Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and Institutional Quality - 3/6/24 

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 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

 OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

 NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING PROGRAM INTEGRITY 

AND INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY 

 SESSION 3, DAY 3, AFTERNOON

MARCH 6, 2024

On the 6th day of March 2024, the following 

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

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

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome back from the 

lunch break, I'm Cindy Jeffries from FMCS, and I'll be 

the facilitator this afternoon. So to kick us off, I'm 

going to turn it over to Greg and Herman to take us into 

the next steps.

MR. MARTIN: Thank you, Cindy, I 

appreciate that. I hope everybody had a nice lunch. Ibefore we begin this afternoon, I want to just clarify 

what our schedule is going to be. So we're going to start 

with accreditation this afternoon with Herman negotiating 

for the Department there. And we also have- we'll have 

Donna Mangold in as our attorney for accreditation. She 

will be replacing Denise for the purposes of 

accreditation. So we'll have an accreditation discussion 

until 3:00. At 3:00, we hope to come back with- we're 

working on some data and numbers around thresholds for 

state auth. So we're going to come back later on this 

afternoon and have a discussion of where we are with 

that. So shortly then we'll be moving into the discussion 

of accreditation, but I want to make some remarks about 

where we are with accreditation. As we get there, I want 

to provide a broad overview of the work that we've done 

between sessions two and three. And firstly, thank the 

committee for the thoughtful input we received. We 
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received almost 60 pages of feedback to review which 

almost everyone at the table had their name on at least 

one of those documents. So it was an awful lot of 

material. We've carefully reviewed and considered every 

suggestion we have received, and we've worked hard to 

incorporate feedback from all those suggestions in an 

effort at offering a proposal we think everybody- where 

everybody's contributions are reflected. So if you 

submitted something, you'll likely see some of your ideas 

or suggestions incorporated in what Herman will talk 

about this afternoon. The document is not exactly what 

the Department would have put out on our own, but it is 

one that reflects the many different viewpoints that were 

voiced and hopefully gets toward our underlying goal. And 

we hope it is stronger because of that. I do want to 

caveat that we are going to walk through all of- we're 

going to walk through each section one by one. But 

because we received the volume we received, we are unable 

to explain every suggestion that we did take. So we'll 

walk through the sections which will be reflective of 

what we took, but we're not going to be able to address 

each individual proposal or suggestion that we got. We 

just don't have the time. But we will do our best to 

explain the reasoning for the changes we did make. And 

we're very appreciative to everyone on the committee who 
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provided input to us. So with that, I'm going to turn it 

over to Herman Bounds to begin the discussion on 

accreditation. Herman, whenever you're ready.

MR. BOUNDS: Alright. And- okay, 

thanks. Thanks.

DR. PRINCE: Sorry to interrupt. We 

had two hands up, and then we didn't recognize those 

hands, Cindy.

MS. JEFFRIES: I- yep, I got 'em. I 

see one hand, and that is Jessi.

MS. MORALES: And then of course, I 

can't find the unmute. I was just going to- I was just 

going to ask for a quick caucus with Department and 

consumer protections and student groups before we go into 

any further language just to kind of discuss some 

premises on the state auth before we move on toMS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Do you have any 

idea how long that caucus will be?

MS. MORALES: About 15 minutes max. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Alright. So can 

you list for us the names of the participants that you 

want in the breakout room?

MS. MORALES: Yes. If I can have 

Emmett, Carolyn, Magin, and hold on one second, because I 

wrote these down. Hold on. Magin, Robyn, Sophie, Diana, 
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Barmak, Ashlynne, Greg, Denise, and Dave.

MS. JEFFRIES: And Greg from the 

Department?

MS. MORALES: Yes.

MS. JEFFRIES: Or Herman?

MR. MARTIN: Yeah.

MS. MORALES: It's on state auth.

MR. MARTIN: We- so, yeah, state auth, 

so we need- we need David Musser and me. I don't know 

that we have Denise. Donna, is Denise available right now 

or not to your knowledge or not?

MR. ROBERTS: Denise.

MS. MANGOLD: She's on. She's there.

MR. MARTIN: She's there? Okay, 

excellent. So it would be me- it would be me, Denise, 

Dave Musser, and I think that's it.

MR. ROBERTS: Dave left the meeting. 

But if you want to ping him, I canMR. MARTIN: Yeah, we're going to try 

and ping. I'll have Scott try to ping him and get him 

back- get him to come back. He can come back to the 

meeting.

MS. JEFFRIES: So, Jessi, I'm going 

to- I'm going to go ahead and- we'll go ahead, and we'll 

allow the caucus, even though it's not associated with 
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the topic that we're discussing this afternoon. So we'll 

go ahead and do the 15 minutes, and then we'll come back 

and pick up with accreditation. We do need to leave ample 

time for that, okay.

MS. MORALES: Correct.

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright. Thank you.

DR. PRINCE: Well, inquiry, Cindy. If 

that is the case, should we just wait to caucus tomorrow? 

Would the suggestion just to be to caucus tomorrow on 

state authorization, since the topic is for tomorrow?

MS. JEFFRIES: Tomorrow is going to be 

just as hectic as today DC, so let's do it. Let them get 

their discussion had and then the Department can think 

about that overnight.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. Did I miss anyone?

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. 

Welcome back. The caucus has returned to the main table. 

With that, I'd like to move it back over to Greg and 

Herman to finish talking about or start talking about 

accreditation.

MR. MARTIN: So I'll turn it over to 

Herman.

MR. BOUNDS: Alright. Thanks, Greg. 

Good afternoon, everybody. We'll try to get through thatget through this as efficiently and as quickly, but as 
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efficiently as we can. Also remind my colleague and 

wingman, Donna Mangold, Donna just jump in anytime you 

need to, and we can go to the reg text document. I don't 

know who's driving the- oh, Vanessa, okay. Alright. 

Alright, so we'll get started here. Just a reminder that 

the changes that we have made are indicated in yellow. 

We'll go through each section at one time, and then atonce we complete a section, then of course, I'll open it 

up for some discussion. So, yeah, if we can go ahead and 

scan down, I think nothing significant on page two. So we 

will then go to, alright, we'll go to page three. And 

yeah, that's just the definition section. I just want to 

highlight there, then we go to page four. The only things 

that we added were some notes that definitions are in 34 

CFR 600 and its credit hour and distance education was 

moved there. Under (b), added just the word additional 

that was there previously. So nothing there. So nothing 

else on page four. And then we will now go to page five. 

Again, we deleted distance there. Nothing additional 

other than I do want to- let's go back up to five. I know 

this was there previously. I just wanted to reiterate 

here that we changed the talk about the definition of 

institution before it had institution of higher 

education. That was before, so not relevant, but I just 

wanted to, you know, just remind folks of that one. 
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Alright, if we then go to page six. Page six is where we 

start some changes that were different from what we had 

previously posted here. And this is under representatives 

of the public. Again, these changes were made, you know, 

based on comments from different folks on the committee. 

Under three, we added current and then- we have a- Jamie, 

we have a question? Was it on representatives of public 

or something previously?

MS. STUDLEY: Public.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay, I'll get through 

here. And then we'll- when I get through the definitions, 

then we'll come back to it if that's okay.

MS. STUDLEY: Okay. Sure.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. Alright. So we have 

current and then we have contractor or consultant to the 

agency or an employee or contractor or consultant to the 

agency. Those were changes added there. Nothing 

significant there other than the five. And then if we go 

to page seven. Page seven, there's just some strikes 

under substantial compliance. I hope everybody remembers 

we did add after the semicolon, or the agency needs to 

implement policies or standards to reflect compliant 

practice. I think that was there before, but I just know 

folks remembered that. And then we will continue down toI think that might be- maybe ready. Yep. So that takes us 
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through the definitions. And Jamie, I know you had your 

hand up, so please go ahead. And anyone else who has any 

comments in the definition section.

MS. STUDLEY: Thank you. There's no 

time for speeches today and tomorrow, so I'll just say 

that we accreditors take our responsibility very 

seriously within the triad. And we've shown that we're 

willing and able to make changes. So here's an area where 

there are some significant changes, some of which are 

acceptable or even valuable improvements, and we 

appreciate the changes the Department has made. On one, 

we thought that we had agreement from the Department that 

it- that you would- that the new prohibition on people 

with triad experience would only- that the prohibition 

from being public members would apply only to people who 

are currently employed within the triad and would not 

have a backward-looking- the five-year provision. So we 

would propose deleting triad representatives from the 

number four, from the language of section five. The 

effect would be that you couldn't be counted as a public 

member if you were currently with a state or Federal 

agency that was part of the triad, but you could if that 

was in the past. We, for example, have a former governor 

and a former chair of NACIQI on our commission. We'd like 

to be able to keep them. Do you want to do it item by 
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item? I've got one other. 

MR. BOUNDS: Jamie, which section was 

that under? Because I'm reading four here. We scratched 

current or former under four and we just put a current 

employee of aMS. STUDLEY: But then in number five 

it refers back to four and says and applies the five-year 

restriction. I think that may be editing or technical. We 

pointed it out in our comments.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay.

MS. STUDLEY: If that's the 

Department's intent, I think you can just find that 

little place where a four needs to be crossed out. So 

that it- it's not backwards-looking for triad people the 

way it- the way there is a five-year window for others. 

The other piece relates to- you ready to go on.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

MS. STUDLEY: Okay. Is that the 

Department's intent? I guess I should just clarify. We 

can work out the editing later, but are we in agreement 

that that's what the Department said was acceptable 

before? It seems like a wiseMR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I'm trying to 

remember. Donna, do you recall that one?

MS. MANGOLD: I think we need to take- 
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we'll take it back for further discussion. Frankly, I 

just- I don't remember where we landed. 

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I don't remember 

either.

MS. STUDLEY: Thank you. Okay, and I 

think- right, and I think that was one where some of the 

other people who were proposing some of these additions 

had in fact agreed that that was a reasonable balance. 

Let me go to the other one. The other piece relates to 

exclusions based on the roles of siblings, spouses, stepgrandchildren, and people I'm not sure folks can even 

locate. We are thinking about what we might lose in terms 

of capable potential public representationrepresentatives who would be precluded by these tests. I 

can tell you that it is challenging, not impossible. We 

find excellent public representatives, but it is 

challenging to secure the time of qualified volunteers 

willing to work this hard on work this demanding. So we 

ask people to think about the cost, time, and energy it 

would take to do the vetting that this contemplates. Two 

quick ways of looking at it. One is a cost benefit 

analysis. This is not- this is the first but not the last 

time that I'm going to say that we well know that 

referring to burden for accreditors and institutions does 

not carry much weight in this discussion. It's easy to 
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scoff at a thought about burden, but I appreciate that 

some of our fellow negotiators have thought about when is 

it worth it to ask people to do extra work, and when is 

it a distraction for more important things that we could 

be doing? So let's be sure there's value to our 

requirements. So here's the picture. What if in vetting a 

public member, we miss a sibling's spouse's lecture fee? 

Or the brother-in-law did a one-time gig installing cable 

at a college? A step-grandchild forgot that they got paid 

three years ago as an orientation counselor, we would beHerman and his fine staff, would and- notice that, and it 

would be a deficiency by the agency. That is not where we 

should be putting our attention. Public members do have 

value, but we propose that the time period be eliminated 

for all of these family members. We can accept current 

employment. That makes sense. If your brother is the 

provost of an accredited institution by us, you're not a 

public member. That's fair game. [30 seconds] This just 

overdoes it. So we would propose that we eliminate the 

five-year exclusion for all these. We would also strongly 

propose an elimination of all of these extenuating family 

arrangements.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Jamie. 

Others on that particular section? Okay, Herman, back to 

you. 
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MR. BOUNDS: Okay.

MS. JEFFRIES: Oh, Jamie's got her 

hand up again.

MS. STUDLEY: Quick question on 

substantial compliance. I don't know how you want to 

handle it, but you- just, if you wanted to speak to the 

public, I'll pause.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. No, I would just 

want to say that, you know, a couple- I think the 

definition of parent came from 600. I think that's what 

we got that from previously. Donna, you can correct me. 

And then I would just remind too, that, you know, when 

the public members- you know, they have to attest, you 

know, that they meet these requirements. So there would 

be some thought pattern, you know, when they- you know, 

when they are appointed. So I just wanted to, you know, 

make that point, too. It's not that the agency would be 

on its own to try to kind of remember these things. When 

that person is appointed, they would have to sign some 

sort of attestation that they kind of meet these 

requirements, which we think would probably be a little 

helpful in determining whether they meet this definition 

or not. Donna?

MS. STUDLEY: And they would need to 

do it at the point that we were trying to encourage them 
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to take on this responsibility. It- it's a kind of screen 

that people might just go, you know, I've got a big 

family and they've been active, and I don't want to 

attest to something that I can't be sure of, and we could 

lose them.

MS. JEFFRIES: Donna, I think Herman 

asked if you had anything to add.

MS. MANGOLD: I have- no, that's fine, 

Herman.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. Alright. Thanks. 

Alright. And then I guess there was another point before 

we leave this section, there was a question on the 

definition of substantial compliance?

MS. STUDLEY: Simply wondering what 

the change of language- what the Department's intent is 

in changing that language. What do you think will be 

different?

MR. BOUNDS: Let me get to where we 

are here. Hold on. Back down to substantial compliance. 

