clinical experience. If the program is 

subpar, the institution could make not only reasonable 

but heroic efforts to place an unqualified individual in 

an externship that they never had a chance to sit for. 

So, I would alter this to on along two very specific 

paths. One of them is that it must secure as a matter of 

administrative capability, the institution must have 

secured the appropriate specialized or programmatic 

accreditation required for the practice of whatever 

program it offers. And we know that there are and in 

fact, this dates back literally 12 years to the Senate 

hearings, where institutions were offering programs that 

lack the accreditation to allow their graduates to even 

sit for licensure. So, I would make that a condition 

that the institution as a matter of administrative 

capability must have must have secured the appropriate 

specialized or programmatic accreditation required for 

licensure or for to sit for an exam for licensure. And I 

would make the reasonableness not so much a matter of 

effort, but a matter of outcomes that it has secured a 

reasonable number of clinical or externship 

opportunities for its qualified graduates. 

MR. MARTIN: Thank you. We'll take 

that back, and if you have any suggestive text, please 
 

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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

forward that. 

MR. NASSIRIAN: We'll do. Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Jamie, you're next. 

MS. STUDLEY: I first wanted to 

respond to Anne's comment about accreditors role, 

although Barmak's subsequent comment complicates or 

offers other possibilities. I do think that the 

misrepresentation or the claim explicit or implicit that 

you can be qualified to sit for a professional licensure 

or otherwise is a critically important piece. When the 

language, the language here reasonable effort seemed 

consistent with and was not was acceptable to the 

institutional accreditors with which I spoke, but we 

didn't address the more detailed question here. I think 

Kelli's suggestion is a good one or a way to start with 

that and then see whether there are elements that could 

be included, like considering the scope of services, 

expertise of people available and appropriate 

connections to the employer, universe, or community. I'm 

going to say something that I never thought I would say, 

but the placement of the punctuation in the disbursement 

item, I think, could make a big difference. So, look 

with me. This is entertaining Barmak if nothing else. 

Dispersing funds consistent with the student's, 

apostrophe S, individual student's, needs, makes me 
 

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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

wonder whether that's individualized or subjective 

determination. I'm sorry my landlord needs my check 

tomorrow, and you would not be ordinarily giving me my 

check till Friday. Is that really saying that that's I 

am very sympathetic to disbursement and have worked on 

these issues in several ways. But this literal phrasing 

sounds as though a student who said I didn't get it when 

I had to buy groceries or I personally had to pay my 

rent would have a challenge or maybe a complaint against 

the institution when what you want is policies and 

carrying out implementation of those policies that are 

responsive to students', S apostrophe, needs the way 

you've got it [inaudible], I'm going to not beat that 

horse, I'm just going to leave it with you, Greg, and 

all your friends in GC [phonetic]. 

MR. MARTIN: Okay, thanks for that, 

we'll take that back and look at it, and you brought me 

back to I'm not traumatized remembering my 10th grade 

composition teacher, so just kidding. 

MS. STUDLEY: Barmak will tell me if 

I'm crazy. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, some people like 

those things. So yeah, well, we'll look at that, and I 

get we do get the, you know, again when we're saying 

things like consistent with student's needs. That is not 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

something I'm [interposing] 

MR. MARTIN: We just are trying to 

address those situations where students, not so much, 

where students demand their money like today, you know, 

but within a reasonable a reasonable timeframe. And of 

course, that can somewhat be open, you know, they can be 

open to somewhat of a, you know, us using our discretion 

to determine that, but we will take that that back. 

Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Yael, please. I think 

you're muted right now, sorry. 

MS. SHAVIT: I'll make this brief 

because I think others have touched on a lot of what I 

wanted to raise, but I do just want to emphasize just 

from our experience at state AG's offices of 

investigating schools and specifically what has been 

offered, both in the context of career services and 

externship opportunities and the like, that we think 

it's important that the Department is taking this on 

itself and that this is something that should be a 

priority of the Department and not something that's 

relegated solely to the purview of accreditors. And I 

think I agree, Greg, that to the extent that there ends 

up being a department regulation, that is somehow kind 

of above whatever standard an accreditor might have laid 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

out, I think it will change the nature of what a school 

needs to do and potentially and hopefully also change 

the nature of what the accreditors ultimately expect. 

And with that, I'll end this to say I also would 

emphasize that I think a reasonable, a reasonableness 

test should be related to outcomes when it comes to 

externships. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. Alright, so 

we are a little under five minutes from our first public 

comment session. Greg, does the Department has 

everything it needs on this section because what we'll 

do is we can do a quick temperature check, offer folks 

final comment if they are thumbs down and then go right 

into that process if that's okay with you. 

