Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and Institutional Quality – 1/11/24

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 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

 OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

 NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING PROGRAM INTEGRITY 

AND INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY 

 SESSION 1, DAY 4, MORNING

JANUARY 11, 2024

On the 11th day of January 2024, the

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

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

MR. ROBERTS: Good morning, everyone. 

My name is Brady Roberts with FMCS. I'm going to kick us 

off today with a brief roll call and then turn it over to 

Greg Martin, our head Federal negotiator, for just a 

quick update before we start undertaking the tasks of the 

day. So first off, representing business officers from 

institutions of higher education, we are joined by Joe 

Weglarz. Well, we might not be joined by Joe Weglarz yet. 

But we are joined by his alternate, Dom Chase.

MR. CHASE: Present. Yes. Sorry. Joe 

will be just about a few minutes late.

MR. ROBERTS: No problem. Thank you. 

Representing civil rights organizations and consumer 

advocates, we are represented by Carolyn Fast.

MS. FAST: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, Carolyn. And 

her alternate, Magin Sanchez.

MR. SANCHEZ: Good morning. Happy 

Thursday.

MR. ROBERTS: Happy Thursday. 

Representing financial aid administrators, we are joined 

by JoEllen Price.

MS. PRICE: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Good morning. And her 
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alternate, Zack Goodwin.

MR. GOODWIN: Present and good 

morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, Zack. 

Representing Historically Black Colleges and 

Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities and 

Minority Serving Institutions. We are joined by Dr. 

Charles Prince.

DR. PRINCE: Present.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, DC. And his 

alternate, D'Angelo Sands.

MR. SANDS: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, D'Angelo. 

Representing institutional accrediting agencies 

recognized by the Secretary, we are joined by Jamie 

Studley.

MS. STUDLEY: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning. And we were 

joined by her alternate, Michale McComis.

MR. MCCOMIS: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, Michale. 

Representing legal assistance organizations, we are 

joined by Robyn Smith.

MS. R. SMITH: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning. And we are 
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joined by her alternate as well, Sophie Laing.

MS. LAING: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, Sophie. 

Representing private nonprofit institutions of higher 

education, we are joined by Erika Linden.

MS. LINDEN: Good morning, all.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, Erika. And her 

alternate, Scott Dolan.

MR. DOLAN: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning. Representing 

Programmatic Accrediting Agencies recognized by the 

Secretary to include state agencies recognized for the 

approval of nurse education, we are joined by our primary 

Laura Rasar King.

DR. KING: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, Laura. And her 

alternate, Amy Ackerson.

MS. ACKERSON: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, Amy. 

Representing proprietary institutions of higher 

education, we are joined by Jillian Klein.

MS. KLEIN: Morning.

MR. ROBERTS: And her alternate, David 

Cohen.

MR. COHEN: Good morning.
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MR. ROBERTS: Good morning. 

Representing public four-year institutions of higher 

education, we are joined by Jason Lorgan.

MR. LORGAN: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning. And his 

alternate, Alyssa Dobson, who I believe has a voice and 

can say good morning as well but is still on the mend.

MS. DOBSON: Good morning. I mostly 

have my voice back.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, Alyssa. 

Representing public two-year institutions of higher 

education, we are joined by Jo Alice Blondin.

MS. BLONDIN: Hi, there.

MR. ROBERTS: Good morning. And her 

alternate, Michael Cioce.

MR. CIOCE: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Good morning. 

Representing state attorneys general, we are joined by 

Diana Hooley.

MS. HOOLEY: Present. Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, Diana. And the 

alternate seat for state attorneys general is still 

vacant. Representing state officials, including state 

Higher Education officers, State Authorizing Agencies and 

State Regulators of Institutions of Higher Education, we 
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are joined by John Ware.

MR. WARE: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, John. and his 

alternate, Rob Anderson.

MR. ANDERSON: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Good morning. 

Representing students or borrowers, including currently 

enrolled borrowers or groups representing them, we are 

joined by Jesse Morales.

MS. MORALES: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Good morning, Jesse. 

Welcome back. and her alternate, Emmett Blaney.

MR. BLANEY: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: And last but certainly 

not least of our non-federal negotiators, we are joined 

by representing U.S. service, military service members, 

veterans or groups representing them, we are joined by 

Barmak Nassirian.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Good morning, Barmak. 

and his alternate, Ashlynne Haycock-Lohmann.

MS. HAYCOCK-LOHMANN: Good morning.

MR. ROBERTS: Good morning. 

Representing the Department in the capacity as head 

Federal negotiator, we are joined by Greg Martin.
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MR. MARTIN: Good morning. Glad to be 

with you all.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning and welcome 

back. Greg, I'm going to turn it right over to you to 

introduce the rest of your team and give a brief process 

update before we begin discussion today.

MR. MARTIN: Oh, thanks very much, 

Brady. Good morning again. It's great to be with all of 

you. I'm very sorry about my absence yesterday. I was 

without power. And, though it has nothing to do with 

these proceedings, here's a shout out to all the men and 

women who work on the lines and restore power when it 

goes out. You don't realize, the civilizing influence of 

electricity until you don't have it. I just want to say, 

for anybody listening who have family members involved in 

that line of work, they're doing a great service for 

humanity there. This morning I'll first introduce our 

Federal team here, which would consist of our counsel for 

today, who will be Donna Mangold.

MS. MANGOLD: Good morning.

MR. MARTIN: She'll be with us. Hi, 

Donna. How are you doing?

MS. MANGOLD: Okay. Good morning to 

everyone.

MR. MARTIN: Our subject matter 
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expert who will be handling most of the discussion 

related to issues involving accreditation, that's Mr. 

Herman Bounds.

MR. BOUNDS: Good morning, everyone.

MR. MARTIN: Hello, Herman. Great to 

have you with us. Before we go back into our discussion 

about accreditation, I also want to thank my colleague 

David Musser for his participation and for what I'm told 

was an excellent session yesterday on return to Title IV 

funds. I'm sorry I didn't see it, but, again, my thanks 

to him for doing that. Today, before we get started. 

Yesterday, I know we had, again, I wasn't privy to it, 

but we did have a discussion of accreditation issues 

initially. Our initial as you know, we proceeded in a 

way that was a little bit different from what we did with 

the other papers. Some of that had to do with the fact 

that when we were discussing how to proceed with these, 

we realized that the accreditation proposal was somewhat 

larger and more detailed than the other ones were. We 

thought it might be in the interest of everybody 

listening to go over the paper, first and before going 

into the regulatory text. We understand that caused some 

level of confusion in that, we had done the other papers 

differently when we got to accreditation. We have 

considered how to move forward with that. I wanted to 
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tell you what we'll be doing today. We are going to move 

forward with the accreditation paper in the same, looking 

at it in the same way that we did the other issues 

throughout the previous days of this negotiation. Before 

we get into the paper; Herman will just do a very brief 

overview of what's in it. I know some of you that are 

varying levels of familiarity with accreditation, not so 

much around the table, but maybe people listening. What 

we want to do is for the benefit of everybody. Just lay 

it out there what the paper entails. That will be very 

brief. There'll be no questions or discussion during 

that. Herman's just going to run through it. Then 

following that, we are going to start at the beginning of 

the paper the way we did with all the other issues, and 

we will be going, topic by topic. , As we look at each 

topic, we will have the regulatory text put up and Herman 

will discuss the topic within the context of the red line 

regulatory text, and then open the floor for discussion 

the way we did with the previous topic. So, a little bit 

of a change from what we did yesterday. I do want to 

point out that I have a limited amount of time today. 

Our facilitators are going to be attentive to that and 

move us through the topics. This is not in any way an 

attempt to, circumvent discussion or prescribe anybody. 

We want to hear what everybody has to say. We want to 
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look at each topic fully, but we do want to cover all 

topics. We also have some questions for discussion in 

this issue paper where the Department did not provide 

draft regulatory text or red lines, but we want to 

discuss those anyway. In order to make sure that we have 

time to do that, we're going to have to limit, 

unfortunately, the amount of time we can spend on each 

topic. Understand that this is only the first round of 

negotiations. We have two more following this. So, 

there'll be an ample opportunity for every point in this 

paper to be discussed. Getting back to the earlier 

question of the Department won't be providing any 

additional material today. As far as remaining questions 

goes, are concerned rather, what we propose to do is to 

deal with any of that as we look at each individual 

topic. So, sort of going back to the format we used for, 

cash management, R2T4, etc. With that said, I will turn 

it over to Herman to begin just a brief overview of the 

document. Herman?

MR. BOUNDS: Alright. Okay. Yeah, I am 

off mute. So yeah, we're briefly just going to kind of go 

over the areas that we did discuss yesterday. And then I 

think we're going to go straight into the red text. I 

think we left off; we would be at the recognition 

process. As you know, if you have the issue paper up, if 
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you can scroll down to that section, we just proposed 

some major changes here. Our goal was to, streamline the 

recognition process, separate some things down, and then 

work on the timeline, a little bit there. But again, 

we'll get into the details there, when we get to the red 

text. The other section that we'd be looking at would 

then be we have a crosswalk there for, I think you can 

scan down a little bit. We have a crosswalk there that 

basically, where we have discussion in 602, and there 

may be a relative regulation that's relative to Title IV 

eligibility. We wanted to provide that information, so 

that an accrediting agency would kind of be aware of how 

some of the regulations in 602 really rely on some of the 

information that's in some of our eligibility 

regulations. Then the last thing here is part 604. I'm 

sorry. I'm going fast. The last thing here that we're 

going to talk about is 604. That was our attempt to take 

the regulatory criteria. Excuse me? Yeah, the criteria 

that was contained in a 1969 Federal Register notice, 

move that over into a regulation, and kind of update that 

criteria to better contain some of the requirements that 

we have for some of our other state agencies. So that's 

an attempt to move that over. With that said, that's 

kind of where we're left after that, after we get through 

all that, then we would go down to come back to the 
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discussion questions. I think that order is right, Greg. 

I guess now we're ready to go straight to the reg text 

and we can do that at this time. I think we go back up 

and start with the very first. I think it would be, what 

six, so, I mean, excuse me, representative of the public. 