Again, most of these- most of the strikethroughs were, 

you know, based on recommendation. We got- now that last 

part where we say or the agency needs to implement 

policies or standards to reflect compliant practice, 

nothing in the definition previously said anything about 

having a compliant, you know, compliant policy. So that's 
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why we wanted to put that in the, you know, in the 

definition. Because we're saying that the practice is 

compliant, but we didn't say anything about then amending 

the policy to reflect the compliant practice, which is 

the main thing we want to make sure definitely that the 

policy is okay too.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, I'm not seeing 

any more hands, Herman.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. We will then go 

down to- Vanessa, let's see. We are to Federal Link. And 

in Federal Link. Again, I apologize for moving around. I 

have several notes open here. So under Federal Link, of 

course, we added the language in yellow. And again, most 

of the changes here were made based on comments from 

committee members, in general. The one thing we did here, 

I think, we got a- we got some written suggestions that 

said that we would- that the accrediting agency would 

have to have a program that at least- that had 

participated in this Federal Link for three years. We 

expanded that because that really doesn't work for us. 

Everything that we look at during the recognition process 

is on a five-year- is a five-year window. So if we're 

reviewing a renewal application, we're looking at 

complaints that occurred during the current or the fiveyear recognition period. So here what we're saying is 
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that if a programmatic accrediting agency has a program 

that had participated in its Federal Link, at any point 

during the recognition period, which would be the current 

recognition period, we're saying now that would be an 

acceptable Federal Link. And I think that's what changed 

to reflect. Under (b), we added the word continue and 

that is in a situation where an institution might be, you 

know, excuse me, not institution, an accrediting agency 

may be switching- well, an institution may be switching 

its accrediting agency- I'm sorry, institution may be 

switching accrediting agencies. So in that aspect, we 

would want the institution to continue its use of the 

Federal Link as it's switching to that new accreditor. 

And that would pretty much be for a Title IV purpose if 

it's an institutional accrediting agency. So those are 

some of the changes that we made based on comments under 

Federal Link. So again, if there are any questions there, 

I'd be happy to talk about those. I see a hand from 

Laura.

MS. JEFFRIES: Yeah. Laura's up.

DR. KING: Yeah. So I wanted to thank 

the Department for its willingness to compromise here. I 

think this makes a lot more sense from our perspective. 

Just a quick question. In two- in- sorry, (a)(2) 

romanette two, the- to identify the institutions or 
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programs it accredits that currently participate and 

rely, is that currently intentional or does that also 

mean within the recognition period?

MR. BOUNDS: Yes.

DR. KING: So it currently is 

intentional? 

MR. BOUNDS: Right. Yeah. And it's- it 

doesn't take- it doesn't mean that- yeah, it would be 

within that five-year, within that five-year recognition 

period. And then if there's- if there- and then also the 

ones that may be currently participating. Yes, it is 

intentional.

DR. KING: So it would be possible 

then for- okay, so okay, just let me understand. So, 

institutions or programs it accredits that currently 

participate, how often does that have to happen? Is that 

just when the recognition happens or is that like an 

annual thing?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. This is- we're all 

talking about here during that renewal application. Yes.

DR. KING: Okay. Alright. So then 

[inaudible]

MR. BOUNDS: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. 

DR. KING: Yeah, I was thinking- no, 

that's okay. No, I was thinking it was going to be an 
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annual kind of reporting.

MR. BOUNDS: No, no, no.

DR. KING: Okay. Alright. Yeah, that 

makes sense then. Thank you.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. I'm not seeing 

any other hands, Herman.

MR. BOUNDS: Alright. We will move 

down to 602.11. I don't think there's anything in 11, so 

we'll go to 12. And basically I won't read all this to 

you, but under- look like it's under (b)(2) romanette 

three. And this is just language that we put in to 

basically ensure that the, you know, that the accrediting 

agency has the- has the fiscal and administrative 

capacity to support the expansion of scope. And of 

course, it also said, and if it doesn't explain, you know 

why- explain, you know, how the agency will make the 

necessary changes to support the expansion of scope.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, Jamie.

MS. STUDLEY: Quick comments on 12. 

One is, was that just a word change, or did you think 

that that was a different threshold for showing that the 

agency would have that ability? And then I'll ask you the 

other one as well. There are two places where the 

Department uses the word effective, and it's undefined 
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and vague. It's in- here in 12(a)(2) and then in 602.14 

again. And I've gotten the question about how people 

would- what the Department intends that standard to be.

MR. BOUNDS: So I think we look underI think we take those two a little- I think separately 

here because here I think we're- if we're under threelet's see where we're- and Jamie, where are you? Where 

are you seeing effective under, under 12?

MS. STUDLEY: 12(b)(2).

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. So here I think 

when we're talking about effective accrediting 

activities, I mean that- that's going to have to be 

evaluated, you know, as- effective, proficient. You know, 

does the- you know, does the agency do a thorough review 

of the institution's compliance with its standards? I 

think it's not a- it's not definitive, but it would be a 

look at the totality of an accreditation review, you 

know, the self-study process, all of those things would 

help to- help us to understand whether they've conducted 

effective accrediting activities.

MS. STUDLEY: I have a language 

suggestion that I think may capture what you're saying. 

The language would be, and I can provide it to the 

Department afterward if you want. Conducted accrediting 

activities consistent with its standards and policies. I 
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think it just captures- I just offer it to the Department 

as a clearer improvement that it's- does what it is 

expected to do as opposed to effective, which could have 

much wider meaning. That's it.

MR. BOUNDS: Alright. Any further 

questions about romanette three?

MS. JEFFRIES: I'm not seeing any, 

Herman.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay, great. So then we

will move on to 602.13, looks like. And nothing 

significant under 602.13 that wasn't already discussed. 

So now we can move to 602.14.

MS. STUDLEY: There- you've got two 

hands on 13. 

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. We have two hands 

up on 13. 

MS. STUDLEY: I'll let [inaudible] 

first, just for a change of pace.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Barmak?

MR. NASSIRIAN: Jamie's trying to 

cancel me out, but that's fine. A couple of observations 

on 13. The renewal has been struck, I think partially 

because of Jamie's compelling argument, when the only 

expectation was the production of three letters from 

colleges that it was sort of a meaningless requirement, 
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but I feel like it should be inserted back in if we make 

additional meaningful changes to this provision. 

Specifically, on subpart A, letters of support from the 

agency from at least three accredited institutions, three 

educators, and, if appropriate, three employers or 

practitioners. I think, you know, anybody can find three 

employers of some kind of some description and standing. 

But the piece of this that is perhaps a little more 

meaningful is three licensing authorities if the programs 

being offered by- if the scope of recognition includes 

oversight of academic programs that lead to licensure. 

That's been an area of enormous abuse where institutions 

essentially rely on institutional accreditation by 

institutional accreditors that may have zero capacity in 

reality to judge specialized offerings. And in fact, it's 

most egregious, frankly, when institutional accreditors 

accredit standalone, say, law schools or standalone 

professional programs that do have competent programmatic 

accreditors who in some cases have expelled them. So it 

seems to me like we want to reinsert that renewal or 

somehow insert it back where licensure- licensing 

authorities should also be asked to weigh in on initial 

or renewed recognition based on the activities of the 

accreditor.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 
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Barmak. Jamie?

MS. STUDLEY: I think on this point 

the Department has made a good improvement not to require 

those letters. There are plenty of components of the rerecognition process for existing accreditors that allow 

the Department and the public to rigorously explore all 

such questions. And I think Barmak is right that the 

letters you solicit are not likely to be as helpful as 

the in-depth interchange that takes place in the public 

comment and the inquiry by NACIAI and the Department. I 

rose, as they say, only to make one small point about 

602.13. I think it's in (b), but the requirements for a 

change of scope and it also takes place in the new 

accreditor application process that would require on a 

change of scope, to have an institution commit to 

something it would do many years into the future in an 

apparently irrevocable way just seems like bad policy. 

You can't ask any board to commit years out to a 

decision, in this case, to use a particular accreditor, 

when the circumstances could be very different at the 

time the agency achieves recognition or the expansion of 

scope. And it would be irresponsible of a board to 

promise to do something at a time when the facts may be 

very different. So I would propose an alternative that 

says expect in good faith to rely on or any other 
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language the Department believes is a strong way to say 

that is your current intent. But I don't think they can 

compel a board to make a decision that distant from the 

real circumstances affecting it.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thanks, Jamie. 

There are no further hands, Herman, so you want to go on 

with 602.14.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I think we'll go to 

602.14. Okay. So in 602.14, we have again made some 

changes here based on comments/suggestions from the 

committee. Is there a hand up before I move on here?

MS. JEFFRIES: Jo, is there a question 

on this section or something else?

MS. BLONDIN: Yes, yes, a statement on 

the section.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Can he finish his 

overview? Yeah.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, let me get throughokay, yeah, I'll get through it and thenMS. BLONDIN: I just wanted to get in 

line.

MS. JEFFRIES: Understood.

MR. BOUNDS: So in- again in this 

section, what we- we've made some changes here again you 

know, based on comments from the committee. And basically 
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what we're saying here is that the majority of the 

members of the agency, the decision-making body who 

decides the accreditation or reaccreditation status of 

institutional programs, established the agency's 

accreditation policies, or both, are not executive 

officers or board members of the agency's accredited 

institutions or programs. So first, let me talk about

those first. That first long sentence there. When we say 

majority, we're talking about something that would be 

over 51% would be a majority. So you could have up to the 

50% mark, these types of executives on your decisionmaking body, policy-making body, if they're not- you 

know, if they're not the same. The other thing we're 

looking at here, too, are what we say is what we think of 

as being nonacademic executive officers. And I know 

someone's going to ask me, so who are we calling the 

executive officers? And again, we're looking at, you 

know, presidents, chief executive officers, chief 

financial officers, vice presidents, those types of 

folks. But remember, if they can qualify as academic 

folks, then they don't count in your 50% in that- you 

know, 50% threshold that we have here. If I go down to 

four, there are, you know, minor changes in four, 

effective guidelines. And what we're looking here is just 

to strengthen the language around conflict of interest 
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for the decision makers. And I think that covers it for 

602.14. Again, I'll ask my colleague, Donna, if you need 

to add anything to what I said, please jump in. And then 

after that we can open it up for discussion.

MS. MANGOLD: Nothing more to add.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. Thanks, Donna. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thanks, Donna. So 

with that, we'll go to Jo.

MS. BLONDIN: Okay. Thank you very 

much, Herman, for the explanation. I know that this would 

impact the Higher Learning Commission Board 

significantly. We have eight CEOs and two past CEOs on 

our board of 19. We also are a little confused as to why 

limiting executive level engagement and replacing it with 

the term academic is- it's not clear to me what your 

intention is there. If I have an academic appointment as 

an English professor, is that sufficient? I'm confused. 

The other is the intent here of this proposed rule. I'm 

very concerned that the Department is going beyond the 

current public member legislation and telling accrediting 

bodies how they need to fill these board seats with their 

members. We deliberate, we analyze, we digest information 

on cases for institutions very seriously that come before 

our board. And we also have strong conflict of interest 

policies. I also want to share that HLC is moving toward 
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risk management accreditation in order to respect a 

stronger institutional focus, or respect the 

institutional focus of our stronger institutions, and 

take a look at what metrics we need to continue to 

consider identifying at risk. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Jo. Appreciate 

that. Jamie?

MS. STUDLEY: Accrediting agencies are 

defined elsewhere in these rules as voluntary non-Federal 

peer review agencies. We exist to promote quality 

education and student success. And believe it or not, we 

go through a rigorous process of Federal review 

voluntarily so that we can qualify institutions for Title 

IV eligibility if they want and help them improve. The 

Department reviews our standards and application, the 

adequacy of our budgets and capacities. They observe site 

visits and commission decision meetings. Were puzzled 

about what this is trying to get at. If there's a 

question that commissions are under-resourcing agencies 

so they can't be effective, or that their decisions are 

not supported by facts, you'd think we'd hear about that 

through the NACIQI and senior department official 

process, but we haven't heard about weak standards or 

unsupported decisions. Those decisions are public. So 

there's another way to see what's going on. We have 
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accreditor dashboards that we use to understand how 

institutions are doing. We asked the Department for this 

definition, but because we're just getting it now, we 

haven't been able to be as precise as we would be about 

the effect. In some ways, you know, thinking that 

executive officers most logical definition was CEOs, 

rectors, chancellors. That would probably not have been a 

problem for any of the agencies. But saying whoever is at 

the school, is it the agency that determines who is an

executive officer? At Michigan State, there are 23 

executive officers plus 20 deans. And maybe deans are 

academic in your definition. But student affairs, chief 

diversity officer, are those executive officers under 

your- under that loose definition? It's very confusing. 

But the main point is that we need the expertise of 

senior people who can look at the entire range of an 

institution's mission, program, finances and 

sustainability, planning, and governance. And we need 

people who are used to making those connections. So 

provosts and presidents and chancellors could be very 

useful in that regard, but limiting the proportions of 

the other folks who bring that kind of expertise and 

letting voluntary agencies determine the balance that we 

want as long as we meet the standards is unduly 

restrictive, and I've heard both- no reason why it would- 
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MR. WAGNER: You have 30 seconds 

remaining.

MS. STUDLEY: When we have so many 

other screens in place to tell whether we're doing a 

rigorous job.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jamie. Scott 

Dolan?