MR. MARTIN: Yeah. So that would be 

through everything through up to M. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. So just a quick 

temperature checks up to M with the caveat, obviously, 

that there is a lot that folks are going to submit for 

additional consideration moving forward. But just with 

the reg text, as it is currently proposed, a quick 

temperature check expressed through your thumb. Hold it 

nice and high in the middle of your screen. Thank you 

very much, so seeing some thumbs down, anyone who's 

thumbs down right now, feel free to come off mute and 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

offer anything additional that's not been clearly stated 

so far in terms of what you would need before we end our 

first session today and move on to public comment. Okay, 

thank you very much. We will pick up tomorrow with the 

remainder of issue paper number two, but just very, very 

briefly for our public commenters. We have several you 

in the waiting room right now. We'll begin admitting you 

in just a few minutes if you wouldn't mind turning off 

your live stream before we admit you, so we don't get 

that echo. You will have three minutes to speak, and we 

do ask that you are pretty prompt with that because we 

will unfortunately need to remove people if they go a 

little over time, just because we do have a full, full 

roster of public commenters and a wait list today. So, 

with that, Cindy, I think we are ready to go to public 

comment. Do you want to admit the first speaker? 

MS. JEFFRIES: Brady, I am admitting 

Jenine Buchanan representing themselves. Alright. 

MR. ROBERTS: I think I just heard 

them leave. 

MS. JEFFRIES: There she is. 

MR. ROBERTS: Ms. Buchanan, can you 

hear us? Hi, good afternoon, Ms. Buchanan, can you hear 

us? 

MS. BUCHANAN: Yes, I can, thank you. 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

MR. ROBERTS: We can hear you. You 

have three minutes for public comment, beginning when 

you start speaking. 

MS. BUCHANAN: Great. Thank you. My 

name is Jenine Buchanan. I'm an associate professor of 

higher education. I'm also a first-generation college 

student. In the late 1990s, I paid my full tuition out 

of pocket with the money I made working at the mall. I 

paid for room and board by working on campus. There, I 

discovered a passion for helping others pursue higher 

education. Went on to enroll in master's and doctoral 

degrees in higher education, taking out federal student 

loans to pay for [inaudible]. After 15 years of 

administrative experience in higher ED and a doctoral 

degree, I was able to become a faculty member. This 

provided a higher salary. With a higher salary came a 

higher repayment plan. Additionally, I was no longer 

able to write off my student loan interest [inaudible]. 

Despite my career and salary progression, there is still 

limited opportunity for saving. The principal on my 

student loans, which remains largely unchanged. I 

applied for PSLF lab certified into 2019. However, I 

learned that I had been in an ineligible payment plan. 

I've now applied for temporary PSLF, however, even under 

TEPSLF, I have seven payments that are considered 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

ineligible because I made payments when I apparently did 

not have a bill. If granted, TEPSLF will be eligible for 

discharge in March of 2024. That said, based on what 

happened so far, I don't trust that forgiveness will be 

[inaudible]. In total, I've owed 125,000 dollars for my 

graduate degree and I have paid back 142,000 dollars, 

which amounts to 7.5 percent interest rate. Despite 

paying back far more than I borrowed, nine years of 

regular on-time payments, I still owe 150,000 dollars. 

In the Great Recession, loans that had negative 

amortization like this would have been deemed predatory 

by our own federal government. For many borrowers, 

principal balances continue to grow over time. 

Discharging a loan that has been paid back in full would 

not would be fair. My story is one of privilege. 39 

[audio] percent of borrowers don't complete a single 

degree. Many black and brown borrowers may never see or 

build wealth while paying back their loans. Unlike prior 

generations, my generation has no problems with pensions 

and saddled with student loan debt with little saved for 

retirement. Instead, we work until we are physically 

unable to pay off the loans that we're supposed to offer 

us a better life than what was afforded to prior 

generation. Our generation gives little to our children, 

which will set back yet another generation. As you 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

consider changes to policy, I ask that you consider the 

following. Make all payments eligible. Revise how 

interest is compounded so that borrowers can apply most 

of their student or their principal. Consider a loan 

forgiven when the principal and a reasonable interest 

rate have been paid back. Borrowers, regardless of 

salary, can have their student loan interest deducted 

from their annual [inaudible] not apply income tax to 

the loans that have been discharged. These changes will 

allow Americans to save money, contribute to the economy 

and build generational wealth. I thank you for your time 

and your consideration. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, Brady, I am 

[audio] David Halperin, an attorney. 

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Halperin, can you 

hear us? Good afternoon, you have three minutes for 

public comment, beginning whenever you start speaking. 

And you're muted right now, just of note. 