We had a lot of discussion on this yesterday. We also 

said that we would take into consideration, maybe looking

at, looking at timeline, the family member, requirements 

here and also, taking a look at affiliations. But again, 

I'll open it up for discussion. But I think we kind of 

covered this area well yesterday.

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah. Anything, new to 

add? Again, we did touch on a number of these topics 

yesterday, and we do ask those negotiators- reserve their 

new speaking time today to offer new points rather than 

previously made points or just support. You can always 

put that in the chat. There is a transcript captured of 

these negotiations. None of that is lost. But I'll turn 

to you first, Barmak. Go ahead.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Yeah. I just wanted to 

encourage the Department as it revises this language 

considering the conversation we've had here today, to 

also look at 602.15. I don't understand why we're so 

focused on specifically articulating the do's and don'ts 

of conflicts of interest for the few public members when 
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we don't pay much attention to the potential conflicts of 

interest by everybody else. There is current regulations 

668, 602.15. It is very platitudinous and broad and 

unspecific. I would welcome a little more detail 

articulated there in the same spirit as the Department is 

attempting to prevent that outcomes for the public member 

nominees. Thanks.

MS. FAST: Thank you, Barmak. Looks 

like that note's being taken right now. Anything else new 

to offer on this section? Yeah, Jo?

MS. BLONDIN: I just wonder, can you 

put the text up one more time?

MR. ROBERTS: Would you mind? I think 

that was Dave that was sharing. Would you mind putting it 

back up again? Oh, Jo. Apologies. Thank you, Jo.

MS. BLONDIN: Thank you, Okay, Thank 

you.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, I'm not seeing 

anything new on this topic. Thank you all. Greg and 

Herman, do you want to take us to the next section?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, it looks like the 

next section would be 602.10, I believe, Federal Link. I 

think likewise, we had some discussion here yesterday on 

this particular topic but we could open up that for 

discussion. Again, there are some significant changes 
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here. We did take some notes and some things that take 

into consideration.

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah. Thank you. We have 

a few hands. While we're waiting for that. Yeah. Great. 

Barmak. Go ahead.

MR. NASSIRIAN: We strongly support 

this language, and if anything, encourage the Department 

to consider fortifying it a bit. The Department has 

limited resources. It is not able to candidly carry out 

most of its regulatory requirements. Even now, the 

notion of having folks step forward and consume 

departmental resources for bragging rights or looking 

more official. If there isn't a significant Federal Link, 

I don't see the point of devoting resources to entities 

that do not really have much of a federal footprint. 

Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you Barmak. I do 

want to say a special thank you to Carolyn for indicating 

support in the chat. Thank you, Carolyn. We'll go to 

Laura next.

DR. KING: I would like to point out 

again, the statutory language uses the word enable. If 

the recognition by the Department enables a program to 

take advantage of non-HEA funding, that's what's in the 

statute. That's also what's in the current regulation. 
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The requirement that the agency demonstrates that the 

program is currently taking advantage of that link is not 

what's in the statute. It's not what's in the regulatory 

language. If an agency were to lose recognition because a 

program was not currently taking advantage of that 

Federal link but the program then decides that it wants 

to take advantage of that Federal Link, the program would 

not be able to do so. Tthis is a significant change, and 

I think that it's one that needs to be really reconciled 

with the statutory language, the terms enable.

MS. FAST: Thank you, Laura. DC, go 

ahead.

DR. PRINCE: Yeah. Can the Department 

provide some additional context on is there an abuse 

happening in the sector where this is causing problems in 

higher education? Is there some risk of losing 

institutions if we don't have this rule? Can you provide 

some specific examples or details, without naming names 

of agencies, exactly, how this is really going to help 

the sector be better or the Department be better at 

Governing higher education?

MR. BOUNDS: Well DC, so let me 

explain this. So currently, again, when an agency comes 

in for recognition, we look at what the agency tells us 

their federal link is. Currently, we have had agencies 
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that are coming up for renewal of recognition have cited 

a federal link. First thing, either we want to determine 

whether the link is valid. Does the link actually 

require accreditation by a programmatic agency or can 

that program receive some sort of grant funding based on 

its institutional accreditation? So that's the first 

part. Then the second part, yeah, we do want to see if 

the program again is participating. I know that may not 

answer your question. I wouldn't call it abuse. We have 

just been under current regulation; we have just been 

looking at agencies. We want to make sure that the link 

is valid and then that there's a program that 

participates. All I will say on that is that a petition 

for recognition in some cases, believe it or not, can 

exceed 30,000 pages of documentation. We're reviewing 

that much documentation and we have an agency, now hear 

me out, and we have an agency that accredits 200 

programs, and not one of those programs is currently 

participating in their stated Federal Link, we just think 

that's an issue. Again, we understand what Laura has 

brought up, whether regulation talks about enabling but 

we also have, some language in the statute that says 

purpose of participation in HEA programs. But again, 

we're going to go back. We'll take this back, and we'll 

talk to our legal folks and we'll come up with some 
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amendments if needed. But that's about all I can say on 

this topic. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you both. Carolyn. 

Go ahead.

MS. FAST: Yeah. I just wanted to 

mention that the statute requires recognition for 

agencies to be for the purpose of participation in 

programs under the Higher Education Act, or in other 

programs administered by the Department or other Federal 

agencies. This is a statutorily based suggestion and 

very much grounded in the language. Also it makes sort 

of a commonsense sort of proposal that the Department 

want to expand its resources on reviewing accreditors 

that actually accredit HEA programs. Otherwise, it seems 

like it's a real waste of time and effort by the 

Department.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Carolyn. Greg 

and Herman, I don't see any new hands if we want to move 

to the next section.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. Let me adjust my 

screen. Sorry folks, I got three different screens open 

here, so it takes me a minute to get back to.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, I think we're at 

660.13.

MR. BOUNDS: 602.13? Thank you, . We 
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didn't have a lot of discussion on this one yesterday. 

But we had a few comments. Again, we said we would also, 

take a look at those. But open to comments on 602.13. 

Again, I would say the thing that we did here when we 

brought this regulation back, we put in some benchmarks 

of what would be required to demonstrate wide acceptance, 

which was not there in the older version of the 

regulation. And I'll leave it open for discussion.

MR. ROBERTS: Couldn't find my unmute 

button. Any thoughts, consideration? Laura, go ahead.

DR. KING: While I can understand this 

for agencies that are going through initial recognition. 

So, two points, agencies that are going through initial 

recognition, I can understand needing to demonstrate 

being widely accepted. To me, for agencies going through 

re recognition, this seems like kind of a, I'm trying to 

think of a nicer word, but maybe a useless requirement. 

Any agency is going to be able to get these letters. It's 

just paperwork that we must do. It's a burden on whoever 

we're asking to do it. It doesn't seem like a very 

useful way to demonstrate acceptance of the agency. I 

mean, if the agency is accrediting programs in its 

profession, in my case, it is widely accepted. I don't 

think it needs to be demonstrated by three letters. So 

that's the first point. The second point is I don't 
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understand the difference between institutions or 

programs and educators. Because wouldn't those be the 

same constituency groups?

MR. BOUNDS: I'll ask other folks. 

I'll come back to that question, Laura. I'll let other 

folks if they have hands up and then I'll come back and 

answer that for you.

MR. ROBERTS: Anything else on 602.13? 

Yeah, Barmak?

MR. NASSIRIAN: This is more of a 

broad philosophical observation. Critics of accreditation 

believe that a history of lax recognition practices have 

allowed unqualified entities to gain recognition. We know 

this happened, right? ACICS did not land on Mars, it was 

here operating with full recognition from the United 

States Department. The fact that an entity is in, does 

not entitle it to continued participation regardless of 

whether it meets the requirements that are coterminous 

with its official recognition as a reliable authority. I 

understand this paperwork, but sometimes the inability 

to obtain paperwork reflects reality on the ground. I 

would strongly urge the Department not to assume that 

everybody who's in is already taken care of and doing 

really well. That has been the ethos, and the kind of 

historical practice that once you're in, it's hard to 
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kick you out unless we catch you red handed delinquent of 

duty with evidence piling up. But I think it makes 

perfect sense that it should be a rebuttable presumption 

that you need to meet all the criteria all the time.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Barmak. DC, 

I saw your question in chat. I think that was my fault 

when introducing the issues in order. Is your question 

about going back through or is it about 13?

DR. PRINCE: Yeah, it's about 13.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. Go ahead. We'll 

also go revisit 12 as well.

DR. PRINCE: The question I have is 

for the Department. First is, did you want to respond to 

those people first? Because mine's a slightly different 

issue, and I don't want us to go off topic if you got 

thoughts and I'm moving on to something else.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. I want to go back 

to Laura's question that she asked. When you look at 

(a), letters of support for the agency that have at least 

three accredited institutions or programs then 

educators. When we talk about letters from the 

institution itself, we're talking about someone 

representing an entire institution, university, 

president, or someone like that. When we talk about them 

from at least three educators, those are individuals. 
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Those are just three people who may be employed at the 

institution. So that's the difference between those two 

entities. The overall institutional authority, and then 

the rest of those could be individuals. Employers could 

be a major organization, it may be a head of one of 

those major institutions, that's the difference.

DR. KING: In programmatic terms 

then, institution or programs. So you're talking about 

somebody who would be representing the program itself?

MR. BOUNDS: It could be the dean of 

the School of Nursing , yeah.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, thank you. DC 

we'll go back to you now.

DR. PRINCE: No problem. Thank you. 

The question I have is, again, this is my inclusionary 

versus exclusionary text as I had earlier on the other 

ones. I noticed I've gotten emails from other people 

about this as well. I've noticed that you didn't have 

anything about State Departments of education. Unless 

that's being defined by one of these other categories? I 

don't see that as a letter of support as widely accepted 

because then the exclusion of states means that they're 

not the exclusion of a particular group. I think, goes 

against the definition or the intent of having a widely 

accepted agency by excluding certain groups. What was 
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the Department's thoughts about some of the other 

entities that would need to provide letters, if this was 

to go through, of the letters for widely accepted 

support?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I don't know if we 

thought about including states specifically in this. I 

mean, that's something we can go back and talk about. 

In states there are different authorities that oversee 

higher education versus K-12 education. It can be a 

complex system there. Aain, we can go back and look at 

that and see if we think that we would need to add some 

specifics about some sort of state authority there.