MR. DOLAN: Yeah. I mean, I think- I'm 

plus one to Jamie's comments there across the board. You 

know, I'll add, you know, the operations of an 

institution while, you know, the core is academics, you 

know, there's a real need around expertise related to 

financial background and CFOs, given the challenges we're 

facing that many of you have brought up here, right? So 

to limit CFOs from being able to weigh in and share that 

important knowledge, I think is really shortsighted. What 

I don't yet understand clearly from this language is what 

problem we're trying to solve. And I think Jamie asked 

that question, and others have asked that question. And I 

know there are a number of hands up, and I know we have a 

short time, but I really think that question needs to be 

responded to and answered here, right? And again, I think 

I said this in February, but conflict of interest 

policies, a shared definition of what a fiduciary is and 

what it means to be a fiduciary in different roles that 
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you have. And so I will say speaking as- I don't know if 

I qualify as an executive by this definition, but you 

know, it does call into question the integrity of, you 

know, some of my colleagues again, which I think- I think 

we- you know, that gets back to my question around why? 

So it would be helpful to hear a little bit more about 

the context and rationale for this introduction of 

language.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you, Scott. 

Doesn't appear as though the Department has an answer 

right away. I know that you said Jamie may, but I'm not 

seeing anything from her either, Scott.

MR. DOLAN: Yes, I think Jamie asked 

the question that I asked, maybe in a different way.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I'll respond to 

some of that, but I think we have some other hands up, 

so.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Alright. So you 

want to- let's move on with Laura Rasar-King.

DR. KING: Sorry. Having mute button 

problems. So Herman, I was wondering if you could talk 

about how the term executive officer would apply to- or 

how this would apply to a programmatic agency? I thought 

I heard a- you know, a definition of executive officer, 
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meaning sort of presidents or C-suite kind of executives. 

You're not including in that definition, somebody like a 

dean who I would consider to be an academic 

administrator. All of them are, you know, also academics. 

They're teaching classes. They're, you know- can you just 

talk about- a little bit about how that would apply to 

programmatic accreditors?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, sure. So the first 

thing I want to- I'll come back here, but I want to draw 

everybody's attention to 602.14 (a)(3) and (4). And those 

two- and this will definitely answer your question, 

Laura. So you can have on your decision-making bodies, 

especially if you're a programmatic accreditor, you're 

required to have educators and practitioners and in the 

case of a programmatic accreditor, you know, a dean could 

definitely qualify as a- as an educator. I mean, mostsome people would argue the dean could also qualify as an 

administrative personnel. So for programmatic 

accreditors, it's- you probably wouldn't get into a 

position you know, unless you had a, say, a, you know, a 

president of an institution somewhere who was on your 

commission or your board or whatever the decision-making 

body name is. The other thing too I wanted to bring up 

is, you know, you can- again, you can have up to 50% of 

your board or commission, including those folks. There's 
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no limitation on if these members are from other than 

your institutional membership. So if these folks are- you 

could- there- there's no count if they're outside of your 

membership. So there's no issue with vice presidents or, 

you know, these financial officers or any folks like that 

that are outside of your membership. The other reason I 

wanted to draw folks back to 602.15, especially (a)(3), 

if you're an institutional accrediting agency, to answer 

some of the questions, we do require that your decisionmaking bodies have academics and administrators on your 

site visit teams at minimum. So some of those members of 

your boards are going to be administrators and they may 

very well qualify, you know, even under the requirements 

that we have here. So we're definitely not excluding anyanybody with financial experience. We think they're 

needed, and they would probably fit into that category of 

being an administrator. So, Laura. I hope that answered 

your question.

DR. KING: That's really helpful. And 

then just the- just real quick, I wonder if it would be 

advantageous to actually put a definition to executive 

officer in the definition section. I don't- perhaps that 

is where it would go, but I think having that definition 

would be helpful.

MR. BOUNDS: We'll definitely talk 
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about that. Again, Donna, if you have anything to add, 

please jump in. But I was trying to make sure I explained 

that the composition of site teams include both, for 

institutional agencies include both academics and 

administrators at minimum.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. 

Barmak, you're next.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Yeah. A whole series 

of questions have been raised. I'll do my best to respond 

to them. One observation I'd like to make that is that we 

constantly hear about accreditation addressing academic 

quality. We have a kind of a body soul problem here. 

People confuse the physicality of the institution, theyou know, the quad, that administration building, the 

laboratories, the physical campus is not the product. The 

product is the instruction and the learning and the 

teaching and the research. The ephemeral stuff. And those 

ephemeral stuff are the product of the institution. And 

we are constantly told that's what accreditors are about, 

right? Now, going back again to the late 19th century 

roots of accreditation, the idea, I think, at that time 

was that this was the domain of the faculty. We hire 

administrators to take care of the body, pay the bills, 

make sure the lawn is manicured, etc., but we hire 

faculty, and by faculty I don't mean somebody having an 
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incidental appointment, but somebody whose full-time job 

is on the faculty. They're not part of the physicality, 

maintaining the physicality of the campus, that those 

folks are in charge of academic policy. Guess who's 

missing from this reg neg, folks? The faculty. What has 

happened is that the officials who do a great job 

maintaining the physicality of the campus, have elbowed 

their way onto discussions and determinations and 

judgments about the product, which is that ephemeral 

thing that the faculty used to be in charge of. So that's 

the rationale for saying there is a difference between 

having administrators represent institutions and having 

faculty make judgments about academic programs. It's a 

meaningful distinction because obviously, pressures of 

paying the bills can induce practices that generally 

gravitate towards more lenient judgments when it comes to 

what constitutes the product. And I think we're 

attempting to improve on the accreditation process. 

People keep saying, what's the problem? The problem is 

Corinthian. The problem is ITT. The problem is that while 

everybody at this table is beyond reproach, I want to

emphasize that, that there are some bad actors out there 

enjoying the full benefits of accreditation because they 

call the shots. You have conflicts of interest. The whole 

thing is a conflict of interest. We're attempting to 
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change that. Accreditation is voluntary. 

MR. WAGNER: You have 30 seconds 

remaining.

MR. NASSIRIAN: But it should be 

subject to certain Federal rules per the statutory 

language if it wants to be recognized by the Secretary. 

I'll stop there.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Barmak. 

Appreciate your comments. Carolyn?

MS. FAST: Yes, I wanted to express 

support for this provision and say that actually it seems 

like while it's a reasonable compromise, it may not go 

far enough because it's- although I understand the 

argument that you want people with knowledge, this 

provision provides for up to half of the decision-making 

body to be people who potentially have an interest in not 

having the strongest standards possible applied. So I 

think this is a reasonable compromise, although I would 

have liked to have seen it go further in terms of making 

sure that decision-making people are not actually people 

who have a interest and/or a fiduciary duty based on 

their position with a regulated accredited institution.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Carolyn. 

Jamie?

MS. STUDLEY: Hardly know where to 
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begin in three minutes. There is such a difference of 

opinion of- let me start here. I wouldn't have used the 

word product. The purpose of institutions is student 

achievement, which involves learning, which is grounded 

centrally in the learning, as well as, but less critical 

right here, the civic role of the institution, the 

research component, preservation of our culture, so 

forth. It takes many things to secure the kind of student 

achievement that we're talking about. And that we will be 

talking about in a few minutes. Those resources and 

capacity include things like student affairs, but I think 

on this basis, we'd have- we might be arm wrestling about 

whether the vice president for student affairs was an 

administrator- was an executive officer or an academic. 

It requires institutional research. In our view, it 

requires people who can help evaluate whether the 

learning is effective, the people who provide the 

technology that faculty use to incorporate in their 

classes and to be effective. And yes, it includes people 

who were- understand when an institution is healthy 

enough that it can predict- that we can predict as 

accreditors that it can go into the future on a stable 

enough basis to continue to deliver that education such 

that it is safe for us to say this is an institution that 

we can accredit because it is a forward-looking 
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responsibility. So, yes, faculty is absolutely central. 

We have not seen faculty vote differently than other 

members of our commissions. That's not what's going on 

here. This is a peer review process. And to the extent 

that a peer review process does, you know, reflect the 

people who are involved in the activity know well how to 

review it, understand it, and validate it when 

appropriate. But because of the potential that is 

inherent in a peer review process, we have checks and 

balances, including Department review and very strict 

conflicts rules. I can hear you say already, on a micro 

level, there are conflicts that I can't vote on a school 

that I attended or that I ever worked at, or that mythat I have a family connection working at. I understand 

[inaudible]- 

MR. WAGNER: 30 seconds remaining.

MS. STUDLEY: -what the interest is. 

We need all those people. Could we manage within these 

numbers? Probably. We have fine people who want to serve 

on these commissions, but it is not reasonable to 

constrain our authority over ten-year-old examples of 

accreditation problems.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jamie. 

Alright. Any otherMS. STUDLEY: I'll add, are we perfect
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today? We are doing a- the job of accreditors as 

effectively as possible. We're happy to make 

improvements, but this will not improve the rigor of 

accreditation.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Jamie. Okay, 

Herman, back to you. There's no further hands.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. I think at this 

point I'll move on.

MS. STUDLEY: Can I just ask you, in 

light of the fact that we just got the definition today 

while we were in discussions, may I- if we wanted to 

return with a comment or I don't know that there's 

language that it would improve it, but Laura's suggestion 

that we actually get something that would tell us what 

the answer is in writing so that we know what the 

definition of an executive officer is. But I would ask 

that we be able to come back to it tomorrow if necessary, 

given that we didn't have a definition to evaluate, and 

this is an unexpected one.

MS. JEFFRIES: To be- just so I 

understand, Jamie, your request is that since you just 

received the definition or explanation of what is 

encompassing executive officer terminology, you would 

like to be able to come back to discuss just that piece 

tomorrow?
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MS. STUDLEY: Yeah. Yeah. And in that 

definition, is it- is the Department going to set the 

definition or are they intending to leave the words as 

they have them and ask agencies to- or the individual to 

tell you whether they are executive officers? Is it 

institution- you know, it- is the director of X or the 

dean of Y an executive officer in one place and not in 

another based on their own institutional definitions?

MS. JEFFRIES: I'll leave that- that 

would be a decision up to the Department. SoMS. STUDLEY: Yeah, that's a question 

for them. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Yeah, so, Herman, I 

don't know if you can answer that question right now or 

if you need to get back with us.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I think we'll get 

back. I'll get back with you, yeah, on that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Jamie, once we 

hear back from the Department, we'll make sure that we 

get the- whatever information is ever shared with us with 

via negotiators or the Department, we share as quickly as 

possible for transparency reasons. Okay, Herman, back to 

you.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. I think we covered 

three. I mean, four under that section. So I think we're 
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ready to move to 602.15. Just some word splices there. So 

nothing, nothing too significant. And now we will move 

down to 602.16. And we'll start discussions on the 

changes that we made here for student achievement. And 

before I get started, in case I forget, I wanted to just 

point out here that. The changes here that we made in 

student achievement, specifically related to- sorry, 

related to identifying minimal expectations, we limited 

that just to student achievement. So I want to make sure 

that I get that out in case I forget that as I'm talking 

through some additional information from my notes. Under 

one, we added the agency's accreditation standards must 

set forth clear and effective expectations for 

institutions or programs it accredits in the following 

areas. And then we- let's see, romanette- (i) here talks 

about romanette one here. Basically old language. And 

then we just added as established by the institution and 

where feasible and appropriate, the agency standards for 

success with respect to student achievement must. And 

then that's what we have added identify minimal 

expectations of performance, which may include but are 

not limited to language from the old regulations, state 

licensing examinations, course completions, job placement 

rates and then based on comments that we got from 

committee members, we added some new language here where 
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Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and 

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we talk about if the agency determines that setting 

minimum expectations of performance is not feasible or 

appropriate for the institutional program that accredits 

or any particular institution or program or group of 

institutions or programs, its standards should explain 

why such minimum expectations are not required, and 

clearly describe the agency's method for assessing and 

enforcing its student achievement- its standards for 

success with respect to student achievement. So I'll stop 

there just for a second. You know, here is where we 

would, you know, really expect agencies to review their 

student achievement standards. Number one, you know, 

demonstrating, you know, that they are sufficiently 

rigorous, how the agency determined that those standards 

are sufficiently rigorous, and then defining their 

standards, what those minimum expectations should be, 

whether they're qualitative, quantitative, or a 

combination of both, whether there are several elements 

within an agency student achievement standards. But 

again, considering all of those things, we're saying that 

we would be requiring the agency to stay in its standards 

what those minimum expectations would be. And again, we 

have the optional language, which in cases where it may 

not be appropriate for an institution or a specific 

center types of institutions, that agency would kind of 
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have- would have to explain why setting those minimum 

expectations are not appropriate. So I will stop there. 

Well, let's go down and we can get it all at one time. 