MR. HALPERIN: Good afternoon, and 

thanks for the work you're doing. I'm a self-employed 

lawyer and I work on higher ED issues with support from 

charitable foundations, and I have four points. First, 

it's 10 years after the shocking revelations of the 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

Senate Health Committee and about five years after the 

collapse of predatory Corinthian and ITT Tech. Yet there 

remain many companies like Perdoceo and IEC that use the 

same business model, deceptive recruiting, financial aid 

abuse, high prices, low quality. I've spoken with scores 

of whistleblowers who have evidence that these practices 

continue as you meet more people, veterans, single moms, 

and others are enrolling in programs that will destroy 

their financial futures and their dreams. President 

Biden made a promise in 2020. For-profit colleges should 

have to prove their value before getting federal aid. 

That's the right approach. Taxpayers want an end to the 

waste, fraud and abuse, and students are tired of being 

scammed and buried in debt. Second, seeking to block a 

new gainful employment rule, the for-profit college 

industry is pushing its old mantra, treat all schools 

the same. They say it because they know subjecting all 

programs to GE could paralyze this process. The 

authority for the GE provision, the GE rule is the GE 

provision in law, which covers for-profit and career 

programs, so that's as far as the rule can go. Also, job 

placement, defaults, and predatory abuses are far worse 

at for-profits. Third, traditional higher ED and 

effective ethical for-profit schools should support 

rules like GE that identify and penalize the worst 
 

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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

schools. Otherwise, they must compete with unethical 

competitors. Otherwise, they harm the reputations of 

their schools and higher ED generally and blocking rules 

that separate good schools from bad invites more blunt 

instruments like the Pell differential and build back 

better. Fourth, it would be a bad mistake for the 

Department to negotiate with itself and issue weak 

rules. The previous Secretary didn't compromise. She 

gutted the rules. Don't be afraid of the courts. The 

facts and the law are on the side of accountability. 

Don't make the error of thinking a weaker rule is more 

likely to survive a legal challenge. The second GE rule 

was stronger than the first. Yet it was the one the 

courts upheld. And in 2020, when a judge heard from 

students, he threw out the rules and helped students. 

The negotiators here and the Department have the power 

and the duty to advance stronger accountability rules, 

and I hope you will do that. Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Halperin. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Brady, I am admitting 

Amy Laitinen [audio] New America. 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, Amy. Can 

you hear us? 

MS. LAITINEN: I can. Can you hear me? 

MR. ROBERTS: We can, you're coming in 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

nice and clear. You have three minutes for public 

comment, beginning whenever you start to speak. 

MS. LAITINEN: Great, thank you. My 

name is Amy Laitinen. I'm the director of higher 

education at New America. Thank you for holding these 

hearings right after the first set of negotiated 

hearings that ended like a minute ago. I wanted to 

underscore something that Amanda Martinez said earlier, 

which is that the regulations on the table are critical 

to advancing racial equity. And I want to thank the 

committee for adding that critical civil rights voice to 

the table. I am surprised and dismayed, however, that 

the table is still so imbalanced in favor of 

institutions and their proxies. These regulations affect 

students and borrowers, and we only have one combined 

slot for this critical constituency. This is profoundly 

disappointing. But with that in mind, I hope everyone 

will remember Mr. Martinez's words as we get deeper and 

deeper into these proposals, especially as we are likely 

to hear the word burden come up again and again. While 

institutional burden is absolutely something that needs 

to be considered, we also need to think about the issue 

of burden for the students who leave college with debt 

and no degree or debt in a worthless degree, or no debt, 

a degree and are stuck in poverty level jobs despite 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

going to programs that promise gainful employment, and 

the burden of these crappy sorry of these poor outcomes 

is disproportionately borne by black and brown students 

and borrowers. And these are students and borrowers who 

went to accredited colleges that were authorized by 

their states to operate and that receive Title IV 

federal dollars. So, we need to keep that burden front 

and center as we move forward. I am grateful that the 

Department is looking to strengthen at least the 

Department's leg of the triad during this rulemaking, 

and I hope that it will consider strengthening 

accreditation and state authorization in future 

rulemaking or guidance. And one way to do this is by 

strengthening the 2014 GE rule by, among other things, 

adding an earnings threshold in addition to the debt in 

earnings ratio. If we believe that a critical function 

of higher education is to help students gain access to 

and stay in the middle class, then federal higher 

education policy should support programs that do that 

and not support programs that leave students no better 

off than having not gone to higher education programs at 

all. The labor economist Stephanie Cellini, I hope this 

committee will read that argues for such a metric and 

provides a range of options everyone should consider. I 

urge everyone on the committee to remember that students 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

are the ultimate and most important constituent for 

these regs, despite not being adequately represented at 

the table. Thank you to everyone working to strengthen 

the program integrity triad to protect students and 

borrowers, and advance rather than hinder student 

success in racial. Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment. Cindy, I think you're muted, but I see nextMS. JEFFRIES: Sorry, Brady, I am 

admitting. Figueroa Lopez, who is a veteran. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Ms. Figueroa 

Lopez, can you hear us? I just see that you just 

entered. Hey, good afternoon, Mr. Figueroa Lopez, can 

you hear us? 