DR. PRINCE: Well, I think the idea 

that institutions or well, what about systems? 

Chancellors and presidents of the of the whole system, 

right? Where, for example, SACSCOC works in the South and 

there's several systems across that south. How does the 

system work? Do you consider them to be the institutional 

leader or not? T Wouldn't that be considered as a 

definition of the state?

MR. BOUNDS: It could be. I mean, they 

could also qualify as under the category of educators 

also. Again, I mean, DC, there are a lot of different, 

entities that we could consider. All I can tell you here 

is we could take your comments if you want to put those 
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comments in the chat from what you're getting from some 

of your constituencies, we'd be glad to take a look at 

those.

DR. PRINCE: Okay. Not a problem. 

Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. Jamie, your 

hands up next, please.

MS. STUDLEY: We certainly respected 

that the Department needs to be assured of the quality 

and rigor of the agencies. For continuing agencies, 

getting three letters would be a very simple matter. 

This is not about that, it's about, there's much better 

evidence right now in the fact that, as one of my 

colleagues reminded us, for a recognized accreditor, the 

fact that institutions which now have the ability to 

change to other accreditors remain with an accreditor, is 

in part evidence that they believe that this is a process 

that provides the in- which they believe that the 

standards are accepted and is providing the thoughtful 

review that they are looking for. Ultimately, what I 

want to say is, I won't take the time to explain the 

Department's re recognition process, but the elements of 

that are well suited to provide a forum for determining 

whether an agency should continue to be recognized. The 

opportunity for public comment in many different forms at 
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early at the stage of NACIQI, and secretarial review, 

mean that both positive, but not just puff letters, 

negative concerns, distress about how an agency is 

operating are all included, reviewed, aired publicly. 

That's the vehicle for making the determination about 

whether an agency provides the rigorous review and is 

operating in the public interest in the way that it's 

expected. This is not a fight about three letters. We 

accreditors could easily do that. This is a question 

about the effectiveness of the Department's overall 

review process. Which is in other sections and if there 

are ways to improve that and make sure that it is 

sufficiently thorough, publicly aired. That is the place 

where weak accreditors have been identified and 

ultimately excluded from the system. And it is a far- and 

so I rise not to object to three letters. I could get 

them in ten minutes, but they wouldn't add to the 

understanding of the effectiveness.

MR. WEATHERS: Jamie, 30 seconds left.

MS. STUDLEY: The agency is doing. 

Thanks.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Jamie. Diana, 

you're up next.

MS. HOOLEY: Thank you. We just want 

to also echo the concern of, , the idea that the 
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accreditors need to continue to monitor compliance, not 

just at the initial accreditation stage, but as to the 

ongoing. I don't think that, really s I just want to 

frame that in the importance of why that's important. 

Right? In the same way that the Department is, I think, 

trying to ensure that the accreditors continue compliance 

of schools. It's just as important that the Department 

continue their, oversight and ensure that accreditors 

remain in compliant throughout the time that they're 

recognized. It can't be overstated the importance that 

the accreditors role is supposed to play. They're the 

folks that are supposed to have some of the earliest 

insights into problems that are going on at the schools. 

In particular, where there's this talking about the 

quality of the education and ensuring that continues to 

be robust. We heard in public comment from students this 

week about, the computer programs we are using are 

outdated, the equipment is outdated. Those are valid

concerns that are still ongoing. I just wanted to make 

sure that we're thinking about this in the context of, 

their role and the impact on students. Because at the end 

of the day, yes, the accreditation process, it allows 

Title IV funding, but it also provides a sort of badge of 

quality to consumers that, when they're trying to decide 

where to spend their money, that, you know, these rigors 
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that, are being, you know, that the accreditors are being 

held to rigorous standards. So thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Thank you, 

Diana. DC, I have your hand up next.

DR. PRINCE: Thank you. Just two 

points. The first one is around this discussion of the 

letters. Do the letters that get submitted by these 

entities, if something was to happen to the in a 

scenario-based question, if you can answer that, if 

something was to happen to the agency, does something 

also happen on Department’s perspective to the people who 

wrote the letters? If I give a support to a letter and I 

give, you know, if I give a letter of support to an 

agency and that agency does not do due diligence in what 

it's supposed to do. I wrote the letter and said they 

were, and then you find out that they were a bad actor, 

does something happened to me as the letter writer?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. We wouldn't have 

any purview into that at all. I'd refer that question to 

our legal counsel. But, yeah, we wouldn't have any 

purview to, do anything negatively to the writer of the 

letter. No.

DR. PRINCE: Okay. My second point is 

around the comments coming from my other negotiators, 

particularly the state attorneys’ group and the consumer 
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and civil rights group. In the fact of this, as I 

understand their points, the letters are just written 

letters. There is no real role for these individuals to 

actually take up an assessment of due diligence before 

the letter is written. Why didn't the Department then 

require the people to write the letter to do some actual 

due diligence to write the letter? For example, is a 

department going to give me as a letter writer, a rubric 

to evaluate the agency in some way so that a letter can 

be written? Because the onset of what is being addressed 

here, or what I'm hearing is, that the letter is 

important. Then the person writing the letter has done 

no due diligence. They have not filled out any kind of 

conflict of interest. There's no requirement here for 

them to fill out a rubric that then says, hey, I did 

attend a Governance meeting and I did speak with the 

public member. They do meet the Department’s new 

requirement of what a public member is. I did go and 

visit or sit on an accreditation visit. I did recognize 

that school they talked about who didn't have the right 

technology, was addressed. Right? There isn't anything 

for the letter writer to really participate. So how does 

that work?

MR. BOUNDS: I mean, you could make 

that observation from any third-party commenter that 
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may write in discussions with the accrediting agencies. 

All I would say on this whole topic is, the person who's 

writing a letter based on their perspective. If they're 

a university president, they're writing the letter based 

on their experience with the accreditation process of 

their institution. I definitely can't give you an answer 

on all those questions just asked. I would just say that 

the person is writing a letter based on their 

experiences with the agency of what they know about the 

agency. Everybody's not going to be an accreditation 

expert that writes these letters.

DR. PRINCE: I'm gonna get off the 

queue and come back in.

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, DC. Barmak. I 

see your hand and I want to note your comment as well. 

Once I think we conclude this discussion, we can go back 

because I think I missed something but go right ahead.

MR. NASSIRIAN: I'm assuming that 

putting things in the chat is sort of like saying them so 

I'm not going to repeat what I said in the chat. I do 

want to address, DC is going to think I'm a groupie, but 

I think his points are really worth thinking about. You 

know, in many ways, those of us who have written 

recommendation letters, who have asked for recommendation 

letters, the only meaningful recommendation letter is a 
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negative. Everybody can find somebody to say something 

nice about them. This is why I don't. First, I do think 

it's important for the Department to put, maybe not a 

full investigatory burden on the parties writing the regs 

but making sure that it's not somebody who's unemployed 

cousin Vinny writing their reg. At least some measure of 

indication of what is your role. We, or are you the 

board chair of the entity that you're recommending as a 

reliable authority, for example? That's an important 

point. The other point I want to make is, DC's 

observations here indicate the importance of soliciting 

negative information about the agency's complaints. 

Information that should be acted on, that the Department 

currently has a process where the public has to have a 

two-year lead time before the agency comes up for review 

to submit information. The whole system is tilted in the 

direction of saying yes, as opposed to doing any 

meaningful, timely, substantive due diligence to catch 

things as they are happening. I just want to echo what 

DC said. DC I have bad news for you, not only do the 

people who write these letters face no consequence, guess 

what, the accreditors face no consequence when they're 

consistently wrong. There are entities represented at 

this table that are associated with accreditors who 

approved some of the schools that some of our witnesses 
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complained about. Those schools are fully accredited to 

this day and the accreditors are here. E This is not 

Jamie, I want to be clear, or Laura. I think it is 

important to pay attention to who's writing the letter 

and parallel with positive information being solicited 

constantly be on the lookout for adverse information that 

may be very meaningful. Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. Jamie, you're 

up next, please.

MS. STUDLEY: I agree with Barmak that 

it's fair to look at the process for public comment on re 

recognition reviews. Having served as chair of NACIQI, 

getting information that is fresh and in time to be able 

to evaluate it is much more important than three people 

speaking as to reputation. That's about as bad as the 

reputation element of the U.S. News rankings. That is not 

helpful. I want people to keep sight of who is 

responsible for the effective performance of accrediting 

agencies. It's the commissions of each agency for the 

operations, and rigorousness, and quality and consistency 

of the work of the agency, plus the Department in 

granting its recognition. The Commission is the group 

that we've been talking about when you talked about 

public members, but very briefly. Every agency has as 

esteemed thoughtful people as we can find to ask exactly 
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the questions that some of whom are represented here as 

negotiators. To carry out those responsibilities of 

saying, are we developing appropriate standards that will 

provide for student success and institutional 

effectiveness and sustainability? Have we applied those 

standards fairly and thoroughly? And are we looking at 

the outcomes for students in as contemporary and evolving 

way as we can, given the best available information we 

can make those important decisions? Let me tie this back 

to the discussion of public commissioners. The reason we 

have public commissioners is to round out that 

conversation to bring people who are not, in my case, 

deeply steeped in higher education. Who can tell us if 

the emperor is improperly or inadequately clothed to do 

the job. They are all sworn as fiduciaries for the 

operations of the agency. They are committed as public 

representatives and education institutional 

representatives to do the very best job they can. We are 

held to requirements to train them. The Department 

reviews the business that is conducted. They visit us and 

they watch us do an institutional review. They come to a 

commission meeting where we deal with hard cases and they 

say, are these people thorough, rigorous, legal? Have 

they excluded anybody who would have a conflict? Is that 

process perfect? It's as good as humans can make it and 
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it is better all the time. I think it's important to 

remember that where the real quality control happens is 

at the commission level for the quality of the decision 

making. The Department and the Commission operates 

appropriately. We are aligned with you and wanting to

make those as good and strong as they can be.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Jamie. I 

think DC, you'll be our last spoken comment on this. Of 

course, you can keep the dialog going in chat, but we do 

need to go back because I did miss something as you 

noted. But go ahead, DC.