Under (b), you know, we talk about here that standards 

should be reviewed periodically and updated and then (c), 

this is based on comments that we got from the committee 

members about, you know, when you establish those 

standards to consider disaggregated data and it could be 

based on race, ethnicity, age, gender, socioeconomic 

status, first-generation college students. There may be 

other categories too, so I will stop there. I think 

there's one more change at the bottom, but we'll get 

that- well, I'll do that one too. If you can scan down to 

page 16. And then the last part we put in, again, based 

on comments that we got from the committee they have to 

have some controls to ensure that student achievement 

data is not manipulated or inflated to make their- to 

make the performance seem better than what it is. So I 

will stop there and I will open up what I know will be a 

passionate discussion here in this area. So we will start 

there.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Sounds good. And 

perhaps we'll take a quick break after this session and 

passionate discussion for leg stretching. Laura, you're 

up first.
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DR. KING: Thank you. So I feel like 

I'm the statute police, but I'm going to have to be 

because I think it's important to level set here. In 20 

U.S.C. 1099 (b) there are two things that speaks directly 

to this, right? So the first one is, notwithstanding any 

other provision of law, the Secretary shall not 

promulgate any regulation with respect to standards of an 

accrediting agency or association described in subsection 

A5. So that's the more general prohibition on this kind 

of language. Then, related to student achievement, it 

says nothing in this section shall be construed to permit 

the Secretary to establish any criteria that specifies, 

defines, or prescribes the standards that accrediting 

agencies or associations shall use to assess any 

institution's success with respect to student 

achievement. Specifies, defines, or prescribes. The 

Secretary is prohibited from doing those things in 

statute. So my first comment is that I don't understand 

the statutory permission to do this is the first question 

that I have. And then secondarily, even if, even if 

romanette (1)(a) maybe, maybe could get by, (b) and (c) 

definitely specify and define what an agency has to do 

with respect to student achievement. So can someone 

address the statutory language here and how this relates 

to that?
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MR. BOUNDS: Laura, did you have- I 

know you said (1)(a) you think might be okay. But then 

did you also call out (b) and (c) or just-? 

DR. KING: Yeah, definitely called out 

(b) and (c). A provides a lot of wiggle room. Minimum 

expectations of performance is still specifying. But 

certainly B and C specifies very specifically what needs 

to be done.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, so I will speak to 

(b) first and then I know we have our legal counsel on 

the line. Donna is on, and she may have some things to 

add. And again, based on legal guidance, we didn't think 

that we have overstepped here, but, again, Donna's on and 

she can definitely respond to that. So under (b), when we 

talk about be developed and periodically reviewed and 

updated if necessary, you remember that under- let me get 

my notes here- under 602.15- excuse me, under 602.21, we 

already require agencies to conduct a systematic review 

of standards, and under 602.21, you know, we put 

parameters of how that systematic review of standards 

should be done. So I don't think this is really asking 

any more of what we already asked the agency to do under 

that particular regulation. And thenDR. KING: So why is that not 

sufficient? If it's already there, then why this 
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language? Why is what is already there not sufficient?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I think this is 

just a- for us. We wanted to put that in here too, just 

as a reminder you know, to the agencies under student 

achievement to conduct that periodic review and update as 

necessary. Again, this is just a reminder we wanted to 

put specifically into this portion of the regulation. But 

again, how to do this, again, is covered- already covered 

under 602.21. You know, and then you also talked about 

(c) and in (c) we're saying include considerations of- I 

mean, we're not- and then we're not saying that you have 

to use these categories. We're saying here that these 

categories may include- I say- I- so I think we think (c) 

is fine, but Donna, did you want to jump- do you have any 

comments on this- on Laura's questions?

MS. MANGOLD: Carefully considered the 

statutory language before we went into the rulemaking. We 

heard your- we also heard your comments last time in 

terms of what the statute says on these points, and we 

believe that we are consistent with the statutory 

guardrails. The other thing is, if you look at the 

introductory language to this provision, it absolutelyit says that these elements should be applied where 

feasible and appropriate, which allows another level of 

discretion to the agencies. So we believe that we are 
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within the requirements of the statute.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Jo 

Blondin, you're up next.

MS. BLONDIN: Thank you. So I just 

have a few- two comments and one question. Well, it's 

just kind of a mixture here. So, two terms that concern 

me, and I think we brought this up last time, so I won't 

belabor it, but valid. How do we measure validity? Just a 

question. Enforce is a word that is kind of- goes along 

with the last conversation that we had as well that Laura 

brought up, I mean, just from a statutory- I mean, that's 

a little confusing to me. And then finally, I want to 

amplify the issue again, around may include Federal data, 

because that Federal data shows that community college 

students are not meeting the outcomes set by traditional 

four-year institutions, that a student who starts with me 

and takes one biology class because she wants to transfer 

to Wright State University, is a failure because she 

didn't graduate from Clark State College. So I have some 

concerns about what kind of data will be used and to make 

this more mission-reflective. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Jo. Appreciate 

it. Erika.

MS. LINDEN: I just have a quick 

question from a consistency perspective. Can accrediting 
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agencies have different standards for different types of 

institutions that they accredit?

MR. BOUNDS: Absolutely. That's- yeah, 

absolutely.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Erika. 

Any other hands for this section? Jamie.

MS. STUDLEY: So much to say. 

Accreditors are working actively to incorporate outcomes. 

We are doing much of what's contemplated here. It's not 

resistance to data as a power tool for pushing student 

results. So in that sense, we're all moving and trying to 

move in the same direction. That momentum is taking 

place. NACIQI is doing a lot to drive it by the way that 

they are asking questions about what accreditors do. So I 

think this may be a place where there's momentum and 

regulations may confuse or complicate some very positive 

activity that's taking place. The Department’s best 

contribution might be to improve the completeness and 

timeliness of data. I wonder if IPEDS would meet the 

valid and reliable test that's expected of us. And how 

would we accomplish that? One of the good things about 

accreditation is that we can use a variety of sources and 

decide what weight to give it and what sense to make of 

it. Excuse me. One of the things I'd like to come back to 

in a minute is- on the statutory part, is that reading 
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602.16 alone is not the full picture. It has to be read 

with 602.20, enforcement, so we can talk about it when we 

get there as well. There's- so let me stay with this 

provision and some of the things that we're wondering 

about it. Who decides what's feasible and appropriate? 

And I wonder what- there's a lot of language about, as 

established by the institution, and yet at the same time, 

there are expectations for what the accreditor will do. 

And finally, the- well, why don't I stay with that and 

not pile too many questions on Herman at once? Who is 

going to make those decisions? And then I'll come back to 

Erika's question. Oh, if you don't mind, let me just 

explain. Erika, the word standards here is used in a very 

odd and difficult way. Our standards, and I believe other 

agencies' standards are standards that apply to all of 

our institutions. What we apply are different metrics or 

questions or inquiries or identification of what good 

practice is for a community college or for a specialized 

graduate program. The standards remain the same, but ever 

since this language started to be used, I believe it 

would be clearer if it was referring to measures of what 

it took to meet the standard [30 seconds] which can be 

mission specific and can be adjusted for student 

population, disaggregated data, type of program, mission 

of the institution, and so forth. But the standards of 
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quality and sustainability and ability to plan and 

appropriate governance, those do not differ. So it is a 

confusing use of language.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thanks, Jamie. 

Herman, do you recall the question?

MR. BOUNDS: I think I gotMS. STUDLEY: Feasible, valid, 

appropriate, and reliable.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I got most of it. 

Yeah, let me start real quickly. So I heard- even before 

that, Jamie, I think I heard a couple of things. You 

know, the first question was about, could there be 

different standards for different institutions? So for 

the first part of this whole discussion, I would refer 

folks back to the statutory language under (a) which 

talks about success with respect to student achievement 

in relationship to the institution's mission, which may 

include different standards for different institutions or 

programs. So, you know, the student and our regulations 

say that same thing under romanette one here, where it 

says success with respect to student achievement in 

relationship to the institution's mission, which may 

include different standards for different institutions, 

as established by the institutions. Now we have where 
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feasible, we start talking about what the accrediting 

agency can do. And then, of course, if you look under the 

limitations on a scope of the criteria, which Laura was 

talking about earlier, there is the language there that 

says nothing in this act will prevent an accrediting 

agency from establishing any additional standards that it 

wants to establish. So that's where we're talking about 

here where feasible and appropriate, the accrediting 

agency may have its own set of student achievement 

standards that they want the agency- excuse me, the 

institution to comply with. So we have two things here. 

Number one, if the accrediting agency allows the 

institution to establish its own student achievement 

standards, then what we're looking to see is, okay, then 

accrediting agency, how do you determine that the student 

achievement standards established by the institution, 

number one, are sufficiently rigorous. So how do you 

determine that if you don't establish that for yourself? 

And that's what you all are currently doing to us now 

when you submit your petition for recognition, your 

application for recognition, you have to tell us, okay, 

we let the institution establish, this is how we 

determine whether that's sufficiently rigorous, you know, 

and effective. That's- you tell us that. What we're 

saying now is we want those student achievement standards 
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to identify minimum expectations of performance. Now, if 

you turn that over to your institution, we're saying that 

then those student achievement standards have to identify 

these minimum expectations of performance. If you don't 

establish those and the institution does, you then have 

to review those things and say, okay, we think this is a 

appropriate minimum level of expec- minimum level of 

performance. So what we have here is not, in that aspect, 

it's not straying away from what the statute allows. It's 

either the institution establish it, you determine if 

what they're doing is appropriate. And if you establish, 

then your standards have to include all those things. So 

I hope that in a nutshell kind of answered some of the 

stuff. You had- there were a lot of questions there, 

Jamie, so if I missed something, just, you know, just 

fire back at me. We'll whittle through it.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. I'm 

showing a couple more hands up on this section. Scott 

Dolan has come to the table for private, nonprofit 

institutions in place of Erika Linden. And Scott, you are 

up.

MR. DOLAN: Yeah, I mean, I don't know 

if would be helpful to kind of pull up the statutory 

language just so that we're all on the same page about 

what that shows there. Because I do get a little confused 
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about the different uses of standards underneath this 

section, especially within one, right? And I think that 

was Jamie's question I don't know if we fully addressed 

around the difference between the Department promulgating 

specific standards and potentially suggesting metrics 

that we might use to determine the effectiveness of those 

standards. So, and again, I'm trying to pull up the 

statutory language myself, but given the fact that there 

are some questions and concerns, and I understand the 

Department's perspective, that they feel as though that 

they're within statute, I don't know if it's a shared 

perspective, so looking at those things side by side. 

Main question is in (i), success with respect to student 

achievement in relation to the institution's mission, 

which may include different standards for different 

institutions or programs as established by the 

institution. Are we using standards in different ways 

here? And it becomes confusing to me. To Jamie's point, 

are we introducing more confusion to a process that's 

sort of moving in the right direction based on the work 

that we're doing through NACIQI?

MR. BOUNDS: If you ask me, I don't 

think so, because when you look at that underneath (a), 

then it lists those areas when we're talking about 

standards that we're talking about. You know, we're 
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talking about, you know, other than student achievement, 

standards for curriculum, faculty facilities, fiscal and 

administrative capacity, we're just going down. We're 

just going down that list. When we say standards in a 

general sense, we mean the agency's accreditation 

standards. What do they require for accreditation of an 

institution?

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 

Herman. Jillian?

MS. KLEIN: Thanks. I have a- just one 

specific question and then a general overarching comment, 

and I- sorry, you guys, I put my question in the chat, 

but then nobody gets to it. So I just ended up getting in 

line anyway, so sorry. But my question specifically to 

the exchange between I think Laura and Donna, and then 

Donna's response, which talked about how the Department's 

view- so first of all, I have the same question. I'm not 

a lawyer, so I have same questions on sort of statutory 

authority as other people do. So just would plus one 

that. But to the comment about the Department believing 

that there is flexibility in the feasible and appropriate 

language, it would be helpful to me to hear exactly how 

the Department envisions that flexibility. And I think I 

put in the comment in my question in the chat, if an 

agency doesn't believe that this is statutorily 
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appropriate, then do they not have to do it? I'm just 

really confused about that phrase in general. 

MS. MANGOLD: That is not where we 

were going with that. That is not where it's- where we're 

going.

MS. KLEIN: Okay. So can you be 

specific- more specific about what you mean by that 

phrase? Because I think it's super vague and I don't 

exactly know how to understand it.

MS. MANGOLD: Whether the elements 

underneath are feasible or appropriate given the mission. 

So if it's a situation where there is no Federal data on 

something or, you know, or the Federal data, to Jo's 

question, doesn't speak to your situation, for example, 

you would be able to- you wouldn't be compelled to use 

Federal data. Is it appropriate? Is it feasible? You 

know, is it a- is it depending on the school's mission, 

the school's mission and the programs that they offer? 

Are- there maybe qualitative measures. There may be 

quantitative measures. There may be different measures 

for different schools. So it does- that appropriate and 

feasible is not getting to you disagree with our 

regulations or you disagree with us regulating in this 

area. It means are these elements below applicable, 

relevant, feasible, appropriate for the myriad kinds of 
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institutions that an accrediting agency is looking at and 

trying to ensure rigor about. So that's what we're 

getting at there.

MS. KLEIN: So I just think this- and 

this is my broader comment, which is I think there's just 

a lot of vague language that continues to be in some of 

these red lines, whether it's sort of- Jamie pointed out 

the multiple times that the word effectively is included 

in here, or this phrase like, and I obviously am not an 

agency, so it doesn't directly affect me, but I don't 

know how an agency would be able to feel confident that 

they are in compliance with these requirements, when it 

just feels like there's some really vague terms that are 

being used to describe how an agency could or couldn't 

interpret these. And here's an example where the agency 

might feel like something isn't feasible or appropriate, 

or the Department might have a different perspective on 

it. And I just feel like there's a risk in having 

language that's not more precise in terms of what the 

expectations are. So that's sort of my general comment.