MS. FIGUEROA LOPEZ: Yes. Can you hear 

me? 

MR. ROBERTS: We can hear you. You 

have three minutes for public comment, beginning 

whenever you start speaking. 

MS. FIGUEROA LOPEZ: Good afternoon. 

My name is Myrna Figueroa Lopez. I am an Air Force 

veteran and just moved out of Washington. I am a single 

mom who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and severe 

PTSD. After a difficult divorce, I enrolled in the 

Information System Management Program, PhD, at Walden 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

University. I wanted to be more independent and create 

stability for my child. Instead, I wasted three years at 

the school, and I have nothing to show for it. I wanted 

to share my story because schools like Walden target 

veterans. They work overtime to get us enrolled, take 

our money and then they turn our back, their backs on 

us. I was pretty much on my own. I was assigned a 

professor, but she never made herself available. Walden 

agreed to refund me for that term, so I stuck around 

with the program. My next mentor was also a veteran, so 

I was hopeful. No such luck, though. When I informed her 

that the methodologist [phonetic] hadn't review my work 

before submitting it to the review board, she went dark 

on me. When I tried to track someone down, anyone to 

help me, everybody was on vacation for summer. Soon 

after, I found out that the professors' and mentors' 

missteps meant that I needed to enroll yet again in 

another term that I needed to pay. When I tried to find 

my mentor, she went on vacation for Labor Day weekend, 

even though it was during the term. I realized all my 

tuition money was going towards the administrators and 

faculty vacation instead of my education. During this 

time, I lost my mother to cancer. My own health 

deteriorated. My doctor said that I should not continue 

for the sake of my health. Walden took everything for 
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me. In fact, I am worse off now than when I had if I 

hadn't tried to go back to school. I don't want any 

other veteran to go through what I did. What are we are 

just trying to get ahead and messed up our world while 

the schools just sit back and count their money? I hope 

you will work to put some restrictions and rules on 

schools like Walden, so they stop targeting us veterans. 

Thank you for your time. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

public comment and for your service. We appreciate it. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, Brady, I am 

admitting, Stephanie Cellini. Before I do that, I would 

like to remind the people in the waiting room that the 

name that you log into the meeting with must match the 

list the name that you registered with, or we won't be 

able to allow you into the meeting. So please take note 

of that. With that, I am admitting Stephanie, who is a 

professor of public policy at George Washington 

University. 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, 

Professor Cellini, can you hear us? 

PROF. CELLINI: Yes, hi. 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon. You have 

three, and we can hear you. You have three minutes for 

public comment that begins when you start speaking. 
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PROF. CELLINI: Hi, everyone. I 

appreciate the opportunity to be here today. My name is 

Stephanie Cellini and I'm a professor of public policy 

and economics at George Washington University. I'm also 

the director of the Postsecondary Equity and Economics 

Research Project or PEER Project, where we're bringing 

together academic economists and policy scholars to 

produce new research on accountability. Much of our 

recent work at PEER relates to the topics raised in the 

Department's issue paper on gainful employment. So, I 

thought I would mention some of it today. In a piece we 

released through Brookings, my colleagues at PEER, Judy 

Scott-Clayton, Leslie Turner, Dominique Baker, and I 

argue for increased accountability in higher education. 

Our piece cites numerous academic studies that 

repeatedly demonstrate that information provision alone 

is insufficient to protect students and reduce 

inequities in higher education. The PEER project has 

also released a new paper by economist Doug Webber. This 

is the first that I know of to ask what the optimal debt 

to earnings thresholds would be for student and taxpayer 

protection. He finds the thresholds around 11 to 12 

percent, quite like the 2014 GE rule would be optimal to 

protect the financial interests of both students and 

taxpayers. In another PEER paper, coauthor Kathryn 
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Blanchard, and I, considered the design and implications 

of an earnings threshold for accountability. We consider 

a benchmark based on the average earnings of young high 

school graduates with no college education that could be 

added to debt to earnings metrics under GE. We discussed 

how a high school earnings metric is consistent with 

economic theory on the returns to education as a stand 

in for pre-college or counterfactual earnings. It would 

also be straightforward to implement, simple for 

students to understand and easily adjusted year to year 

or by state. It's also intuitive. If programs cannot 

show that their graduates have earnings higher than 

young workers with no college, then in principle they 

should not be offered funding through the Higher 

Education Act, which is designed to support post high 

school education. Moreover, my previous work shows that 

many vocational education programs not only exist but 

seem to thrive without access to Title IV, and they 

charge much lower tuition. Kathryn and I also assessed 

the implications of two different potential high school 

earnings benchmarks, a regression analysis suggests that 

sector level and institutional size are much stronger 

correlate to failure of these benchmarks than student 

demographics. And we conclude that a high school 

earnings benchmark could generate needed accountability 
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and ensure value to students without penalizing 

institutions for the students they serve. Kathryn and I 

also have a paper on the underreporting of tipped income 

and alternate earnings appeals under the 2014 GE rule 

that's soon to be released, and there's much more to 

come from PEER. You can find us at 

peerresearchproject.org and follow us on Twitter at PEER 

Research, and please feel free to reach out directly if 

I can be of assistance. Thanks. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment, Professor Cellini. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, Brady, I am 

admitting Ella Azoulay, Generation Progress. 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, Ella, 

can you hear us? 