DR. PRINCE: Actually, that was my 

question. How much more time are we allowed to this 

discussion before we move on? The other question I do 

have is, has the Department given thought to if it is 

insistent that they want letters of support. If those 

letters of support could be submitted during a renewal 

process that is not driven or conducted or asked of by 

the agency. Ultimately asked of the public by way of the 

Department as part of the application process where there 

is undue influence by the accredited agency itself? If 

that makes sense.

MR. BOUNDS: I mean, real quickly, I 

know we need to move on, DC, I think the process you're 

talking about, number one, we have the third party 
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comment process which we announce through Federal 

Register, which we get comments, that's part of the 

renewal process. Then we're asking for these letters of 

support under wide acceptance. I guess we're 

accomplishing what you're asking through that third party 

comment process because that's coming in with no 

influence of the agency. Those are just folks out in the 

public writing in telling us about their experiences with 

that agency. That's what's happening there. The only 

thing I'll say before we need to move on is that this is 

also important because many times we don't even, you 

know, we recognize 62 recognized accrediting 

organizations. We don't always get third party comments 

on those agencies. Many times, we don't get anything. So 

that's why we also think that this section is important, 

at least to get some letters, giving us indication of an 

agency's performance. That's all I want to say. Then we 

can move on to the next section.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Thank you all 

for that discussion. Actually, I think we're going to go 

back one section. I was following the issue paper 

ordering and not the reg text. Joe, if you wouldn't mind 

resharing your screen of the reg text on accreditation 

and scroll back up just a little bit. It's the section 

immediately preceding 602.12. Yeah, Expansion of Scope.
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MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, Sorry about that.

MR. ROBERTS: No, that's my fault. 

It's completely my fault.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. I think we can 

close out the screenshare [inaudible] folks get a chance 

to read through and then entertain comments, questions, 

clarifications for the Department of the committee.

MS. FAST: Okay. Thank you. Anything 

on this section 602.12? Yeah, DC.

DR. PRINCE: I think this is also why 

I wanted to point out because in 602.12 of this section, 

roman numeral 2, it also asks for those three letters 

from an institution who would like or express interest in 

joining or part of this. Again, I think that must be 

different than what you're asking for below. I think 

it's the same comments of what people have said before. 

I'd just like to iterate that for me, the comments about 

602.13. It would also apply to this 602.12 of roman 

numeral 2. Whether or not that could also be reviewed 

considering the discussion of 602.13.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah DC, I just like to 

add, when we get further down in the regulatory 

requirement. You'll see in the recognition process, we 

moved this language from where it was in the recognition

process because it was out of sync. When we're talking 
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about, expansions of scope, we have a section here that 

talks about expansion of scope. Then we had that 

language also in the recognition process. We kind of 

scooted it from there over to here. This is really not 

new language. I'll say it's transported language.

DR. PRINCE: But, would the 

transported language then have an impact of change based 

on our previous discussion or no? Is that what you're 

saying?

MR. BOUNDS: We're strictly here 

talking about an agency who wants to expand their scope, 

like expand what they do. We want to make sure is there 

a valid reason for that agency to come in to expand their 

scope? Do they have, what's the support for that? For 

instance, if a career and technical school now wants to 

offer bachelor's degrees, we want to see, okay, do you 

have support for that expansion. That's basically what 

we're asking here. That's what we want to find out.

MS. FAST: Gotcha. I think that would 

be the same context then. If you're going to ask for the 

agencies to have all these- if we go in that direction, 

then if someone's going to expand scope, why would you 

not have the inclusion of employers, educators, 

practitioners as well. Because you're in essence, doing 

the same process, whether you're expanding or trying to 
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become one. It's still the same constituency that you 

want if we agree to move forward in that direction.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. Again, we can take 

that into consideration. Here we were more concentrating 

on if, an institution who may want to take advantage of 

the expansion by adding a different degree program or 

something that they haven't done before. That's why we 

concentrated on the entities we have here. We could 

again, we could take back your recommendations.

MR. ROBERTS: That might be helpful 

just to note that in chat, DC, just the application of 

the same feedback. Barmak, go ahead.

MR. NASSIRIAN: One of the most 

obvious defects of our quality assurance regime in this 

country by the evidence of how many horrible programs 

have existed. I won't comment about the ones that 

continue to exist, but by the evidence of the billions of 

dollars of loan discharge, we know that lousy programs 

enjoyed accreditation and participated and in Title IV 

programs and victimized people. But one of the 

fundamental drivers of that horrible process is that we 

honor the rituals of accreditation in writing, but are 

oblivious to the fact that they are purely decorative and 

that accreditors actually don't do the things that they 

say their standards require. It's sort of like the North 
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Korean constitution when you read it. It's wonderful, 

it's democratic, it's lovely. It's just the one little 

detail they don't follow. It's really a different thing 

labeled as a people's democratic republic of whatever. 

In that spirit, I think we need a lot more specificity 

than just simply state the reason for the expansion of 

the scope. I want to see market research, some sort of 

data that indicates there is a need for this. More 

importantly, what is the likely expansion? What are we 

talking about? Is it just, two more programs or are you 

today and this is based on history. I won't name the 

recognized accreditor. Are you today an entity with a 

whopping budget of $4 million a year, who's going to be 

accrediting entities whose General Council's budget is 

significantly larger than your entire budget? I want to 

see more specificity. Then on romanette 3, explain, 

whether the agency must expand its resources to support 

the expansion. If they say no, we're done? It's critical

that we ensure that as people step forward there is a 

realistic understanding of what the additional resources 

are what their anticipated scope of accreditation will 

be. In terms of the volume of dollars at risk, not just 

Title IV dollars, but tuition dollars, VA dollars, DoD 

dollars. I would encourage the Department to contemplate 

a little more specificity on this and we will submit some 
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language on it. Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Barmak. 

Herman, I'm not seeing any new hands on 12. Do you want 

to move next to 602.18 and 20? It's a larger section, so 

we might need to walk through it.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, we can do that.

MR. ROBERTS: Great.

MR. BOUNDS: Let me get down there 

myself. Yeah. I don't know if you want to scroll down to 

where the actual, yeah, where at some of the. Yeah. So 

anyway, there are a lot of changes that we are proposing 

in this section. I'll just open it up for comment and 

then I kind of explain our reasoning after that. I think 

this section here- well, I'll do a brief- we consider 

this section under (c) as not being needed. Since this 

whole section is about consistency and decision making, 

we think you can accomplish the requirements in (c) here

under (b), we think agencies have a flexibility to do 

this now, so we remove that. Then if you want to go down 

to (d) real quick I'll still open this up for discussion 

for folks. (d), We thought this would be better suited to 

be moved over under 602.20 which is, where enforcement 

of standards. We've also found in several agencies 

submissions of renewal petitions that there was some 

conflating between the requirements of (c) with our 
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extension for good cause requirements. I'll stop there 

and open up for discussion on both (c) and (d), because 

those are two pretty big sections.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. Anyone want 

to offer commentary or questions on (c) and (d)? Herman, 

I'm not seeing any immediate hands. Do you want to take 

the time and walk through the entirety of the section, 

and then we can just kind of open it up?

MR. BOUNDS: Sure.

MR. ROBERTS: Oh. We do have Jillian's 

hand. Sorry, I spoke too soon. Go ahead, Jillian.

MS. KLEIN: Yeah, sorry. Hopefully an 

easy question. Herman, I think you just said that you 

guys are striking (c) because you feel like it's handled 

in (b). I remember from 2019 that we spent a 

significant amount of time on the phrase to include, 

innovative program delivery approaches when we wrote (c). 

Having just reviewed it, I'm just curious if you can 

specifically point to how sort of, an allowance for 

innovation is handled in the current (b)? If you can just 

clarify that for me.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. Because if you look 

at (1) where it says has written specifications of the 

requirements for accreditation and pre accreditation that 

include clear standards for an institutional program to 
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be accredited. We think there's room there. I mean, 

agencies have the power to develop, their own standards. 

Basically, they must have the ones in 602.16 (a)(1) 

romanette 1-10. They must have those. If they wanted to 

start a new program, there's nothing here that would 

prevent them from doing that. If they wanted to start a 

new program in environmental science or something 

different where they wanted to do that, they could, a 

program or an institution could start that program, and 

the AG could evaluate whether they needed a new set of 

standards to evaluate that new program. We just thought 

that it could be covered under (b). That's why we struck 

it from (c), and this kind of gives the agency, the 

ability to kind of create those standards as they see 

needed. So, again, that's just our thought. If others 

have different thoughts, again, this is something that we 

could take back and talk about too.

MS. KLEIN: Thanks.

MS. FAST: Thank you. Alright. Herman, 

if it's okay, do you want to walk through the remainder 

of those sections? Then we can open it up.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, yeah, we can do 

that. Yeah. So we're dropping down through 20, 

enforcement of standards. T We talked about this briefly 

yesterday, and we got some comments here. This is where 
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we wanted to convert back for noncompliance issues other 

than student achievement. We wanted to go back to the 

slightly more restrictive timelines of the 12 months, 

depending on the longest length of the program 18 months 

depending on the length of the program and the two years. 

Right? Then we have a carve out for student achievement. 

Again, I know we talked about this yesterday, folks had 

several comments. We said we would look at some of those. 

But again, I'll open that up for if anybody has some 

other comments they want to make, we're happy to 

entertain those.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. DC, go ahead.

DR. PRINCE: Thanks. I think this was 

my question from yesterday that we said we hold off 

because it wasn't a goal question, but a process 

question. Particularly around the aspect of the student 

achievement. When I asked about this, it was, why is this 

one focused on student achievement? It may be because I 

don't see all the other rings around financial 

mismanagement or other forms of standards that need to be 

put into compliance wise to an achievement being pulled 

out as that. Is the assumption that students everything 

else is in the standard is student achievement, because 

that's what the business of education is. I was just 

trying to understand, why not the other aspects of why 
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institutions are failing compared to student achievement?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. I hope I can 

explain this and answer your question. Remember, 

agencies have to have standards, and if you look at 

again 602.16(a)(1) and you go to A10, there's ten 

categories there that we say an agency must be in 

compliance with. Compliance with student achievement is 

the first one. Then you go to, there's one fiscal 

administrative capacity, there's recruiting, there's all 

those things. So here we've carved out, we said, some of 

the noncompliance issues related to those things we think 

may be able to be handled as they were in the old 

regulations. Meaning, they could probably be handled 

based on those old timelines. You get two years to come 

into compliance once the agency makes its decision. That 

doesn't include the time that the agency is conducting 

their investigation of the program to ensure that there 

is, in fact, a noncompliance issue. Maybe based on a site 

visit report or some information that they received. 