MS. MANGOLD: I'll let Herman speak 

to- he and Jamie were having a dialog a little while ago, 

where they were both nodding their heads about what 

agencies already do. So I think, you know, Herman, if you 

want to answer that part of the question in terms of the 
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vagueness.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. And I think the 

whole thing to remember in a- you know, an application 

for recognition, they're- you know, it's not like a onestop bam and you're- you know, you're found noncompliant. You know, an agency submits the application. 

There's the draft, there are analysts conducting 

observations. There's discussion. And a lot of those, if 

there's, you know, any room for misinterpretation, those 

things are identified. You know, an agency gets a chance 

to, you know, to state its case. So, again, I just want 

to say it's not like a one-stop thing, now you're noncompliant. This is a total dialog that lasts over, you 

know, as it is now, over a couple of years in the review 

process before we come to, you know, some sort of final, 

you know, final conclusion.

MS. KLEIN: Yeah, I understand, I know 

this isn't the first time you've said that to me, Herman,

so I understand being an outsider to that particular 

process. I am appreciative for more insight into how it 

goes. But I would just say, and this is my own neuroses, 

maybe, that I'm imparting on to this. Like, I would be 

terrified if I lived in my day to day job, unsure if I 

was in compliance with expectations for my organization. 

That feels like a really scary place to live. So I would 
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just beg the Department to be clearer with institutions 

or agencies or whomever about what your expectations are 

on them. Instead of saying, well, when we get to the part 

where we grade the exam, if you did it wrong, then we'll 

tell you then and you can tell us why you didn't think 

you did it wrong. Like nobody wants to live in that 

space. We'd rather just do it right to start with. So I 

think there is benefit to having language that's clear to 

all stakeholders about what the Department's expectations 

are.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. I would just toojust add one thing, not only under- not- real quickly, 

not only under student achievement, now we're being a 

little more descriptive here under student achievement of 

things that we want to see. But when you look at all of 

the standards language, we don't prescribe any of the 

content of those standards. You know, because the statute 

doesn't say, you know, we say you have to have standards 

for curriculum, you have to have standards for faculty. 

We have to then look at what the agency provides in those 

areas. We don't go into great detail of what is 

acceptable in any of those areas because we're not, you 

know, we're really not allowed to- we don't do that here 

in student achievement. Again, we're not saying what the 

standards have to be. We're not saying what the content 
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of them are supposed to be. We're just kind of putting 

some parameters around what we want to do. We do want to 

see some minimal expectations and then the agency or the 

institution or however the agency's standards procedures 

allow, you know, we- there has to be an explanation of 

rigor and the effectiveness of those student achievement 

standards.

MS. KLEIN: Yes. And I- that's exactly 

my point. Like what your definition of effective and my 

definition of effective as an agency might be totally 

different. So that is exactly what my point is, is I feel 

like there's a lot of superlatives and vague words in 

here that I just- and I won't say it anymore, but I'll be 

done. I just feel like everybody would benefit from more 

precise language, that's all. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, okay. Thank you. 

Jamie, is your comment relatively quick? We've- I've 

received several indications that a number of negotiators 

need a break. So do you want to give it now or do you 

want to do it after break? You want to do a break?

MS. STUDLEY: Feel free. Did you want 

to- were we going to go to state auth at 3:00?

MS. JEFFRIES: Greg?

MR. MARTIN: I believe that's still 

our intention, but during this break, I will confirm it.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Yeah, we'll- he'll 

confirm that. And, Jamie, in any event, we'll get to your 

question, okay? And then go to state auth.

MS. STUDLEY: If it's- if we pick up 

tomorrow, that's okay too.

MS. JEFFRIES: We will be picking up 

for sure tomorrow. So let's take a break till 3:00. And 

then Greg, you can give us an update of where we're going 

to go, to state auth or continue on with something else 

like this. Okay? Alright.

MR. MARTIN: Sure. Thank you very 

much. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Yep. Okay. Welcome back 

from that short break. Greg, I'll turn it back over to 

you for directions of your next steps.

MR. MARTIN: Okay. Thanks, Cindy. 

Yeah, so we had indicated earlier today that it was our 

intention to come back with some language regarding 

thresholds for state authorization. We're still working 

on that at this moment. So we have my colleague David 

along with Denise and are working on that as we speak. So 

what we're going to do is continue with the discussion of 

accreditation and then we'll let you know when we're 

going to break to have a discussion on state auth.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay.
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MR. MARTIN: Make sense? Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Yep. Thank you. So with 

that, Jamie, let's pick back up with you. You're on mute, 

Jamie.

MS. STUDLEY: I don't want to use more 

than my fair share. Is there anybody else who wants to 

speak at this point? Okay. I'm not the facilitator. Iyou know, I- when we envision how we would do this and, 

you know, I'm very sympathetic to more- to helping 

institutions focus on student achievement, to using 

available qualitative and quantitative measures for that. 

I think there's a lot of good that's taking place. In 

fact, my organization just this week is adding to our 

website the IPEDS information that includes field of 

study and debt to earning- earnings by field of study and 

debt to earnings measures. And we plan to incorporate 

those in conversations with institutions. The problems 

are, as Jillian said, in the expectation of what target 

we're supposed to meet. And I think that the NACIQI 

discussions that have been taking place with accreditors 

have been very thoughtful and useful in this direction. 

What do you look at? How do you use it? What consequences 

are there? How do you measure- you know, how are you 

thinking about what's satisfactory or not? And I think 

that is generating some really good progress. The 
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challenge here is to think about how to do this without 

these regulations stymieing or complicating a movement 

that is taking place and is being pressed by the 

Department and pressed by accreditors. How do we do this 

where institutions have very different programs? A 

programmatic accreditor is in a position to think about 

standards for a particular program. The- an institutional 

accreditor is looking at the capacity of the institution 

to run all of its component parts and not the outcomes 

for each of its- I know there are institutions that have 

30 and 40 programmatic accreditors. Not to substitute for 

that. How does this take into account the difference 

between institutional and programmatic accreditors? 

Institutional accreditors, the one thing we know for sure 

is it doesn't tell you very much to look at the 

graduation rate for a large and complex institution. And 

looking at the debt to earnings ratio is going to be very 

different for the dental school, the business school, and 

the arts and sci- and arts and theater program.

MR. WAGNER: You have 30 seconds 

remaining.

MS. STUDLEY: And what we need to know 

is that the institution has the ability to make those 

kinds of judgments. So the question I would ask you is, 

can you help us- we're focusing on the numeric, the ones 
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that might be amenable to some part of quantitative 

measures. How about curriculum, faculty, student support, 

and facilities? Is the Department anticipating that these 

rules would change what accreditors and therefore 

institutions need to do about standards in those regards?

MR. BOUNDS: No. And I think, if I 

didn't mention earlier, Jamie, we- you know, the, you 

know, the minimum expectations, requirements, and those 

things, we just limited that to student achievement. We 

didn't- that doesn't migrate down into curriculum, 

faculty, facilities, equipment, and supplies. You know, 

with those other- you know, in those other areas, so 

that- that's something that doesn't- is not a requirement 

for those particular areas.

MS. STUDLEY: But doesn't the clear 

and effective expectations language cover them? 

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. Where fee- whereno, not the- we've taken out the- yeah, that minimum that 

cleared. Now the first part where it says forth clear and 

effective expectations, that's, you know, that's 

something that's been there previously. It's not athat's not a totally new statement. I think it said 

before- we just said clear expectations. Here we're 

saying- we're adding the word. You know, we're adding the 

word effective. I get the point where effective can be- 
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it's something that has to be evaluated.

MS. STUDLEY: We assume that if you're 

adding a word- we assume if the Department is adding a 

word, it has some meaning and that we would need to give 

it meaning in what we did and that it's a change from 

something not sufficient.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I think we have 

seen those- in those rare and drastic cases where an 

agency has not been very effective in applying its 

standards, and that could be based on a number of things. 

It could be based on a set or large number or- of, you 

know, of failing institutions or those types of things. I 

mean that effective, it's- I think you and I just- when 

you talk about it earlier, it's does the agency 

effectively apply its standards? Does that whole- does 

the whole, you know, accreditation process of the, you 

know, of the self-study, the site visit report, the 

decisions, again, are those standards applied thoroughly 

to all of its institutions in those particular areas? 

It's a determination of how effective the agency is in 

applying its standards based on the performance or 

drastic performance of institutions or programs.

MS. STUDLEY: I know to a visitor from 

Mars this would sound like gibberish, but the difference 

between setting effective at- clear and effective 
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expectations and the question you were asking, which is 

the typical one that the review process is about and that 

you are used to asking is whether they were applied 

effectively. So there's something- the new part is thethese new ways of thinking about effective expectations 

that we have to- that would have to be said. And there 

are musts in here, not just maybes. You know, I- there's 

a lot in the direction, the directionality of this that 

is consistent with current changes and good practice and 

that I think we- loads of us are spending a lot of energy 

saying, how can we get the best from this kind of 

information when we come back to 20? Having said- it's 

not set these and have a discussion with the institution. 

That, we're all used to doing. They become compliance 

issues. And that's- that combination of rules is a big 

change, even if this one allows for terms that may be 

unclear, but at least I'm hearing the Department's 

intention to leave room for reasonable application like 

feasible and appropriate. Or, you know, but there are 

musts. There are obligations in here that are not very 

clear and that are coupled with compliance requirements. 

And that's given the incredible variety of data 

available, most of which is not perfect data. If thereif it were possible to set criteria for what's good and 

what's not, the Department would have done it [30
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seconds] long ago. I'm done.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. Scott 

Dolan.

MR. DOLAN: Yeah, I guess it just gets 

back to the conversation that we've had. Jo brought it 

up. It's just- and I look at my constituency just in 

terms of the variation in mission and type and how we go 

about doing this and trying to set a single standard of 

clear and effective that doesn't allow for nuance that's 

associated with the complexity across these other areas; 

curricula, faculty, facilities, fiscal, student support 

services. And I asked this question earlier around, you 

know, how do we apply this to curricula, given the fact 

that, you know, disciplines vary greatly. Expectations 

vary by state licensing boards. There's just- I 

understand- to Jamie's point, I also understand the 

intent, and I think there's work moving in this 

direction. I just don't think it's always as simple as we 

try to make it out to be. And, you know, and setting 

those- that type of language forward, along with the 

enforcement stuff, could create more complexity rather 

than trying to simplify where we should be focusing, 

which I think we all agree on, which is around outcomes 

and how those different inputs might help support those 

outcomes. So I think it's maybe getting back to the table 
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and who gets to define effective and what is the 

effective mean given the variation in institutional type 

missions and students that we serve, so. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Scott. Okay. 

I'm not seeing any other hands on this section. Herman, 

you want to move to the next? I will say- Herman, can I 

just say that- to our- the people who have signed up for 

the public comment, and you were assigned a slot or on 

the waiting list, we're about 15 minutes out from 

starting that, so please log into the waiting room 

utilizing the name that you registered under about 15 

minutes prior to your slotted time. So back to you, 

Herman.

MR. BOUNDS: Thanks. Alright. And 

before we leave here, I'm trying to look, and I know, I 

know too in the statute that the term effectively is used 

in several places there. I'm going to try to look through 

there as we go through and kind of point those out. But I 

kind of hope we did- I did kind of try to explain what we 

mean when we were looking- when we use that term 

effective. But let's- we can move down to- and I think we 

covered the last- if we go to page 16, Vanessa. I just 

want to make sure that we covered- 2 is highlighted on 

page 16. So I didn't want to skip over that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Laura, you have your 
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hand up.

DR. KING: Yeah. So I have, I guess, 

two comments. So, we heard a lot of conversation about 

602.16 and I heard really no appetite, no willingness 

from the Department to take any of the conversation into 

consideration. Is that accurate? Is that an accurate 

statement, or is there some consideration of the 

conversation that we just had?

MR. BOUNDS: I'm going to say now, I 

think what we have here is a representation of the 

different comments that we got from committee members. I 

know we're going to go back and we're going to look at 

that definition of- oh, that- excuse me, that was in theof executives. But I mean, we're hearing the 

conversations. We'll have further discussion. But, you 

know, this is the- you know, this is the last session. I 

think, as Scott pointed out to earlier, this- what we 

have here kind of reflects what we've heard from 

everyone. So, you know, not saying that we wouldn't go 

back and make some additional changes, but, we think 

we're about there.

DR. KING: Okay. I mean, I don't feel 

like we're about there. There were a lot of things that 

were kind of dropped on us in this very last session that 

were not- you know, hints of it in the previous two 
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sessions. So I don't feel like we're about there at all. 

So I just, I mean, I guess it is an accurate statement 

then that the Department's not- doesn't have an appetite 

to take the conversation that we just had into 

consideration in the changes?

MR. BOUNDS: I think we're always open 

to go back and have further discussion. I don't know 

based on those discussions, what other additional changes 

that we would make. But at the end of the day, we would, 

you know, we would, you know, definitely discuss the 

conversation today, but that's all that I can- that I 

could probably promise and say.