MS. AZOULAY: Yes, I can. Can you hear 

me? 

MR. ROBERTS: We can. You're coming in 

nice and clear. You have three minutes for public 

comment beginning when you start speaking. 

MS. AZOULAY: Great. Thank you so much 

for the opportunity to comment. I am speaking today on 

behalf of Generation Progress, a national organization 

that works with and for young people to promote 

progressive solutions to key issues that impact us. We 
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hear from thousands of student loan borrowers living in 

dire and heartbreaking conditions because they've been 

duped by a predatory institution or otherwise misled 

about their education or loans. So often the stories we 

hear show the same bottom line. Students, most often 

black and brown students, and students from low-income 

backgrounds, are targeted and sold the dream of higher 

education and a profitable career, but instead get an 

overpriced, low-quality education that wastes taxpayer 

resources and leaves students worse off than they were 

when they started, which includes a pile of debt and 

zero job prospects. Reinstating the gainful employment 

rule is a critical step in ensuring the Department 

successfully protects students from taking on debts they 

are unlikely to be able to repay and ensuring that 

career programs can prepare students for gainful 

employment in a recognized occupation. Hopefully, the 

Department continues to implement more permanent 

measures for institution accountability, which are 

sorely needed, particularly among for-profit colleges 

and those that have recently converted to nonprofit 

status. Some of the most crucial evidence that this rule 

is needed is found in the debt to earnings ratio data 

and repayment rates of borrowers who have attended forprofit colleges. Students at for-profit schools are less 
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likely to graduate, more likely to borrow, are deeper in 

debt and less able to pay off their debt. For-profit 

colleges made it up 98 percent of the programs that 

failed the 2014 rules accountability measure, meaning 

they couldn't demonstrate their graduates earned enough 

to cover the debt they took on to attend. The following 

student experiences best demonstrate the disastrous 

impact of this lack of accountability for for-profit 

colleges. Shantay Jackson from Delaware is a single 

parent and student loan borrower who graduated from the 

Art Institute. She owes 110,000 dollars and can't afford 

payments. The predatory behavior by the Art Institute 

has had a monumental impact on Shantay and changed the 

course of her life. She says, "I am below the poverty 

line because of my student loan debt. My school misled 

me, and my degree is worthless. I can't support my 

family due to the massive debt and not being qualified 

for any jobs." Shantay pursued higher education to be 

able to get a good job and afford healthcare, but 

instead she fell prey to predatory bad actors who made 

her believe her degree would open doors to a career and 

financial stability for her and her family. Christina 

Harvey from Pennsylvania is a first-generation student 

and parent who attended Ashford University and owes 

160,000 dollars in student loans. Christina pursued a 
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degree in mental health so that she could help others, 

and she's now a school counselor. As a first-generation 

student, she was unfamiliar with the differences between 

nonprofit and for-profit schools. She was [audio] She 

was a stay-at-home mom, working overnights to support 

her family while attending school full-time so she could 

live the American dream. She says, "My debt-to-income 

ratio is so high that I'm not able to get a decent 

credit card, car loan, or if I wanted to leave my 

marriage, I could not, [audio] the debt will hang over 

my head for the rest of my life." Finally, Tonya Holes 

is a Nevadan single parent, a first-generation student 

and formerly incarcerated student loan borrower from a 

low-income background who attended [audio]. She owes 

62,000 dollars and has defaulted and can't afford 

payments. I know I'm out of time. Thank you for 

listening to the borrower stories. Thank you for your 

time. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment. We appreciate it. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, Brady, next, I am 

admitting Keith Tully, representing themselves. 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, Mr. 

Tully, can you hear us? 

MR. TULLY: Yes, I can hear you now. 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

MR. ROBERTS: Fantastic. We can hear 

you nice and clear. You have three minutes for public 

comment, beginning when you start speaking. 

MR. TULLY: Terrific, thank you. 