That's what we're talking about there. Of those standard 

requirements, and keep in mind agencies can have other 

standards that they have within their policies and 

procedures. Of those, we're saying, though, however, we 

understand for issues related to student achievement, it 

may take longer for a program to come back into 
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compliance with student achievement issues. I think I 

talked yesterday about, number one, an agency would have 

to then determine or the institution itself would have to 

determine, so what is the root cause of this problem? 

Then they would have to then put in a corrective action, 

and they would have to see if that corrective action was 

effective. We think that takes some a little additional 

time. So that's the reason for the carve-out for student 

achievement. Anyway, I hope that answers your question.

MS. FAST: Sure. So, just to clarify 

for the layman terms, all the other standards have the 

normal standard way of addressing noncompliance in their 

timely fashion, and you are specifically carving out for 

student achievement, a little additional extra time.

MR. BOUNDS: Right. That's what we're 

doing. Yeah, that's exactly what we're doing.

DR. PRINCE: Just making sure I 

understand moving forward. The aspect of my question 

is, too much variation in this standard just because we 

of student achievement versus everything else with 

noncompliance. Or is it we really should be talking about 

noncompliance overall as an institution and not carving 

out, which is the antithesis of what you're saying, not 

carving out particularly around student achievement. All 

noncompliance that happens within an organization and 
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reviewing that process or those timelines to a stricter 

timeline than what you're giving here?

MR. BOUNDS: I think, like I just 

said before we looked at issues of noncompliance based on 

our standards requirements. Of course, again, the agency 

can have their own additional standards. We're just 

saying that, based on our past reviews and those things, 

for things other than student achievement. We think that 

the old timelines were adequate, meaning that if the 

longest program at the institution is two years, then you 

get two years to demonstrate compliance. If you don't 

come into compliance within those two years, then the 

agencies have an opportunity to award an extension for 

good cause for that institution or program. We don't 

regulate how long that period of extension for good cause 

could be. If an agency has a benchmark of an 80% 

graduation rate when they were reviewed, they were at 60. 

Within that, timeframe they have now, they're not 80, 

but they're 79. They have ability then to say they've 

made significant progress, and they want to offer that 

institution and extensive root cause to reach that goal. 

Again, this is our discussion at the Department based on, 

our experience and reviewing other agencies. This is 

why we carved a little bit separate out for student 

achievement. We think some of those other things can be 
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handled within those old timelines. So that's about, 

yeah.

DR. PRINCE: No worries. I think we 

would provide language looking at not taking student 

achievement specifically but looking at all of 

noncompliance and shortening that timeframe for 

institutions rather than extending it or taking out, 

because we assume that on student achievement alone, it 

takes longer to do that. We might be putting in 

assumptions about how to change or thinking about student 

learning in a way that takes longer to make a payment, or 

whatever the case may be. We want institutions to stay in 

compliance, and so maybe it's more so shorten the 

timeframe rather than putting it longer. And so there 

will be language coming about maybe making it [30 

seconds] longer. 

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. Look, there's no 

problem. That's why we're here discussing this issue. 

We're happy to take back any comments or any information 

that you must help with this area. We're definitely not 

closing anybody out here.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you both. Jamie, 

go ahead.

MS. STUDLEY: Judgment and variation 

are inherent in accreditation, and decisions are made on 
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the specific facts of the institution that the Commission 

is looking at. For example, if there are deficiencies or 

noncompliance that is found that relates to quality of 

student program or any of the kinds of things that Barmak 

has reminded us of. Then the consequences and the action 

would happen on the very shortest possible timeframe, 

consistent with providing due process to allow the 

institution to respond to the concerns found by the team 

or the Commission. There are, on the other hand, 

institutions that are out of compliance with requirements 

that do not threaten those issues. Where it appears in 

the best judgment of a responsible commission, that 

allowing them time to determine the appropriate amount 

of time that they should come into compliance. A board 

that does not have the full diversity of skill sets that 

you'd like them to have or that hasn't been trained in 

strategic planning. Somebody's not on mute, I think- we 

might allow more room, for those matters of noncompliance 

to be corrected or to develop improved systems of 

carrying out their commitment to shared governance. Yes, 

we have institutions that are not as financially healthy 

as our standards expect, but that are working on 

appropriate measures to assure that the mother church's 

backing is fully recorded in a reliable and formal way. 

That they are on a trajectory that seems positive to 
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allow them time. We make those judgments all the time. 

Many agencies did not take advantage of the extended 

period that was allowed under the old regs. We think we 

can work within this. Although people point out that the 

change of regs hat carries a burden and must be managed. 

We ask people to do it thoughtfully. But, we don't object 

to rethinking what the appropriate authority is for 

agencies to have [30 seconds] be interested in evidence 

of extended periods. Because the agencies I've spoken to 

have not felt that their periods were unduly extended, so 

we'd like if there's guidance or thought. Finally, I 

just want to drop in one very specific item. The word 

immediate is undefined, unclear, and we initiate adverse 

action as soon as we identify noncompliance. We think 

that adds the possibility of confusion, without being 

helpful.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Jamie. 

Jillian, I see your hand up next.

MS. KLEIN: Yeah, I think I had a 

similar question to Jamie's comment, which maybe this is 

for Donna, but I'm just curious if there's somewhere else 

that I'm not immediately seeing it. Where sort of due 

process for the institution is handled in here? I mean, I 

think part of what was deleted in (a) sort of speaks to 

that. Certainly I'm in favor of taking swift action and 
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consumer protections, but also, just curious what's 

happening to like a notice process for institutions and 

opportunity to respond. I don't know if that's somewhere 

else in here and I'm not seeing it or if the Department 

has thoughts in general on that.

MS. MANGOLD: [Inaudible] Do you want 

to handle that?

MR. BOUNDS: Sorry, I was on mute. 

[Inaudible] Due processes is in 602.25.

MS. KLEIN: I'll look and hop back in 

if I have another question. Thanks.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. Erika, go 

ahead.

MS. LINDEN: Just a question. I 

appreciate Herman's comments on the Department's 

perspective that the flexibility to support innovation is 

already covered in (b)(1). I guess I just want to ask, 

are the accreditors feeling like that language gives them 

sufficient flexibility if (c) is removed? Just a question 

about interpretation. I appreciate, Herman, where you're 

saying if there's other administrators who in the 

Department who would feel the same way in terms of that 

flexibility. Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. Oh, yeah, 

Greg, go ahead.
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MR. MARTIN: Oh, yes. Just one point 

of order. Whenever placing anything into the chat, if 

you're referencing a regulation, we would appreciate if 

you include the entire regulation, not just the 

subparagraphs. Because, that way when we go back to look 

at these- right now, we know what you're talking about, 

but a week from now, it will really help if we had the 

entire regulation. So just conform to that convention if

you would. Thank you very much.

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Greg. It's a 

good clarification. The transcript has timestamps, but it 

doesn't necessarily capture the full context of when the 

comment was made. So as much detail as you can put in 

there is helpful. Anyone else? Jillian, are you still 

looking at the regs or do you want to speak to the 

section?

MS. KLEIN: No, I think I'm good. 

Helpful. If what I'm understanding is that 602.25 would 

apply back to this section that talks about immediately 

initiating actions and sort of timeline expectations for 

institutions. So, thanks for the clarification.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. Well, Herman, I'm 

not seeing any new hands. Do you want to continue walking 

through the reg text?

MR. BOUNDS: Yes, sir. Sounds good. I 
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think we're down to H in this section. Or did I skip 

something?

MR. ROBERTS: No, I think you're good.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, we're good at (h). 

Okay, so this is language, the section that we pulled 

let me get my numbers right, 602.18, I think it was. 

Sorry, folks. Yeah, and we moved it under enforcement of 

standards. Yeah, so we moved it from 602.18(d) and we 

moved it here. So, I'm interested in hearing your 

comments here and any discussion on the timeline for 

national disasters, and, open if we need to add anything 

else here. So, I'll open for your discussion.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Thank you. Any 

thoughts, suggestions for additions, reflections? Yeah, 

Carolyn.

MS. FAST: We're concerned that in 

certain situations, accrediting agencies have let 

problems go on for years and even, in some egregious 

cases, for as much as a decade after problems have been 

identified at a school. Ffor that reason, we're 

concerned that the Department is proposing to retain a 

three-year or longer for a good cause extension timeframe 

for institutions who can remain out of compliance with 

accrediting standards. While we support the Department 

restoring pre-2020 timeframes for enforcement, we're 
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concerned that the timeframe for student achievement 

provisions could continue to allow accreditors to drag 

their feet in addressing these very significant concerns. 

We'd like to get a better sense from the Department of 

how the three-year timeframe would apply to separate 

enforcement timeframes. Does the Department propose to 

allow three years, followed by up to two years for a nonstudent achievement matter or four years? Or does the 

Department propose for the three-year period to fall

within those timeframes? This is a concern because if 

it's the former, it seems like that would be seven years' 

worth of students who would continue to enroll in a 

school that is already known to be out of compliance with 

accreditor standards, and this would be really a problem 

for students. We're also concerned that the overall 

timeframe is much, too long, and we would propose to 

shorten the timeframe to a one-year in each to a one-year 

timeframe. Wwe're going to be submitting language about 

that if we haven't already. I guess that would be 

essentially my questions and concerns. We know that there 

is a significant problem with institutions being out of 

compliance for many years. This is a problem because it 

directly harms students and taxpayers.

MR. BOUNDS: Brady, can I address her 

question? But yeah, because they were quite extensive,
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and I don't want to lose my train of thought. If you 

remember, (h) is only related to specific circumstances. 

It's only related to when there's a - national 

disasters. It's specifically related to those things that 

we have listed there. You have to look at that 

separately from the enforcement timelines that we talked 

about earlier. We also talked about earlier that an 

agency and I'll have to scroll up to find the exact 

language, but it also talks about, if the program does 

not bring itself into compliance, the agency may award 

that institutional program and extension for good cause. 