DR. KING: Okay, soMS. JEFFRIES: Laura, I'd just like to 

point out that accreditation is on the agenda for 

tomorrow. It will be a revised agenda because obviously 

some things got pushed to Thursday that weren't initially 

there, but that it is- accreditation is still on the 

agenda for tomorrow. So today is not the final 

opportunity for the negotiators to discuss and consider.

DR. KING: Sure. And we still have 50 

pages to get through, so I understand. So second comment 

then to number two that we just paused on, why does it 

apply only to distance education? It seems like a very 

accusatory kind of statement to put in there about 
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manipulating data or something. Why would a online 

institution be manipulating data any more than any other 

institution? It's just kind of an odd thing to call out.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Laura. 

Scott Dolan.

MR. DOLAN: Well, I probably could put 

my hand down and wait for an answer to that question, 

because I- that was sort of my question, too. I mean, 

manipulation shouldn't be tolerated, period. Across the 

board regardless. I mean, I think- does that need to be 

called out in regulation? Why specifically to distance ed 

relative to any other institution or modality?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, so I think, yeah, I 

think here- yeah, I think here under, you know, under 

distance, I'm trying to remember our main intent here. I 

mean, and you're right, this would be applicable in any 

situation to ensure that, you know, that standards of 

performance are not, you know, are not inflated. I get 

that it's under two here, under distance education. I 

think in general, we probably meant this as a general 

statement about all- about any situation. So I probably 

need to take a look at this one. Donna, did you have anydid you recall- do you have any comments on this one?

MS. MANGOLD: There are specific 

issues with distance relating to technological monitoring 
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that we are concerned about, but we'll take a look and 

see if this might be placed someplace else. 

MR. DOLAN: I don't know if I'm still 

at the table, but could we define technological 

monitoring?

MS. MANGOLD: What I'm talking about 

is in distance the issue as to making sure students are 

actually participating. Make sure- making sure that those 

are- those- that's monitored, making sure there's 

substantive interaction. Those have specific 

technological issues in distance. And that may be why 

this is here. But again, we'll take a look at it.

MR. DOLAN: Yeah, I'm certainly aware 

of student identity verification requirements. But here 

it's specifically around performance to the standards, 

which seems to be applying across all of this. So, Iyeah, it would be really helpful to have a bit more 

clarity.

MS. MANGOLD: We'll take a look.

MR. BOUNDS: Good point. You do have a 

good point there. 

MS. STUDLEY: Yeah.

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright. Thank you. 

Jamie?

MS. STUDLEY: This one may be a bit of 
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a Rorschach test. I read it completely differently, 

thinking that it was a) in the wrong place, and I thought 

about the students who had spoken in public comment about 

the NCLEX exam and thought that that's what you had in 

mind here. And I was then going to say that as I read it, 

there's a spectrum of behaviors. And at one very 

important end, and the major activity is doing a whole 

lot of things to increase performance to- which would 

have the effect of helping an institution meet standards. 

For example, people who don't know the material have to 

repeat the class, or they have to get tutoring or go to 

the writing center or all sorts of other completely 

valid, desirable, worthy academic efforts to help meet 

the standards. And it should be written in a way that 

doesn't sound like that is inflating. So let's put it in 

the right place, be clear about what it's meant to get 

at, and if there are- if it's technology and if that 

means pretending that somebody in the class and they take 

the exam to show that the school is doing better than it 

really is because they're not really a student, or is it 

the NCLEX effort to meet a pass rate expectation, which 

to me is a cautionary tale about over-rigidity? So, I 

think it would be helpful for people not to be able to be 

criticized for doing things for academic and student 

learning reasons that might look like we want to move you 
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faster to graduation, or we want to be sure that you meet 

the standards of knowing the material that's required.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, let's take Barmak 

and then maybe move on to the next section. Barmak?

MR. NASSIRIAN: Yeah. I don't know 

that everybody will read this text at the Jesuitical care 

that Jamie typically reads every text with, but maybe 

adding the word inappropriately or artificially before 

inflating could address her concern. We certainly don't 

object to institutions striving to improve outcomes. It's 

when they cheat students, as they have. By the way, the 

reason I use ten-year-old examples is I don't want to get 

sued. We are very aware of really questionable practices 

going on under the nose of regulators today. We get 

complaints from veterans all the time. We have a whole 

help line that does nothing but that, and we share those 

with enforcement agencies as appropriate. I don't want to 

name anybody here, but there was a case, as you may 

recall, of a publicly-held corporate provider, that where 

the president of the organization was literally inflating 

placement rates falsely. So this stuff happens, and I 

agree with the comments that have been made that this 

should not uniquely address online, that this is- this 

should be a baseline expectation of all institutions.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I agree.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Okay, 

Herman. Okay, Herman, you want to take us to the next 

section?

MR. BOUNDS: Yes. Looks like. Oh, let 

me go up. 

MR. MARTIN: Herman, before you start, 

I think they're ready to come back with state auth, soMR. BOUNDS: They're ready to come 

back with state auth?

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, this might be a 

good place to break. David wanted a few minutes to come 

back, so I think he's coming back as we speak, so why 

don't we- I just heard that presently, soMR. MUSSER: Yeah, I'm here, actually, 

Greg. 

MR. MARTIN: Oh, thanks, Dave.

MR. MUSSER: Yeah. No problem. So I 

can be quick because I don't have much news yet, 

unfortunately. The Department is still working through 

its analysis on the data. We will come back tomorrow 

morning first thing with both the threshold, an 

explanation of the analysis that we've done, the proposed 

threshold, I should say, and an explanation of the 

analysis that we've done, and our reasoning for use of 

that threshold versus others. But for now, I think we can 
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go back to Herman to do one more walk-through.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Actually we have 

about a minute and a half before public comment starts, 

and we need to start that on time. So perhaps this is 

just a good place to break. And begin the public comment 

rather than getting through the overview and then 

stopping. Is that okay?

MR. MARTIN: I think that's good.

MR. BOUNDS: Sounds good.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. So with that, 

perhaps we can go ahead and get started with our public 

comment, so.

MS. K. SMITH: Alright, Cindy, I did 

admit our first speaker. That is Mac Adkins from 

International Distance Education Certification Center, 

and Mac is in the room.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Good afternoon, 

Mac, can you hear us? You are on mute, Mac. Should be 

bottom left-hand corner, maybe.

DR. ADKINS: There we go. How about 

that?

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright. Well, good 

afternoon and welcome. You will have three minutes to 

address the committee, and you will receive a 30-second 

notice when your time is about to expire. So with that, 
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you can go ahead and begin.

DR. ADKINS: Thank you. Hi, I'm Dr. 

Mac Adkins, representing the International Distance 

Education Certification Center. I'm commenting to provide 

insights on the proposed rule changes outlined in issue 

paper three, specifically addressing the removal of the 

allowance for clock-hour programs delivered through 

asynchronous online learning. I wish to emphasize the 

ongoing necessity for asynchronous online learning to 

continuing offering courses in a clock-hour format 

alongside the credit-hour format. Numerous professions, 

including real estate, appraisal, insurance, financial 

planning, accounting, home inspection, land surveying, 

and engineering have specific regulatory requirements 

mandating a prescribed number of clock hours for 

certification, licensure, and continuing education. The 

rationale for eliminating eligibility for asynchronous 

online courses in a clock-hour format seems to have 

stemmed from concerns that some programs have failed to 

require- to provide the required training. This 

perception may have arisen from a misunderstanding that 

there is no acceptable methodology for quantifying 

instructional activities to meet the stipulated number of 

clock hours. I'm pleased to draw your attention to a 

well-established set of quantitative standards that have 
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been successfully implemented for over two decades. 

Authored in 1998 by the Distance Education- International 

Distance Education Certification Center, these standards 

have undergone regular reviews and updates. They've been 

employed to assess thousands of online asynchronous 

courses from hundreds of online education providers. 

These standards, which are available at IDECC.org, detail 

how instructional activities, including word count, 

external links, interactive exercises, video and audio 

content, diagrams, and assessments are quantified. 

Notably, the standards require that video content may not 

be fast forwarded, must be viewed in its entirety, and 

video content must be immediately assessed. Furthermore, 

these standards mandate all providers to utilize a 

learning management system that tracks and reports the 

actual amount of time learners spend in the course. This 

requirement resolves the perceived issue that online 

asynchronous clock-hour courses are failing to deliver 

the required training by providing tangible documentation 

of the duration of learner engagement. IDECC proposes to 

make these [30 seconds] standards available to higher 

education institutions, without imposing the obligation 

to meet their other standards for instructional design 

and delivery. This collaborative approach ensures that 

the established standards can be seamlessly integrated, 
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contributing to the effective and accountable delivery of 

asynchronous online courses in a clock-hour format. Thank 

you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Dr. Atkins. 

Krystil, who do we have next?

MS. K. SMITH: Our next speaker is 

David Halperin. He's an attorney and counselor, and he is 

in the room.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, David.

MR. HALPERIN: Good afternoon. I'm 

ready when you are.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. You'll have three 

minutes with the 30-second notice just before it expires. 

Okay? With that, go ahead and begin.

MR. HALPERIN: Thank you. Many 

students say a school's status as accredited and 

resulting seal of approval and aid from the Department 

are the reason they enrolled. Because accreditors are 

gatekeepers for Federal Aid, their oversight is critical 

to prevent students and taxpayers from getting ripped off 

by poor quality, overpriced schools. So it's good that 

the Department has started to incorporate concerns about 

bad behaving schools in reviews of accreditors, starting 

with ACICS, which accredited some of the worst. But there 

remain problems that are not, as was said, ten-year-old 
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examples. ACCSC has tolerated years of abuses at CEHE, 

Vadehra, and elsewhere. Data shows many ACCSC schools 

leave students worse off than when they started. SACS has 

permitted blatant abuses at Keiser University. WASC has 

allowed misconduct at Ashford. COE at Florida Career 

College. The Department has started to ask those 

accreditors questions, but under current rules, it hasn't 

taken firm action and predatory behavior is ongoing. The 

rules have done little also to address rampant abuses at 

schools overseen by Higher Learning Commission. HLC has 

long-tolerated predatory conduct at Walden, DeVry, EDMC, 

Kaplan, Ashford, Grand Canyon, University of Phoenix and 

the Perdoceo schools. Perdoceo, in recent years, paid 

$500 million to settle with 48 states and $30 million to 

settle with the FTC over deceptive practices. Numerous 

Perdoceo employees have told the Department the company 

recruiters continue to make misleading sales pitches. As 

to University of Phoenix, in 2015, the Pentagon briefly 

banned it from recruiting based on evidence of 

violations. In 2019, Phoenix agreed to pay $191 million 

to resolve FTC charges. It ran ads falsely suggesting 

ties to major employers. Last year, Phoenix was again 

running deceptive ads, this time falsely implying it is a 

state school. If Phoenix tells these falsehoods in the 

open, imagine what its recruiters tell students one on 
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one. The school's graduation rate is 14%. Many victims 

are low-income. These schools should not be accredited. 

They should not get taxpayer dollars. But under current 

rules, the abuses continue. Last year, HLC renewed 

accreditations of the University of Phoenix and 

Perdoceo's Colorado Tech, each for a full ten years, and 

the Department in turn renewed HLC for a full five years. 

The system isn't working. Accreditors have often failed 

as gatekeepers of integrity and quality. The draft 

regulations are a start to fixing the problem. Thank you 

all for listening.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, David. 

Krystil, who's next?

MS. K. SMITH: Our next speaker is 

Joel Sadofsky. He is representing himself. Joel is in the 

room.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Good afternoon, 

Joel.

MR. SADOFSKY: Thank you. And thank 

you for having me. My name is Joel, and I'm a Macalester 

College student, and I'm also a member of the Macalester 

College Student Government. And I am speaking in favor of 

the provision banning colleges and universities from 

bundling the cost of textbooks and other course materials 

with tuition and fees. As a library student worker and 
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student government member advocating for students and 

academic policy spaces, I've become familiar with how 

automatic textbook billing is forced upon students as the 

textbook industry seeks to combat sustainable and open 

cost saving measures, such as material sharing in the 

development of open educational resources. In October 

2021, Representatives from Macalester's library, 

programing and- academic programing and financial aid 

departments spoke with the student government about a 

possible shift to an automatic textbook billing program. 

At the time, I really appreciated the exploration of 

alternative options. Although, I, and most of the student 

government, ended up advocating against Macalester 

adopting this program once we learned more about the 

actual impact on the cost of materials. I was proud of 

the college and our commitment to shared governance when 

we initially rejected this deal, and I thought that our 

school had made a bold choice to play to our strengths, 

which are a high adoption and creation rate of open 

educational resources due to institutional support and 

our incredible library team and a powerful student 

government partnership with the library to create a 

highly used textbook sharing program. I later learned 

that this was not the end of it. On multiple of the 

committees I sit on, due to my student government- my 
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student government position, I learned that Barnes and 

Noble was giving the college essentially an ultimatum. 

Macalester must transition to Barnes Noble's automatic 

textbook billing program or they would leave, leaving 

Macalester with no cap and gown provider, campus 

bookstore, or merchandise provider. Despite the advocacy 

of me and my classmates suggesting that it was preferable 

to sever ties with the corporation than enter a deal that 

would double the cost of course materials for the median 

student, Macalester entered contract negotiation and is 

poised to start first day complete in the fall with 

misleading [inaudible] communication and a semesterly fee 

over double what the median student spends on course 

materials. As tuition creep weakens access to higher 

education and the integrity of colleges and universities, 

I urge this committee to consider the rule of the 

monopoly- consider the role of the monopolized textbook 

industry in predatory practices such as automatic 

textbook billing, and I strongly support any attempts to 

restrict the power of predatory textbook vendors. Thank 

you for your time.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Joel. 