Hello, everyone. My name is Keith Tully. Thank you for 

the Department of Education for holding these hearings 

and allowing for my story to be heard as a veteran. In 

2001, I graduated from the United States Military 

Academy at West Point, and then I went on to serve for 

six years, culminating as a captain and a company 

commander in South Korea. And after several years of 

work in the civilian sector, I went back to West Point 

and worked with the Thayer Leadership Development Group, 

and at that time I was working full-time. But I was 

inspired to go back to school to get my MBA, and I knew 

I needed to find an online program so that I could both 

continue to keep working and support my family and try 

to further my career. And in the Army, I remembered 

there were some soldiers who attended University of 

Phoenix classes online, and they even took classes while 

they were on post. And based off their experiences and 

the glowing recommendation from somebody I respected, I 

had full confidence in the University of Phoenix, so I 

enrolled and as a veteran, I was pleased to find out 

that I could elect to use my GI benefits at the 
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University of Phoenix. Without the class flexibility and 

the ability to use my GI Bill, I probably would not have 

been able to even get my degree, and the flexibility 

allows working adults, veterans and even active-duty 

soldiers to obtain a college degree. And the 90/10 rule, 

in my opinion, does not recognize this reality. There 

are many military and veteran students like me who could 

not complete a traditional in-person education for many 

reasons. And I know I only have a few minutes, but if 

there's one thing that I think everyone should take away 

from today is I hope you understand how important it is 

to support military and veteran students, and please 

prioritize the needs of these students and maybe 

reexamine how the 90/10 rule could impact them, as it 

certainly would have impacted me. Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Tully, 

for your service and for your comment. We appreciate it. 

MR. TULLY: Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, Brady, I am 

admitting Carol Henning, representing themselves. 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, Ms. 

Henning, can you hear me? Well, looks like she's 

connecting the audio right now. Good afternoon, Ms. 

Henning, can you hear us? 

MS. HENNING: Yes. 
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MR. ROBERTS: Great. If you would like 

to shift your camera down a little bit so we can see you 

and then you have three minutes for your public comment, 

beginning whenever you start speaking. 

MS. HENNING: Okay. 

MR. ROBERTS: Perfect. 

MS. HENNING: Ready? 

MR. ROBERTS: Yep, ready. 

MS. HENNING: Okay. My name is Carol 

Henning, and I want to start by thanking you for the 

opportunity to share my point of view today on higher 

education. I am a graduate of the University of Phoenix 

and I enrolled in their MBA program at the age of 59 

because I am a lifelong learner. Being an adult student 

had its challenges. But during my time at the University 

of Phoenix, I met many working adults who were juggling 

full-time jobs, taking care of school-aged children, and 

had other responsibilities, all while working on their 

degrees. University of Phoenix provided all of us with a 

rich education while giving us the flexibility needed to 

be successful. Right now, I believe that not all higher 

education policies consider adult learners like me, and 

it is time to improve on those weaknesses. If it were 

not for the University of Phoenix, I would not have been 

able to get my MBA at 59. When you make decisions about 
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Committee Meetings - 01/18/22 

higher education that only prioritize some students, you 

exclude adult learners like me. Unfairly targeting 

University of Phoenix puts my degree and all my hard 

work into question. I hope you work to make higher 

education more inclusive for working adults and partner 

with us to make higher education truly accessible and 

beneficial for all people. Thank you for your time. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, Brady, I am 

admitting Ellen Gaston, representing themselves. What's 

going on here? 

MR. ROBERTS: There we go. Good 

afternoon, Ms. Gaston, can you hear me? 

MS. GASTON: Yes, can. Yes, I can. 

MR. ROBERTS: Great. You have three 

minutes for public comment, beginning when you start 

speaking. 

MS. GASTON: Thank you very much, I 

really appreciate the opportunity to share my background 

and my perspective on education and to support the 

Department of Education. I have a lifelong commitment to 

education. My formal background includes a bachelor's 

degree from Knox College in economics, with almost a 

complete second degree in physics, a master's degree 
 

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from American U and an online doctorate from the 

University of Phoenix. Also taken some criminal justice 

classes at the Montgomery College. So, I bring to you 

the background of academic rigor, which is demonstrated 

in all those institutions. The online doctorate, which I 

completed in 2011 has allowed me to expand my support to 

a broader student base, including master's students, as 

well as to support the community here in Montgomery 

Village, Maryland, where I serve as the chair of the 

Montgomery Village Audit Committee, providing governance 

and financial oversight support. I can't overemphasize 

the value of education for many students that we have at 

the University of Phoenix and the commitment to 

diversity and to supporting many international students 

as well as deployed military throughout this process has 

been a learning experience for me and an appreciation of 

the opportunity to get to this large community that we 

have. I would be glad to assist the Department of 

Education in any way that I can, and I just want to 

emphasize we really need to be critically objective in 

any of the decisions that involve the education of our 

broad base here in the United States, as well as abroad, 

which many of our school’s support. The online education 

that's been most beneficial to my students, as well as 

to me as we go forward. I would be glad to answer any 
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other questions that you might get about the education 

program. 