Those provisions are totally separate from this one. So, 

you're still looking at what we're proposing, anything 

less than student achievement, anything other than 

student achievement, we're still recommending the one 

year, depending on the length of the program. Then the 

extension for good cause would fall in y, if the agency 

thinks the institution or the program has made 

significant progress, they could award that extension for 

good cause based on the agency's commission and what they 

think about the particular instances of the program. 

Again, I just want to reiterate that this provision here, 

(h) is solely for- it's solely related to these special 

circumstances. That's why I was saying before, if folks 

think we need to increase this list or discussion on if 
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three years is not long enough. I think that we talked 

about that a little bit yesterday. That's the only reason 

I'm reiterating it. I just want to make that 

clarification.

MS. FAST: Thank you. That's very 

helpful. But just to be clear, that means that this would 

be three years in addition to the existing period, up to 

seven years before a school would be required toMR. BOUNDS: No, no, not at all. If 

there was no special circumstance, meaning if the 

institution is noncompliant because of a- I'll just use 

the first one, natural disaster or catastrophic event, 

this allowance is separate from any of the other reasons 

for noncompliance. This only comes into effect when we're 

talking about these specific things. That's why we tried 

to move it here because that's what was happening 

previously when it was over in the other section, 

agencies were kind of conflating the purpose of this 

particular provision. This is only related to an 

institution where these things may be happening. Does not 

add on to the additional time, for say, an institution or 

program being noncompliant for student achievement. They 

still must meet our regulatory language that we have 

put in here. This would not even be effective in that 

case. This doesn't add on to any noncompliant time. I 
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hope I made that clear.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you. Any 

other thoughts or comments on this section? If not, 

Herman, do we want to re-share the reg text and go on to 

the next section?

MR. BOUNDS: Yes, sir. Sounds good. I 

know I don't have to remind her, but my colleague Donna 

Mangold, just jump in any time you want to. If I miss 

your hand, I am going to apologize. I think we're down 

to-. 

MR. ROBERTS: Yep, we're looking at 

602.22, Substantive changes in other reporting 

requirements.

MR. BOUNDS: Yes. I'm sure we're 

going to have discussion here. Again, we talked about 

this whole section a little bit yesterday. I don't think 

I need to provide an overview. I guess we'll go with each 

strike here individuals look like we're going to- yeah, 

so let's start. We put (b), I think is where we have 

the first major change and some of these involve some of 

our eligibility regulations, here I will ask if there 

are any questions specifically about that. This is in

Donna's realm or wheelhouse. So, if you have anything 

specific about these regulations, I will ask Donna to 

explain those.
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MR. ROBERTS: Yeah, we can start 

there. Oh, Donna, did you want to say something? I'm 

sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

MS. MANGOLD: No. 

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. Any feedback on 

(b)? Yeah, Jo, go ahead.

MS. BLONDIN: Yes. Just a quick 

question for Herman and Donna - under (e) the addition of 

where it's struck out, graduate programs by an 

institution. Now it says any non-degree or degreegranting program at a level not previously offered by the 

institution. So non-degree if we were to offer some kind 

of certification program?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah.

MS. BLONDIN: Go ahead, Herman, sorry.

MR. BOUNDS: I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean, 

if, say you're a career technical institution and you 

offered, welding, automotive and then you wanted to 

add a carpentry program. If that wasn't there when you 

were first accredited, then yeah, we would say that would 

be a substantive change that you would need to get 

approved. Now remember, for sub change, I just want to 

make it clear, everybody, we don't tell an agency what 

that review process needs to be. We don't say you have 

to go down and do a site visit or anything like that. We 
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just say the agency must approve it.

MS. BLONDIN: Just as a follow up then 

to that, so I guess my question, maybe I wasn't clear. 

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. 

MS. BLONDIN: When we're talking about 

noncredit programs, which are of course a big wave, 

and not just a trend, but an important part of workforce 

education, we're talking about that as part of the 

substantive change process?

MR. BOUNDS: Right. If you're talking 

about (d), where it says the addition of any non-degree 

or degree-granting program, yeah, right.

MS. BLONDIN: At a level not 

previously offered.

MR. BOUNDS: At a level not- yeah, at 

a level not previously offered. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's 

correct.

MS. BLONDIN: Okay. I may have a 

follow-up. Thank you.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you both. Jillian, 

we'll go to you next.

MS. KLEIN: Yeah. Just some 

clarification on the distance ed portion, of course. One 

just point of clarification. What I'm reading, so 
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existing (c), an institution if they're planning to offer 

distance ed for the first time, that would be considered 

a substantive change because it would be a different 

method of delivery. Then under (d), they would go 

through the subchange process again when they are 

offering more than 50% via distance education. I just 

want to make sure I'm understanding that correctly. Is 

that correct?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. Let me look. 

Yeah, under (c) there were really no changes there. It's 

the addition of programs that represent- [interposing]

MS. KLEIN: Just to clarify that (c) 

handles like I'm an institution that's never offered 

distance education. Now I'm going to offer distance 

education. So (c) would trigger a subchange, then a 

similar subchange would get triggered again when I have 

more than 50% of myMR. BOUNDS: That's correct. And 

really, I want to go back to the previous question when I 

made the example of offering a new program that would 

fall under (c), instead of, I think, the question that Jo 

answered, I just want to make sure I made it correct. 

Yeah, so basically, an institution that has been 

approved to offer distance. If that first approval of 

distance at the program, there was less than 50% of this 
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is being offered, once you then reach that 50% threshold, 

there would need to be another review of that 

institution. Now, if that first approval, you were 

already over if the institution was already over 50%, 

meaning they were offering a program 100%, then they 

would not be effective at, all in that situation. 

Again, I'll let my colleague come on if she wants to add.

MR. ROBERTS: Donna, I see your hand 

is raised. Go ahead.

MS. MANGOLD: Yeah. I just want to 

cross-reference that this relates to 34 CFR 668.8(m), 

which deals with the eligibility aspects of it. You may 

just want to also take a look at that provision.

MS. KLEIN: Okay. Thanks. Then so on 

the new (d) because I think we've talked about this a 

bit throughout the week in terms of just what we're 

talking about in terms of distance and programs, since we 

know many institutions offer like a hybrid course or 

program. I'm curious and also just might be helpful as a 

cleanup to language to be clear about if you're talking 

about like how hybrid courses or programs, for example, 

are handled. Is this talking about just courses or

programs that are offered 100% online? If you're offering 

a hybrid course or a program where part of your course is 

online and part is on ground, how does that trip this or 
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not? I just think there's some lack of clarity in here 

that would maybe make it more useful for institutions and 

accreditors. I don't know that I have a perspective 

either way, but I think just as we've been talking about 

throughout this week, I think it's important to account 

for sort of the variety of different ways that distance 

ed gets infused through programs and institutions now.

MS. MANGOLD: And we can take that 

back and talk to our colleagues like Dave Musser and 

others, on how we might be able to clarify it better.

MS. KLEIN: Okay, thanks. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. DC, go ahead.

DR. PRINCE: Between these two 

documents. Question is I'm getting this question too. Is 

the Department also open to the- changing the percentage 

of the threshold?

MR. BOUNDS: I think we would be 

willing to entertain. I think Donna made a good point. 

Since this also, really involves eligibility, I think we 

would all have to go back and take a look at that. But 

sure, I don't think we would be unwilling to look at 

anything. But, as Donna said, I think our legal folks, 

Dave over in FSA, Greg, we'd all have to come back and 

take a look at it. But yeah, I don't see why we wouldn't 

entertain some additional thoughts.
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DR. PRINCE: Has the Department had a 

discussion recently to get to this point around whether 

or not they have an interest in moving that threshold up 

or down. Knowing that what we've been through with Covid 

and everything else, and now the new space to be online 

hybrid and all the other questions. Has there been 

internal discussions where the Department would rather 

see things up or down? The percentage go up or down.

MR. BOUNDS: Well, I don't know about 

that, but I can tell you our whole reasoning for putting 

in this percentage is we just think that, if an 

institution had been offering, say, distance at a, you 

know, 10, you know, 5, 10, 20% level when you reach that 

50% threshold, that really, we think deserves a new look. 

I mean, that's a significant increase. So that was really 

our reasoning or thinking behind even putting these 

requirements in the first place. So, yeah, there was 

considerable consideration in coming up with the 50% 

number. Is there room for some other discussion? I will 

just answer your question, overall, I would just say yes.

DR. PRINCE: Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Thank you. 

Jamie, go ahead.

MS. STUDLEY: A few different points. 

I'd like to draw in so I won't repeat the comments I made 
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yesterday about the 25% of content, which, depending on 

how it was interpreted by the Department and what its 

meaning is. Strikes me as risking being a break on 

course improvement and updating the kind of updating 

that's exactly what we expect to be sure that the program 

content is useful, relevant, effective for reaching the 

learning outcomes. Second, I will say we are looking 

hard at this one because it's got a lot of different 

ramifications. It can affect things like the distance 

definition, relates to lots of other sections, and in 

trying to shift toward looking at outcomes and 

understanding whether students are really learning and 

what part modality might play. There are many places 

where the Department is making changes, and we want to 

think about how to do this so that it's not an 

unreasonable constraint or a technical activity when the 

focus really should be on our students learning from the 

programs however delivered and in whatever combination. A 

very important point relates to visits. Going back to 

requiring visits to every additional location. Setting 

reasonable schedules is something that we are happy to 

do, but it sounds as though this does not allow if a 

reasonable schedule is not during the remaining cycle of 

this institutions accreditation would not be allowed. 

That's contrary to the Department's other good ideas 
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about risk-based allocation of resources. Just like you 

don't want to waste your time doing things that don't 

matter or don't add, there are situations in which 

visiting one of many locations, when we have the 

information that's specifically described. Are there any 

concerns from students about things not being delivered 

there? Is there faculty that is providing the program? 

There are lots of things that are mentioned in these 

regs, like are you capable of doing strategic planning 

that do not require a site visit? We've all learned a lot 

about what we can do effectively as we are today, without 

travel. We request that we rethink whether it's 

necessary to do visits every single time. Finally, item 

(b), small B, simple reference, about the additional 

requirement to report to the Secretary when certain 

subchanges are approved, and [30 seconds] an accreditor 

would take into account the status noncompliance concerns 

basis for a probation or other consideration. We don't 

think we're uncertain whether there would be value added 

by this additional reporting requirement.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you all. A couple 

hands. Jillian, go ahead.