Krystil, please tell us who's next, but I want to reach 

out to those who are registered that please, you need to 

log in under the same name you registered. If we are 
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unable to identify the name that you sign in under, we're 

unable to allow you into the room. So, Krystil, who is 

next?

MS. K. SMITH: Yes. Next, we have 

Aamina Rehman. Aamina is representing herself and she's 

in the room.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thanks. Aamina?

MS. REHMAN: Hi, everyone. My name is 

Aamina Rehman and I am a psychology major on the pre-med 

track at the University of Michigan Dearborn. The purpose 

of my comment is to express support for the Department's 

proposal to stop automatic textbook billing without 

student authorization. I serve as a senator for my 

school's student government co-representing the College 

of Arts, Sciences and Letters, which is one of the four 

major colleges at the university. I'm also the student 

government representative for my university's Open 

Education Committee, with faculty and staff, and with the 

Open Education Committee, I've written an article about 

the difficulties of automatic textbook billing for 

students, and given a presentation about this topic at 

Digital Education Days 2023, which was attended by 

faculty and staff across multiple universities. So the 

cost of books and courseware impacts many of the students 

on our campus. At times, I've spent hundreds of dollars a 
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semester on textbooks, and I'm not the only one on my 

campus who has had to pay large amounts for courseware. I 

have learned through my involvement in student government 

and through peer engagement, that students can struggle 

to make these purchases in addition to tuition costs. 

I've recruited students from student government to speak 

at the Michigan Academic Library Association panel, which 

was actually today, about the financial burdens of 

required courseware. So with the cost of education 

already being so high in many aspects, control is really 

important for student finances. So automatic textbook 

billing would add to the financial stress faced by 

students. A regulation to make these programs opt in for 

students would center student choice. And I'm aware that 

students are not a monolith. And I recognize that there 

may be some students who support this model. However, a

model that automatically charges all students may harm 

some students in the process. As such, altering the model 

to opt-in would greatly reduce student stress. Many 

students are financially conscious, and if these 

automatic textbook billing programs truly save students 

money, then they will opt in. So thank you to the 

committee for listening to my comment on how important 

this proposal is, because it gives students the power on 

how they choose to spend their money on textbooks.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. 

Krystil, who is next?

MS. K. SMITH: Next, we have Savannah 

Lebedeker, who is representing herself. Savannah is in 

the room.

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, Savannah.

MS. LEBEDEKER: Hello.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome. You will have 

three minutes to address the committee and receive a 30-

second notice just before your three minutes expire. So 

with that, please feel free to begin.

MS. LEBEDEKER: Thank you. Hello, 

everyone. My name is Savannah Lebedeker and I'm currently 

a sophomore studying political science at Florida State 

University. I'm commenting to express my support for the 

Department’s proposal to stop automatic textbook billing 

and give students the right to opt into these changes. As 

a student who is financially independent in college, I 

typically struggle with purchasing necessities on top of 

the exuberant textbook costs I face, especially during 

the beginning of the semester. This past semester, I was 

enrolled in automatic textbook billing and was charged 

over $300 without being provided to choose- without being 

provided the freedom to choose where to buy my books 

from. As a result of this cost, I had to strictly budget 
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my expenses for the first two months of school, visit our 

campus food pantry, and inquire about possible ways of 

paying club dues in two payments, which was admittedly an 

uncomfortable conversation to have. Inclusive access 

programs add to the pressure I face as a student, as it's 

not always clear if I'm enrolled in a course with 

automatic billing. Additionally, I found that the process 

of opting out of this program is complex and confusing, 

as I've tried and eventually gave up on figuring out how 

to opt out. This past semester, I was shocked at the over 

$300 I had to put towards my class materials. In the 

past, I've had some expensive textbooks here and there, 

but nothing near $300. The difference between this cost 

stemmed from the Inclusive Access Program. In past years, 

I've bought second-hand books from upperclassmen, but 

inclusive access completely took away my ability to find 

the cheapest option available. Additionally, as someone 

who learns best through using a physical textbook, 

highlighting and writing notes in margins, inclusive 

access programs have taken away my ability to seek out 

physical textbooks rather than the online ones typically 

provided within inclusive access. I believe implementing 

a regulation where students have the option to opt into 

these programs is an amazing alternative. It would 

greatly simplify matters if I could decide whether to 
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accept the fee, rather than having the added stress of 

potentially being charged without realizing, especially 

considering the chaotic nature that the start of the 

semester has. I believe this model would increase 

transparency among student body and provide students with 

a greater choice concerning their college experience. In 

closing, I want to reiterate my support for the 

Department’s proposal to give students the choice over 

how they're billed for books and supplies. Thank you for 

considering my perspective.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Savannah.

MS. LEBEDEKER: Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Krystil, who is next?

MS. K. SMITH: Our next speaker is 

Sylvia Garcia from Spokane Community College. Sylvia is 

in the room.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Welcome, Sylvia.

MS. GARCIA: Thank you. [Inaudible]

MS. JEFFRIES: No. Go right ahead, 

Sylvia.

MS. GARCIA: Alright. Thank you. I'm 

Sylvia Garcia, and I'm a faculty member from Spokane 

Community College in Washington state. I wish to comment 

on the Department's proposal of removing the definition 

of asynchronous distance education from clock-hour 
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programs. Its impact is quite reaching, especially with 

over 500 community colleges and technical colleges across 

the country offering some form of clock-hour studies. 

First, I recognize the Department's responsibility. It 

needs to be assured of a level of integrity in the 

delivery of distance education. However, that assurance 

can be done in a more refined manner than simply taking 

away a method. I must emphasize this does- doesn't just 

impact our schools, but most of all, it impacts our 

students. Having served over 30 years as the prior chair 

of our Department, I have witnessed the evolution of the 

learner. Prior to the pandemic, most clock-hour program 

training was 100% on site, which required student 

learning only within the walls of the classroom. Since 

COVID, I've seen the emergence of new learners and newer 

technology. I've seen students utilize LMS platforms to 

continue to effectively learn, but with more flexibility 

in time and location. Students can still be trained on 

site during lab and clinic, but also go online to 

complete their theoretical studies. This hybrid format 

has allowed our students greater success. They're still 

learning the information, but have the flexibility to 

balance many other demands while training for a new 

career. Instead of eliminating this from the definition, 

I suggest the Department consider other options. The 
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Department provided guidelines in 2021, and I suggest 

adjusting those guidelines as more effective method. In 

Washington State, our regulatory agency limits the amount 

of distance education for specific clock-hour programs. 

This places the focus on onsite education, but still 

allows for flexibility of distance education. The 

Department may consider capping the number of clock 

hours. Please consider the obstacles this decision will 

have on hundreds of thousands of students and will move 

education progress backwards.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you.

MS. GARCIA: Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Krystil, who is next?

MS. K. SMITH: Our next speaker is 

Matthew Cardwell, who's representing himself. Matthew is 

in the room and looks like connecting to audio.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. So, as a reminder 

to those who signed up to provide public comment, if you 

haven't already done so, please log in. And log in under 

the name that you registered with. Thank you. Are you set 

to go? Matthew, can you hear us? Okay. If you unmute 

yourself, you will have three minutes to speak and 

receive 30-second notice just before that three minutes 

expires. So with that, go ahead Matthew.

MR. CARDWELL: Alright. Good 
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afternoon. Again, yes, my name is Matthew Cardwell. And I 

feel duty-bound to share my experience at Sonoran Desert 

Institute- excuse me, to help other veterans. After I got 

out of the Army, I first attended a community college 

near Dallas, Texas. But I had trouble commuting to the 

school and shortly withdrew. So, I decided I should look 

at an online school. From my time in the Army, I was 

interested in gunsmithing. While I searched for a new 

school, I came across Sonoran Desert Institute, which was 

entirely online. After reviewing the website, it looked 

to me like it had a lot of students who were veterans. 

And at the time, it seemed like a perfect fit. So in the 

fall of 2015, I enrolled in their Associates of Applied 

Science in Firearms Technology. However, after attending, 

I now don't think anyone can honestly teach gunsmithing 

entirely online. It requires a lot of hands-on training 

in machine shops with large tools, which I certainly did 

not have. And they only provided me with some small hand 

tools. The instruction, unfortunately, entire- entirely 

consisted of YouTube videos that I could have watched for 

free on my own. The only graded assignments were actually 

discussion posts. And then for tests I basically had to 

teach myself everything which wasn't even really a 

problem because all the tests were open-book. The 

teachers, in my opinion, practically seemed non-existent. 
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Every email I would receive from them was a no reply 

email. And any time I submitted a question through their 

portal I would receive automated responses. I tried 

contacting the school to get in touch with some of the 

instructors. And for most of the time, I could only get 

in touch with their admissions offices. It seemed to me 

like the program was mostly low-level gun maintenance, 

and certainly not the kind of smithing that I would need 

in order to get a job once I completed the program. So 

after only a handful of months, I left the school. In my 

opinionMR. WAGNER: You have 30 seconds 

remaining.

MR. CARDWELL: Thank you. In my 

opinion, I don't think anyone, any accreditor who has 

actually taken a class at Sonoran Desert Institute would 

have approved the school. Yeah. And I just hope hearing 

that- about my experience will help the committee in its 

work. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you,

Matthew. Appreciate it. Krystil, who is next?

MS. K. SMITH: Our next speaker is 

Akshita Pawar, who is representing herself. And she is in 

the room.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thanks. Good 
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afternoon. If you could unmute yourself.

MS. PAWAR: Hello.

MS. JEFFRIES: Hello. You'll have 

three minutes to address the committee, and you will 

receive a 30-second notice prior to that time expiring. 

So with that, please feel free to begin.

MS. PAWAR: Okay. Hi, my name is 

Akshita Power and I'm a second under- second-year 

undergraduate student at the University of Pittsburgh. 

I'm currently working to get my bachelor's degree in 

Environmental Studies and Economics. After this, I'm 

planning to go to law school to hopefully pursue a career 

in environmental law. The cost of my undergraduate 

tuition, my current cost of living, combined with 

potential costs of law school, forced me to carefully 

consider where I put my money and avoid unnecessary 

costs. I also come from an immigrant family, and I only 

recently received authorization to work and receive 

Federal Financial Aid. So for my first year of college, I 

was entirely on my own in terms of paying for it. Today, 

I wanted to voice my support for the Department’s 

proposal to stop automatic textbook billing, also known 

as inclusive access or equitable access models, without 

acquiring student consent. I understand that inclusive 

access can sometimes be a cheaper alternative to a brand 
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new physical textbook, but being automatically billed for 

a textbook that I did not choose to purchase adds to my 

stresses as a student, especially when the cost of this 

program are not stated outright and forced me to check my 

full tuition bill to even see how much I was paying for 

it. The process to opt out is also unnecessarily 

complicated, furthering my frustrations. This semester, 

for example, I was automatically enrolled in inclusive 

access for an economics course that I'm taking. It was 

briefly mentioned during our lecture, but I was not made 

aware of how much I was paying for it, and I wouldn't 

have known this unless I checked my bill for- my full 

tuition bill and I noticed the charge for inclusive 

access. When I compared the retail price of this textbook 

to the inclusive access price, the inclusive access was 

cheaper. But since I was able to find a PDF version of 

the textbook for free, I attempted to opt out of the 

inclusive access. However, because the process of opting 

out was not clear on the website, I searched how to do it 

online and I found directions to opt out on the 

university's website. But they were not up to date, and 

the process was entirely different on the actual website 

for the inclusive access. It took me such a long time and 

forced me to jump through so many hoops until I was 

finally able to opt out. Being able to choose whether or 
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not I wanted to opt in in the first place would have 

saved me a lot of trouble and a lot of time. I think a 

regulation to make these programs opt in for students is 

a great idea. It would be a lot easier if it were my 

choice to accept a charge, rather than having to worry 

about getting billed without my consent. On top of 

everything else I have to worry about as a student, I 

also think it's important to remember that students come 

from all different backgrounds and circumstances, and you 

can probably find a lot of students who love this model. 

But the reality for many students is that we just don't 

have extra money to help pad the publishing industry's 

profits. Thank you for your time and letting me share my 

support for this proposal that will give students a say 

on how they're billed for books and supplies.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Krystil, who 

is next?

MS. K. SMITH: Next we have Caitlin 

Kadel, who's representing herself. And Caitlin is in the 

room.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Caitlin, can you 

hear us?

MS. KADEL: Yes, I can.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, Caitlin, you'll 

have three minutes to address the committee and receive a 
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30-second notice prior to that expiration of three 

minutes. With that, please begin.

MS. KADEL: Alright. Good afternoon. 

My name is Caitlin Kadel, and I'm a Marine Corps veteran. 

I'd like to take a few minutes today to talk about my 

time at the Art Institutes of Pittsburgh. In 2014, I was 

a single mother with a desire to advance my career in a 

creative field. The Art Institute seemed like a good 

option since the classes were online, so accommodated my 

hectic schedule. The school was eager to sign me up, and 

in retrospect, this was a red flag. The education was not 

good. Whenever I struggled, the teachers were no help. 