MR. ROBERTS: Ms. Gaston, I don't see 

any questions from the committee, but I do want to thank 

you for your public comment. 

MS. GASTON: Thank you very much. Once 

again, the online community here at the University of 

Phoenix is very dedicated to supporting our students and 

a very diverse educational base. Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. Alright, I 

believe that concludes our public comment for the day. 

We were able to admit every registered commenter who 

logged on. So, we do want to thank folks who did 

register for that. There'll be new registration for 

public comment tomorrow, so if you do want a chance to 

address the committee, we will open those up tomorrow 

and you'll get confirmation to speak tomorrow, being 

Wednesday. Thank you to the committee for all your hard 

work today. We will pick back up with issue paper number 

two. Emmanual, I see your hand. 

MR. GUILLORY: Yes, I would like to in 

the morning when we start proposing a nomination to be 

added. And I just wanted to put that on the agenda, I 

guess, before we jump back to the issue paper. 

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. Would you mind 
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sending all that, that documentation to Cindy so we can 

distribute it out to the community so we can consider 

that hopefully over overnight tonight and then pick up 

right with that tomorrow? 

MR. GUILLORY: Okay, and this is not 

an issue. This is a person to be added as an advisor, an 

advisor role. 

MR. ROBERTS: Oh, an advisor role. 

Okay. 

MR. GUILLORY: Yeah. 

MR. ROBERTS: Understood. Yeah, that 

shouldn't be a problem. Okay, not seeing any other 

hands. Again, I want to thank everyone for all their 

hard work, and we will see you tomorrow. 
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Appendix 

Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education 

Zoom Chat Transcript 

Institutional and Programmatic Eligibility Committee 

Session 1, Day 1, Afternoon, January 18, 2021 

From David Socolow (A) State Agencies to Everyone: 

+1 

From Carolyn Fast (P), Consumer Advocates/Civil Rights 

Organizations to Everyone: 

+1 to Yael's comment to reference the items in 157 

From Beverly (primary/MSIs) to Everyone: 

I like that suggestion 

From Jamie Studley (P) Accrediting Agencies to Everyone: 

Isn't one path to achieving those credits be through 

HS dual enrollment courses? 

From Jamie Studley (P) Accrediting Agencies to Everyone: 

pls excuse grammatical error in above 

From Ernest (P), Students/Student Loan Borrowers to 

Everyone: 

Thanks, Will. 

From Beverly (primary/MSIs) to Everyone: 

Yael has basically raised my concern 

From David Socolow (A) State Agencies to Everyone: 

+1 to Yael's point that the State process must include 

in 668.156(c)(2) annual monitoring of institutions' 

compliance with CP requirements in 668.157 
 

 

 

 

 

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From David Socolow (A) State Agencies to Everyone: 

+1 to Will's point that the real metric for a good 

State process is a requirement that the State demonstrate 

that its process only includes true, robust ECPPs that meet 

all the definitions in 668.157 

From Ernest (P), Students/Student Loan Borrowers to 

Everyone: 

+1 Carolyn 

From Yael Shavit (A) - State AGs to Everyone: 

+ 1 to Carolyn's entire comment 

From Amanda Martinez (P-Civil Rights) to Everyone: 

+1 @Carolyn 

From Yael Shavit (A) - State AGs to Everyone: 

+1 

From Will Durden (A) Comm Colleges to Everyone: 

+1 everything David said 

From Sam (P) Fin Aid Admin to Everyone: 

+1 @David 

From Anne Kress (P) Comm Colleges to Everyone: 

+1 @David 

From Johnson Tyler, Brooklyn Legal Services to Everyone: 

+1 to David's comment on tense 

From Mike Lanouette (A) Proprietary Institutions to 

Everyone: 

+1 

From Beverly (primary/MSIs) to Everyone: 
 

 

 

 

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+1 for David's comment 

From Travis (P) Servicemembers and veterans to Everyone: 

+1 to David 

From Anne Kress (P) Comm Colleges to Everyone: 

+1 @David 

From Will Durden (A) Comm Colleges to Everyone: 

+1 Jamie accreditation comment 

From Mike Lanouette (A) Proprietary Institutions to 

Everyone: 

+1 

From David Socolow (A) State Agencies to Everyone: 

But ATB students didn't grad from HS, by definition 

From Kelli Perry (P) - Private, Nonprofit Institutions of 

Higher Ed to Everyone: 

My alternate Emmanuel is stepping in for a comment 

when call on. 

From Anne Kress (P) Comm Colleges to Everyone: 

+1 @Jamie on the “belts and suspenders” aspect v/v 

accredited, comm college programs 

From Beverly (primary/MSIs) to Everyone: 

Like a comparative analysis. That could work. 