MS. KLEIN: Sorry, it's a super big 

section, so I'm just kind of working through as I go.

MR. ROBERTS: I was going to say, if 
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folks do have other questions about the section, we're 

kind of going down, so feel free to queue if you have 

additional questions about this. 

MS. KLEIN: Yeah, I think not 

dissimilar from Jamie's comment. I'll try not to be 

duplicative, and maybe the Department talked about this 

yesterday, so apologies. But in terms of the rationale on 

(i) about the 25% more the content of the program and I 

care deeply about making sure that there are protections 

for students who are entering into programs where, part 

or all is delivered via a written arrangement, which I 

know is handled later, but just trying to understand, 

just more clarity on what the Department's getting to. I 

think, I'll share. We have had an experience with an 

accreditor where we've been reporting this type of 

information already. I don't know if this is lifted from 

a different section, but, where I think there's just 

been confusion about the value of this reporting to 

institutions or to accreditors in a way that's meaningful 

to accreditors, helpful for institutions, that doesn't 

take up sort of everybody's time on something that 

sometimes has proven to be low risk. So anyway, I just 

want to better understand what the Department is trying 

to get at here and then try and think about if there's a 

more efficient way, we can get at whatever the spirit is 
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behind what you're trying to accomplish so that we can be 

efficient with people's times, too. Hopefully that made 

sense. Thanks.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. You know, all of 

these came about, based on internal thought and internal 

conversations. I want to make it clear that there were a 

bunch of folk’s kind of looking at these things when we 

put these into place. Again, we just thought that the 25% 

change in the clock-hour program, could be significant. 

If it's a program that, you know, has maybe licensure 

involved or somethingMS. KLEIN: Sorry, I'm asking about 

the next one. I'm sorry to cut you off, Herman. I'm 

asking about the next one, about (i).

MR. BOUNDS: About (i), so the change 

inMS. KLEIN: The content, yeah. Not the 

credit hour.

MR. BOUNDS: Same analogy. We just 

thought that the 25% or more of the change of content was 

significant. And wanted the agency to be able to look at 

that. Again, you know, we don't tell agencies what their 

sub change reviews must be. They can be a paper review 

based on their experience. Some agents may have come 

back and said, no, this we don't like this. We just 
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thought that it was important for the agency to be able 

to look at that and evaluate that. That's really the best 

answer that I can give you. Again, we're open to hearing 

other discussions about that percentage or whether, 

folks out there think that's important. But, that was 

our reasoning behind both of those, (g) and (i).

MS. KLEIN: Okay. Thanks. I may come 

back with, I don't know, ideas or whatever related to 

this, just in the spirit of making this a more useful 

process, I think, for everybody involved and making sure 

that things like, you know, making changes to your 

program because a specialized accreditor required 

something or something like that is not going to sort of 

hold up a process as an institution as moving forward 

with their program. Thanks. Appreciate it.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Thank you both. 

Barmak, go ahead.

MR. NASSIRIAN: I just want to 

understand, operationally, what recourse the Department 

has if it turns out that an accreditor is actually not 

doing what this regulation requires them to do? For 

example, because Jillian was on (i) on that page, I'll 

look at (l) which requires an evaluation and 

verification of the following academic control. This is 

in case of additional physical locations. Academic 
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control is clearly identified, the institution has 

adequate faculty facilities, resources. The institution 

is financially stable. What happens if an accreditor 

approves a substantive change when it either did not 

verify any of this or worse yet, approved it knowing that 

the institution is not financially stable. Knowing in 

real-time in a manner that is known not only to it, but 

to the public and to the Department? If the accreditor 

approves the change, is the only recourse the Department 

has at that point is the recognition process and the 

renewal process, or is there something you can do in 

real-time to catch that accreditor and say, wait a 

second, in approving this, you're out of compliance?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. So let me give you 

a long, short answer to try to encompass our review. 

Under current regulations, if you look under, 34 CFR 

602.33, that regulation allows us to review an 

accrediting agency at any time during the recognition 

period based on information that we might receive. So 

that's our mechanism for reviewing an agency and bringing 

the agency in for a specific issue that has been brought 

to our attention. We currently use about five or six 

methods to gain additional information. I won’t go into 

all those here. So that allows for that. Then during the 

normal petition for recognition, of course, you all know 
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that an agency must provide information and documentation 

to demonstrate the application of, these policies. 

Between those two processes, if we found out again that 

an agency had not accomplished one of these sub changes, 

then of course, the NACIQI process it goes through the 

agency can be, found noncompliant by the senior 

Department official based on our review. Then the agency 

can also have to then submit a compliance report 

depending on the severity of the issue.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Just for point of 

information, have you had any such action taken since

information coming in prior to a renewal process?

MR. BOUNDS: Absolutely, numerous 

occasions.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: Jamie, do you want to 

just make a note of your comment? We might be able to 

address it right now. Sorry. Putting you on the spot. 

You're muted right now by the way. I might have set you 

up for that.

MS. STUDLEY: My editing comment or 

something else?

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah, the editing 

comment. Because if you're correct, we can just make 

note of that right now.
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MS. STUDLEY: Right. My numbering is 

not the same as yours, but my editing language is, I 

see a section, lowercase (d), the agency may determine 

the procedures to grant approval, and then I see it jump 

to (f) in the way that it's redlined. Is that somethingwas mine inappropriately- was that a slip on my part, or 

do other people have the same thing where it leaps from 

a (d) to an (f)?

MS. BLONDIN: Yes.

MS. STUDLEY: Other people have that ?

UNKNOWN MALE: Yes. 

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. We'll make a note 

of that.

MS. STUDLEY: Thanks. I wouldn't have 

bothered to raise it, except that we were referring to 

things by sections 

MR. ROBERTS: No, I appreciate it.

MS. STUDLEY: Thanks.

MR. ROBERTS: Were there any other 

comments or additional feedback for the Department on 

602.20?

MR. BOUNDS: Can we put up in the page 

where Jamie is, so I think there's other folks that might 

want to see it looks like bottom of page 26, I think, 

just so everybody can see where she's referring to. Yeah. 
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Go back, there it is . Okay. I just want everybody to be 

able to see it. Alright, sir, that's it. We can go back 

where we were.

MR. ROBERTS: Great. Thank you. Any 

additional comments? Yeah, Jillian. Go ahead.

MS. KLEIN: Sorry. I said this 

yesterday, so sorry, I'll say it's super short and I can 

put in the chat too, but I think on the section about 

deleting agency staff approvals just in general. Just 

would love to figure out if there's a happy medium there 

where, if there's anything that we can think about that 

would make sense from an agency staff approval

perspective instead of just deleting the whole section, I 

think many of us around the table felt like that was 

largely, potentially a good move. Bu,t I also appreciate 

that there may be some need to rein that in a little bit. 

So, just wanted to highlight that. I know I said it 

yesterday too. Thanks.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay. Thank you. 

Jillian. Herman, I think we can turn it back over to you 

and your team if you're ready to keep going.

MR. BOUNDS: I am. Okay, so where are 

we next? Are we down to 23?

MR. ROBERTS: I believe so. That's 

what I have on my screen as well. That's what I think is 
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being shared, yeah.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. And what time do we 

have now? 11:45?

MR. ROBERTS: I have a quarter to 

noon. if we want to begin the discussion now and then if

folks have their hands up, we can just take a note of 

the queue and just pick things right back up once we 

return, if that's alright with you and everyone else.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. That's good. That's 

good with me. And I know we went through 602.22 quick. 

So, if any other thoughts come up, you guys can drop 

those in I know that was a huge section. So, but we are 

at (c) basically where we're talking about our complaint 

processes and the changes, we made here to kind of help 

determine what timely, fair, and equitable means. I will 

open this up again for discussion.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Thank you. Any 

comments, questions, feedback on section (c), accrediting 

agency must, the proposed reg text? Yeah, DC, go ahead.

DR. PRINCE: On this one, the question 

I have is you state clear timelines. But in other 

regulations, you give, calendar days or business days. 

Is the Department open to redefining clear timelines to 

stipulating the days, like 30 business days, 45 calendar 

days? Whatever the case may be to really be clear, so 
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that there is no ambiguity or interpretation based on 

whoever is in charge of agency of what a clear timeline 

is?

MR. BOUNDS: I mean, we can certainly 

consider that. We just use the language clear timeline. 

Since again, I've always said there's, 62 different 

accrediting organizations and how they handle complaints 

or kind of structured differently. Some agencies, it's 

the commission that makes the decisions. Some folks have 

some additional subcommittees of the commission. They may 

have another group or entity in the organization that 

takes care of these complaints. We didn't want to 

prescribe a time here. We just said that whatever that 

time is, we wanted the agency to make sure that those 

timelines were clearly published and since complaint 

processes can take so many different routes from start to 

end. But again, if folks have other ideas, we're willing 

to kind of look at those.

DR. PRINCE: My follow-up to that is, 

I'm reading the red text, but I'm also reading the black 

text to just remind me. There was a question around 

reporting of complaints and dashboarding of complaints. 

Is that already a requirement of agencies to do as they 

get these ? Because I don't see that clearly stated in 

the new regulatory text. Am I overlooking something?
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MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, there are no 

reporting. Reporting requirements now are covered either 

under, excuse me, 34 CFR 602.26, 27. There are some 

reporting in 28. We don't require agencies to report the 

number of complaints that they receive or that they 

process. So that has never been a requirement.

DR. PRINCE: Is the agency open? Well,

that's a yes. But has the agency had discussions with 

accrediting bodies about the capacity and ability to do 

such a thing, if the agency, Department agency would 

require such a reporting mechanism to be in place?

MR. BOUNDS: T That could be a 

massive amount of information. Agencies may receive 

complaints that are, that are not valid or dismissed. 

Yeah, we haven't considered asking the agency to report 

complaints.

DR. PRINCE: Does the does the 

Department believe that in true transparency and for 

public confidence to increase around the need of the role 

of what agencies play in our system, That having a 

reporting structure in place like this would improve

public confidence and/or provide greater information to a 

number of different stakeholders around. Kknowing how 

many complaints have been and how they've handled those 

complaints, whether they've dismissed it on immediate 
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email or done an investigation, dismissed it, whatever 

the case may be?