Instead, I had to turn to my fellow classmates. The 

material we learned was limited. The school only taught 

us how to use Adobe, which was really expensive and 

harder to access once we left school. I wish we had 

learned more programs and developed a more versatile 

skill set, but because I didn't have a lot to compare it 

to, I thought this was all normal and just how school 

worked. During a particularly difficult period in my life 

in late 2018 to early 2019, I had to pause my studies. 

Afterwards, I went to start classes again, only to find 

the school had closed. I had been given no warning and 

was completely blindsided. For a brief time, their 

website showed my credits would transfer to a handful of 
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other schools, but my local community college told me I 

would have to start from the beginning, that my credits 

wouldn't transfer. The whole experience was very 

frustrating, especially because I used up my GI Bill 

benefits and cannot get them back. I earned those 

benefits and now I have nothing. With raising five kids 

and trying to pay the bills, school's just not an option 

for me at this time. But it's also really hard to do 

anything without a degree. This kind of behavior needs to 

be stopped before students get hurt, because there just

aren't remedies that can make up for everything we 

experienced. I feel it was unfair that I was given no 

warning about the school's closure, and was left with 

limited options afterwards. Please consider rules that 

will protect people like me from abrupt school closings. 

Thank you for your time.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Caitlin. 

Krystil, who's next?

MS. K. SMITH: Our next speaker is Amy 

Hatfield from Columbus State Community College, and Amy 

is in the room.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Good afternoon, 

Amy.

MS. HATFIELD: Hello, my name is Amy 

Hatfield, and I have been a professor of mathematics at 
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Columbus State Community College in Columbus, Ohio, for 

the past 20 years. I really appreciate the opportunity to 

speak before you today regarding the positive impact 

inclusive access has had on the students I teach. 

Columbus State is an open access, two-year institution 

with an average enrollment of 25,000 students per year, 

serving five separate counties in Ohio. In addition to 

offering the first two years of a bachelor's degree 

through transfer partnerships with four-year 

institutions, Columbus State also offers over 200 applied 

associate degree and certificate programs. Supporting 

workforce development in our communities and providing an 

affordable, high-quality postsecondary education is at 

the heart of our mission as a community college. Our 

student demographics at Columbus State are diverse. 20% 

of our students are Black or African American, 25% are 

over the age of 24, and 75% are enrolled part-time. Many 

of our students are working adults and adults with 

children. Over one-third of our students depend on 

financial aid to pay their institution and purchase their 

material costs. These students are making an investment 

in their future and the future of our communities. For 

many students, this investment for a better future 

requires significant financial sacrifice in the present. 

And as their teacher, I am duty-bound to be a responsible 
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steward of their investment and their sacrifice. That is 

why I choose inclusive access for the homework software 

system I use in my math courses. My students pay only $70 

per semester for this software with inclusive access, 

where before they paid $130 per semester, and that's a 

46% reduction in cost while still providing the quality 

software my students need. Software that is proven to 

increase course success rates and close equity gaps. And 

on the issue of equity, assuring that our financial aid 

recipients have access to their course materials on day 

one, just as other students have, is a significant equity 

concern. Students who cannot purchase their materials 

before classes begin because of a delay with financial 

aid, have already fallen behind before they can begin 

through no fault of their own. And such students are far 

more likely to withdraw or fail the course and then 

suffer financial aid consequences. Inclusive access 

removes this barrier for my students, and has become a 

very important part of how I support their success. The 

revised language the Department is proposing will 

eliminate the ability [30 seconds] to ensure my students 

have access to the required software they need on the 

first day at the lowest cost. I urge the Department to 

reconsider their decision to eliminate these programs, 

which have shown so many benefits for so many students. 
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Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Amy. 

Appreciate that. We're going to squeeze in one more if 

that's okay. I'm not seeing any objections. Krystil, give 

us one more person, please.

MS. K. SMITH: Okay, so then our final 

speaker for today will be Kelly Delpino from Pearson 

Campus Ambassador at the University of Pittsburgh. Kelly 

should be in the room.

MS. JEFFRIES: Hey, Kelly, are you 

with us?

MS. DELPINO: Hello, yes.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, so, Kelly, you 

have three minutes with a 30-second notice prior to that 

time expiring. So, please begin.

MS. DELPINO: Hello, I'm Kelly 

Delpino. I'm a junior at the University of Pittsburgh in 

psychology and communications. I value transparency, so 

you should know that I am also a Pearson Campus 

Ambassador, which means that I work directly with my 

fellow students to collect feedback through focus groups, 

surveys, and individual interviews. I hear from my fellow 

students what they think about course material programs 

like [inaudible] Lab at the University of Pittsburgh and 

relay that back to publishers like Pearson, so publishers 
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like Pearson can continually improve their programs. This 

is how I know that the proposed strike to the cash 

management rules that supports access and affordability 

programs will negatively impact students across the 

country, and especially at my campus, which has had an 

access and affordability program since at least 2016 and 

save students 50 to 70% on course materials. These 

programs, often called exclusive access, allow 

universities to acquire course materials for an entire 

class of students with a single order, ensuring that 

students get the materials on the first day of class. 

These programs also allow students to pay for the 

materials using Title IV financial aid, grants, and 

loans, rather than going out of pocket to get the course 

materials they need. I personally appreciate not having 

to find outside sources of funding to get access to the 

highest quality materials. Now, incidentally, the current 

rule established under the Obama Biden Administration 

require the publishers offer the course materials 

included in these programs are below current market 

rates, and as a result, inclusive access programs have 

made a really dramatic contribution to affordability as 

well. In fact, the independent research group, Student 

Monitor, reports that these programs [inaudible 03:07:50] 

a decline of 41% in spending in the category over the 
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past decade. And the other group that looks at this 

student watch found at 57% decline in spending, also in 

large part because of these programs. The College Board's 

most recent report on college pricing notes that students 

now spend an average of use $310 a year in the category, 

making it a very, very bright spot in higher ed 

affordability. As a college student, I value the quality 

of the online learning solutions that are available 

through these programs and appreciate the role they have 

played in driving significant progress in affordability. 

The proposed rule changes will end the right of colleges 

and universities to provide these programs that have 

resulted in a decade-long decline in student spending on 

course materials and dramatically improve student 

outcomes. I support greater transparency, and I think 

that students should be able to know more about how the 

progress around these programs works. So our rule change 

regarding greater transparency would make sense. But the 

fact is that these programs have truly [inaudible 

03:08:48] on the promise of affordability. They must be 

protected and preserved. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Kelly. So 

with that, we are- have concluded the public comment time 

for today and the session of day three, session three. So 

we will see you all in the morning where we will 
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anticipate starting off with state authorization first 

thing in the morning and then moving to accreditation. So 

with that, have a good night.
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Zoom Chat Transcript 

Program Integrity and Institutional Quality- Session 3, Day 3, Afternoon, March 6, 2024 

*Chat was copied as presented, as a result minor typos or grammatical errors may be present. 

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

romper room!!!

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

never said my name

From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone: 

Flagging Jessi’s hand raised.

From P-Jessi Morales, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

I will be calling a quick caucus

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

Scott Dolan will be at the table for private nonprofits for the accreditation discussion.

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Was there a readout from the caucus?

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "Was there a readout ..." with ���

From Cindy Jeffries - FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

Replying to "Was there a readout ..."

 

we are deferring that until we return to state authorization in the spirit of allowing the 

afternoon for the scheduled discussion on accreditation.

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

Reacted to "we are deferring tha..." with ���

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Replying to "Was there a readout ..."
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okay, just wanted to make sure we were following protocol

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Reacted to "okay, just wanted to..." with ���

From Cindy Jeffries - FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

Replying to "Was there a readout ..."

 

@A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs yes and thanks for checking. State authorization 

isn't the agenda item for this afternoon but felt it was best to allow the short caucus so the parties 

could then focus on the agenda item.

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

If you haven't, please mute your mics. Thank you,

From P-Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

I support the language as currently drafted. I see no reason why these individuals should 

take the public slot

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

@P-Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors Would you agree to change language to two or 

three year time frame?

From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "I support the langua..." with ���

From Joe Weglarz (P) NACUBO to Everyone: 

Please turn on my video

From Brady Roberts | FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

Replying to "Please turn on my vi..."

 

Whoops- not sure how it was turned off but I think I fixed it Joe. Apologies!
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From P-Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone: 

Reply to DC: I would consider a one year window, that seems a sufficient 'cooling off 

period' and manageable for a candidate to find out from family to be able to attest

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

Reacted to "Reply to DC: I would..." with ���

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

+1 Jamie's question about "effective"

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 Jamie's question ..." with ���

From Joe Weglarz (P) NACUBO to Everyone:

Replying to "Please turn on my vi..."

 

Thanks !

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Replying to "+1 Jamie's question ..."

 

Query how an agency would know if they will be in compliance with a "not definitive" 

standard.

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Agree on Jamie's language replacing "effective."

From P, Jason Lorgan, Public 4-years to Everyone:

Reacted to "Agree on Jamie's lan..." with ���

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "Agree on Jamie's lan..." with ���

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:
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Reacted to "Agree on Jamie's lan..." with ���

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

agreed that the re-recognition process enables open dialogue for the public to express any 

concerns about the acceptance of an accreditor.

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

+1 Jamie's comment related to requiring an institution to change accreditors in the future.

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Replying to "+1 Jamie's comment r..."

 

could us "could" instead of "will"

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

Reacted to "Reply to DC: I would..." with ���

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Replying to "+1 Jamie's comment r..."

 

*use

From P-Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

on institutional accreditors inappropriately accrediting a law school, we have the example 

of a law school that lost ABA accreditation in 2019, but was accredited by a regional accreditor in 

2021. The school had been on probation for noncompliance with standards related to financial 

resources, academic rigor, bar passage rates, and the requirement to admit only applicants who 

appear capable of completing law school and being admitted to practice law

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

+1 on Jamie's concerns re: public members restrictions, particularly related to step-siblings, 

etc.

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

+1 on Jamie's reflections on agency's decision-making body membership. And, on definition 

of "executive officers".
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From P, Jason Lorgan, Public 4-years to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 on Jamie's reflec..." with ���

From P, Jason Lorgan, Public 4-years to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 on Jamie's concer..." with ���

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Scott--agreed about integrity of my leadership ability and recognition of conflicts.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

erika will step back in for private nonprofits

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

Erka Linden returning for private nonprofits.

From P-Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

I understand that this would not preclude service by people in these categories. It would 

however intrude on agencies' ability to devide the balance it needs, t have to rejigger its board 

when a professor on our commission because for example, chief of staff. How about VP 

institutional Effectiveness -- do we get ot decide if that is academic?

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid orgs. to Everyone:

+1 to Barmak’s and Carolyn’s comments.

From P-Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

Owners and fiduciaries should also be excluded, and the exclusion should apply not just to 

individuals associated with institutions accredited by the agency, but rather any institution 

accredited by an agency recognized by the Secretary

From P-Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

602.16(a)(1)(i)(C) disaggregation language should cite "veteran status" as an illustrative 

example

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Agree with Laura

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:
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is it helpful to bring up the statutory language at some point?

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

To Donna's answer, does that mean that if an agency doesn't believe this section is 

statutorily "appropriate" it wouldn't be required to follow? Just trying to better understand ED's 

view on the flexibility in "feasible and appropriate"

From P-Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

 "validity" refers to accuracy of data while "reliability" generally refers to consistency

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

Scott Dolan will be returning to the table.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

i agree the inclusion of standards there is very confusing

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

Thanks, Jamie. Your response helps explain my confusion which led to my question.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

only referencing this statutory language: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the 

Secretary shall not promulgate any regulation with respect the standards of an accrediting 

agency or association described in subsection (a)(5)”

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

i get confused by the language that is saying we are setting standards for standards

From A-David Cohen, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Could the Department comment on the very specific word "any" contained in the Statute? 

The Secretary shall not promulgate "any" regulation....

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

The other important statutory language is: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to 

permit the Secretary to establish any criteria that specifies, defines, or prescribes the standards 

that accrediting agencies or associations shall use to assess any institution's success with respect 

to student achievement."

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:
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it gets back to who defines effective

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Reacted to "it gets back to who ..." with ���

From P-Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

maybe replace with "vague and ineffective?"

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Reacted to "maybe replace with "..." with �������

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "maybe replace with "..." with �������

From A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

Reacted to "maybe replace with "..." with �������

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Maybe something like "develop clear expectations and effectively apply them"? Not sure 

it's *much* better but trying to be helpful here.

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Replying to "Maybe something like..."

 

602.16

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Agree with Laura, this should be in a section that applies to all schools

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "Agree with Laura, ..." with ���

From P-Barmak Nassirian, Veterans & Military Students to Everyone:

I agree that agency standards should include adequate controls to prevent institutional 

manipulation of standards for all institutions.
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From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Reacted to "I agree that agency ..." with ���

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

and there is often a 6 month wait time to get to the NCLEX

From A, Magin Sanchez, Civil Rights/Consumer to Everyone:

Reacted to "I agree that agency ..." with ���

From P-Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

1. please ask students to let us know if they have complaints, or share with us when it is our 

instituions.

From P-Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

2. i use the care that someone who will have to understand and apply the rules would take

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "1. please ask studen..." with ���

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Replying to "and there is often a..."

 

I should say week (non-Nurse--sorry)

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

One more day!!!!