From Beverly (primary/MSIs) to Everyone: 

It would be useful to have some form of baseline data 

From Jamie Studley (P) Accrediting Agencies to Everyone: 

I think a cap is a reasonable way to control risk and 

protect students while letting new programs be launched. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The cap would have to be low enough to manage oversight but 

large enough to get meaningful evidence and experience for 

the state and program provider. 

From Jamie Studley (P) Accrediting Agencies to Everyone: 

a state cap might be set on both the total # of 

students and the # of institutions. 

From Beverly (primary/MSIs) to Everyone: 

+1 to Emmanual's comments. Retention and persistence 

are generally good measurements as well as comparative 

dates for median earnings. A cap would provide an 

experimental process and allows for better management in an 

any start up program. 

From Mike Lanouette (A) Proprietary Institutions to 

Everyone: 

Would the proposed cap take into consideration the 

population of the state? I would think it should. 

From Will Durden (A) Comm Colleges to Everyone: 

+1 David 

From Beverly (primary/MSIs) to Everyone: 

+1 to David's comments. Integrated education and 

training with robust partnerships. 

From Anne Kress (P) Comm Colleges to Everyone: 

+1 @David on integrated, quality CPs 

From Will Durden (A) Comm Colleges to Everyone: 

most of our I-BEST programs are "integrated" - they 

include students who came through the adult ed door, and 

those that signed up for the workforce (career pathway) 

program directly. distinctions we make about how students 

access federal aid have to do with whether they come into 

the program with a hs credential. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

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From Anne Kress (P) Comm Colleges to Everyone: 

+1 @Kelli’s question—is there a “reasonableness” 

standard that can be shared? 

From Brad Adams - (P - Proprietary Institutions) to 

Everyone: 

+1 to kelli's question 

From Sam (P) Fin Aid Admin to Everyone: 

+1 @Kelli - how is "adequacy" defined? 

From Ernest (P), Students/Student Loan Borrowers to 

Everyone: 

+1 Debbie 

From Yael Shavit (A) - State AGs to Everyone: 

+ 1 

From Johnson Tyler, Brooklyn Legal Services to Everyone: 

+1 on Debbie's loans vs grants and earning grants 

From Sam (P) Fin Aid Admin to Everyone: 

+1 @Marvin 

From Anne Kress (P) Comm Colleges to Everyone: 

+1 @Marvin on need for clarity on adequacy, admin 

burden, and cost (we have 80K students at NOVA) 

From Beverly (primary/MSIs) to Everyone: 

+1 to Marvin's comments. The clearer the language, the 

easier to comply with regulations and attain more success. 

From Brad Adams - (P - Proprietary Institutions) to 

Everyone: 

Have we thought about how the covid pandemic could 

have impacted the 45-day clinical requirement? 
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1 From Brad Adams - (P - Proprietary Institutions) to 

2 Everyone: 

3 +1 to Barmak's comment. 

4 From Johnson Tyler, Brooklyn Legal Services to Everyone: 

5 +1 to Barmak's suggestion on policing 

6 misrepresentations vs prescribing conduct 

7 From Jamie Studley (P) Accrediting Agencies to Everyone: 

8 + 1 to Barmak about importance of this issue but risks 

9 here, and looking at claims (which relates to the misrep 

item) 

11 From Ernest (P), Students/Student Loan Borrowers to 

12 Everyone: 

13 +1 Jessica, Barmak, and Carolyn's comments. 

14 From Ashley Schofield to Everyone: 

+1 to Kelli's comment 

16 From Anne Kress (P) Comm Colleges to Everyone: 

17 +1 to this accreditation point from @Barmak 

18 From Beverly (primary/MSIs) to Everyone: 

19 +1 to Barmak! 

From Jaylon Herbin (A) Civil Rights & Consumer Advocates to 

21 Everyone: 

22 +1 to Barmak's comment 

23 From Yael Shavit (A) - State AGs to Everyone: 

24 + 1

From Ernest (P), Students/Student Loan Borrowers to 

26 Everyone: 

27 +1 Barmak on outcomes vs. reasonable effort 

 

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1 From Brad Adams - (P - Proprietary Institutions) to 

2 Everyone: 

3 +1 to Barmak's comment 

4 From Beverly (primary/MSIs) to Everyone: 

5 Reasonableness test should be connected to outcomes. 

6 From Carolyn Fast (P), Consumer Advocates/Civil Rights 

7 Organizations to Everyone: 

8 +1 to Tael 

9 From Carolyn Fast (P), Consumer Advocates/Civil Rights 

10 Organizations to Everyone: 

11 *Yael 

12 From Brad Adams - (P - Proprietary Institutions) to 

13 Everyone: 

14 Should we send an email to Cindy for proposing text 

15 changes?