MR. BOUNDS: That would be something 

we have to take back and consider. But we haven't 

considered agencies reporting complaints.

DR. PRINCE: Thank you.

MR. BOUNDS: W When an agency comes 

up for renewal of recognition, we do discuss the number 

of complaints that we have maybe received from 

individuals who, may have filed a complaint against the 

agency itself. We haven't considered that part of it at 

all.

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Thank you both. 

I think we'll have time to take Jamie, Carolyn, and 

Laura. So, Jamie, we'll turn to you first.

MS. STUDLEY: Okay. Thank you. Many 

agencies, as we discussed just yesterday, have revised 

their complaint policies, and have looked at it in light 

of the Department's guidance and conversations with 

NACIQI. I think there's been a lot of movement in the 

direction that the Department is suggesting. The 

challenge of handling anonymous or confidential 

complaints remains a thorny one. I think that it's 

something where we in the Department can work together to 

consider the best ways to hear the content or make an 
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appropriate judgment about whether to handle it as a 

complaint or as information to the agency that warrants 

consideration, whether it can be done best in the form of 

a complaint or another input. We are trying to think of 

ways that we can hear that information from students, 

staff and faculty who do not feel that they would be 

willing or comfortable to reveal who they are. But, it's 

a sticky one. I want to distinguish in what you just 

said, Herman, between complaints about an institution 

that the institution is not meeting standards, and 

complaints against an accrediting agency, which is made 

to the Department. Very specifically, the language does 

not technically follow, since we are all here about 

technically following the requirements that are imposed 

on us. I think we just need a better way to say something 

about reasonable flexibility or the agency making efforts 

to accept and handle the substance of a complaint 

wherever possible. But telling us don't technically 

follow goes against all these other days of do 

technically follow all the rules. I think there's a 

better way to express that point about responsiveness. 

Separately as a non-regulatory matter, accreditors, to my 

knowledge, have always been willing to talk with the 

Department and others who become aware of complaints and 

concerns. Because, the more we could know about the 
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serious and justified [30 seconds] complaints followedfiled in very different arenas, the better we could spot 

patterns. One complaint tells me what that one complaint 

tells me, and it may open awareness of a bigger set of 

problems. Coordination across the triad may be something 

we want to tackle outside the regulatory process.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Jamie. 

Carolyn?

MR. ROBERTS: I wanted to express some 

strong support for the Department's tackling this issue 

of consumer complaints. It's very important for 

accreditors to use information from the students who are 

affected by the institution's conduct as part of their 

review. Unfortunately, As the Department has noted in 

its own analysis, there are examples of accreditors that 

are actually putting up barriers to impede the ability of 

students to make complaints to accreditors. For example, 

not accepting complaints if the complaint wasn't provided 

through snail mail or not accepting it if it had more 

than one copy wasn't submitted. If it didn't refer to 

the specific written standard that a lay person would 

have difficulty figuring out how that was even relevant 

to them. For example, saying that they wouldn't accept a 

complaint after one year since the incident, even if the 

student had been trying for that whole time to get the 
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problem resolved with their school. There is a really 

significant need for the Department to step in. 

Unfortunately, we've seen problems with the way 

accreditors have put restrictions on the ability of 

students to even make complaints. We really welcome and 

think we could strengthen further, these concrete 

measures to ensure that students can actually make their 

voices heard to the accreditors. We think that it is 

important and we hope to even strengthen these further 

and have proposed some suggestions in that regard in 

language submitted.

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Carolyn. Laura, 

go ahead. I think you'll probably be our last comment 

before lunch, but John and Jamie, I noted your position 

in the queue, and we'll pick right back up with the two 

of you after lunch. But, Laura, go ahead.

MS. RASAR KING: Okay. Thank you. I 

clarified this yesterday with Herman, and I think that 

what I heard him say is about the issue of anonymous 

complaints versus keeping them confidential. From what I 

understood, Herman, you said it wasn't anonymous 

complaints that you were trying to include in the 

regulations. It was really keeping the confidentiality of 

the complainant. So, and I understand that. There's some 

language in here, and it's hard without line numbers, but 
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in (c)(1), it talks about may not refuse to accept a 

complaint on the basis that it does not identify the 

complainant, which indicates that anonymous complaints 

would have to be accepted. I will say that anonymous 

complaints as Jamie alluded to, anonymous complaints can 

be used by the agencies for additional information. We 

all have policies that say, you know, you can complain, 

certainly submit a complaint through the process. We 

also take information that we receive from other sources. 

That includes, in our case, I don't know, media or, a 

phone call that comes in and that's kind of the 

anonymous complaint mechanism. I think that, in my 

experience, most complaints that come in anonymously 

don't have enough information in them to be able to do 

anything with. That you need to be able to reach back out 

to the complainant to clarify information to process it 

that way. So, I just want to be careful that we're not 

including language that would mandate processing 

anonymous complaints through the complaint process that's 

really not meant for that. Because we're not able to get 

enough information to actually process the complaint as a 

complaint, it's really used more as additional 

information for us to, put together with other 

information that we have or to ask questions of the 

program. I just wanted to call that confusing language 
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out. 

MR. BOUNDS: Okay.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you both. I have 

11:57 on my watch. If it's okay, I want to make a quick 

process announcement and then send you to lunch, a minute 

or so early to resume promptly at 1 p.m. eastern. So 

first off, thank you for all the dialog today. It's been 

incredibly productive and helpful. A quick note of 

something that we heard yesterday. These meetings are 

being translated by ASL interpreters to ensure 

accessibility. there was just a request made that, as 

much as possible, for negotiators and members of the 

public who address us in the public comment period to 

slow down and enunciate as much as possible. Now, I'm 

aware that we do hold you to a strict three-minute 

comment, so there is a bit of a tension with those two 

requests. But, we would be remiss if we didn't mention, 

in the pursuit of making these meetings as accessible as 

possible, just to keep that in mind as we do make 

comments and continue the discussion. So again, I want to 

thank everyone. It's 11:58. We will pick back up at 1:00 

with John and Jamie's comments. And thank you all very 

much for your time this morning.

 

 
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Zoom Chat Transcript

Program Integrity and Institutional Quality- Session 1, Day 4, 

Morning, January 11, 2024 

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

errors may be present.

From Krystil Smith | FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

Good morning- please remember to update your name with the naming 

convention

From A-Michale McComis, Inst. Accreditors to Everyone:

ACCSC accredits several "Linesman" Schools!

From (A) Zack Goodwin (he/him), Financial Aid Administrators to 

Everyone:

Reacted to "ACCSC accredits seve..." with �����

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Instit to Everyone:

Reacted to "ACCSC accredits seve..." with ���

From A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

Reacted to "ACCSC accredits seve..." with ���

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

Reacted to "ACCSC accredits seve..." with ���

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

Agree with Barmak that Dept should add more specificity to 

existing rules on conflict of interest for members who are not public 

members, in addition to the Dept's helpful changes on public member 

definition.

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

did we mean to skip 602.12?

From P Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

Agree with Laura -- track record + ED's extensive review 

including public comment are better evidence for recognized agencies 

than 3 letters. We could easily provide 3 letters but don't see what 

they would add or how they would address Barmak's valid concern.

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

On 602.10-- The staff resources issue is not a reason to deny 

recognition to agencies that meet statutory requirements.

From P Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

Agree with Diana that continued strong review of agencies is 

essential.

From (P) Barmak Nassirian -- Veterans to Everyone:

Jamie's comments remind me that we would like to revisit 602.11 

and have a conversation about how allowing regulated entities to 

choose their regulators enables a race to the bottom. The fact that a 

school chooses a particular regulator may well be a sign that it is 
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the most lenient agency--a la ACICS--rather than that it is a reliable 

authority.

From P Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

The letters would simply be describing reputation -- "widely 

accepted." The level of responsibility we should count on is the 

Commission of the agency which has fiduciary responsibility for the 

agency quality and effectiveness, and responsibility for enforcement 

of standards and for the rigor and consistency of agency actions.

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

To Diana's comment: You raise the importance of programmatic 

accreditors. Outdated content in computer science programs should be 

something that programmatic accreditors address. I would observe that 

the computer science accreditor is not eligible for recognition by the 

Department. This is another reason why preserving eligibility for 

programmatic accreditors is important.

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

Agree with Barmak that we need actual consequences for 

accreditors that are not doing adequate job and that we need better 

processes for getting public information during the recertification 

process.

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Agree with Jamie, having just gone through the re-recognition 

process with NACIQI as part of HLC Board.

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

I did not know that. Thank you! I will be on the lookout for the 

next renewal.

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

I would like to note that application process of "letters" from 

constituencies in 602.13 should also be applied in 602.12(b)2(ii). If 

someone wants to expand their scope, they should also be required to 

get more letters from a larger group of constituencies than just the 

institutions within the accreditors purview.

From (P) Barmak Nassirian -- Veterans to Everyone:

We strongly support the proposed deletion of (c) and (d)

From P Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

Erika--we are looking at that question about innovation.

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

Reacted to "Erika--we are lookin..." with ���

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Instit to Everyone:

Just a note that I am supportive of the change in new (E) 

speaking specifically to non-degree programs.

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

Please confirm Donna's cross reference is 34 CFR 668.8(m)?

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

+1 to Jillian's comment about harmonizing definitions of distance 
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ed across changes

From Donna Mangold - ED OGC to Everyone:

Erika, yes 668.8(m) is what I mentioned

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

Reacted to "Erika, yes 668.8(m) ..." with ���

From P Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

with my proofreader hat on i see a section (d) and then (f), but 

i'm not finding an (e). is that my error or is there an editing 

mistake in the redlining?

From P, Jessi Morales, Student/Borrower to Everyone:

Want to just drop this in the chat about the issue with 

accreditors looking at student's complaints: 

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/briefs/higher-educationaccreditors-dont-want-to-hear-your-complaints/

From A, Emmett Blaney, Student/Borrower to Everyone:

Reacted to "Want to just drop th..." with ����

From A, Magin Sanchez, Civil Rights/Consumer to Everyone:

+1 to Carolyn’s comment in support of ensuring student’s voice is 

heard in this process