Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and Institutional Quality – 1/8/24

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 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING PROGRAM INTEGRITY 

AND INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY

SESSION 1, DAY 1, MORNING

JANUARY 8, 2024

On the 8th 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

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning everyone. 

My name is Commissioner Cindy Jeffries, and I'm a Federal 

facilitator mediator with the Federal Mediation and 

Conciliation Service. It is my distinct pleasure to 

welcome you to the United States Department of 

Education's Negotiated Rulemaking, through which the 

Program Integrity and Institutional Quality Committee 

will prepare proposed regulations authorized under Title 

IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended. At 

this time, I would like to welcome Greg Martin. Greg?

MR. MARTIN: Thank you, Cindy. I'm Greg 

Martin. I'm the director of the policy development group 

with the office of postsecondary education in the 

Department. And I'm very pleased to be with all of you 

this morning. Some of you are frequent fliers with 

negotiated rulemaking and some of you are new. And I 

think that's a fantastic mix. I look forward to working 

with all of you today and I hope we have a productive 

session this week and then in the sessions to come. So, 

welcome.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Greg. Greg, 

did you want to introduce the Undersecretary?

MR. MARTIN: Oh, sure. Yeah and so 

before we get going this morning, we do have some opening 
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remarks from our Undersecretary, James Kvaal. So without 

any further introductions, I'll turn it over to James.

MR. KVAAL: Thanks, Greg. And thanks 

everybody. I wanted to stop in and say hello and welcome 

to the first day of our next negotiated rulemaking for 

postsecondary education. And I really appreciate 

everyone's interest and participating and willingness to 

provide input on the proposed regulations we'll be 

considering today. I particularly want to extend my 

gratitude to all of the negotiators who participate in 

this session and extend their expertise, often on a 

volunteer basis, to help us write the best possible 

rules. And I'm appreciative as well as everyone who is a 

part of the general public and participating in this 

process. There are a lot of issues that will be discussed 

during this rulemaking. Some of them are technical, but 

to me, there is a central issue here. And that's when a 

student enrolls at a college or university, they're 

placing trust in that school and in the accreditors and 

state agencies and in the Department, all of whom stand 

behind that school. And in many cases that trust is 

vindicated. We know that a college degree can change the 

trajectory of a student's life or their family's life. 

And together, college graduates can drive the prosperity 

of a community. In other cases, though, students find 
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that they have wasted their time and money, and sometimes 

are left with debts that they can't afford to repay. And 

the albatross of unaffordable student debts can also 

change the trajectories of students, families and 

communities lives. The Biden administration has taken 

historic steps against predatory practices and 

unaffordable debts through new consumer protections like 

gainful employment, Borrower Defense and the 90/10 rule 

and the new FSA enforcement unit. But our work is not yet 

done. We continue to work to ensure institutions and 

programs provide high quality educational opportunities, 

hold institutions accountable for good outcomes, and 

strengthen the Federal aid programs for students and 

borrowers. Today's table will be taking a closer look at 

the mechanics of the Department's regulations for 

Institutional Quality and Federal Student Aid to make 

sure that they function more effectively. The issues we 

will be discussing include our rules for recognizing 

college accrediting agencies and the procedures they must 

follow. Accrediting agencies play a vital role in 

ensuring quality, setting and enforcing quality 

standards, and promoting continuous improvement. They're 

critical in protecting students and taxpayers, and we 

want to ensure that the regulations for recognizing these 

agencies work in the best interests of students and 
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taxpayers. We also want to consider institutional 

eligibility, including state authorization broadly, and 

the definition of distance education as it pertains to 

reporting students who primarily enroll online. And we 

will be considering financial aid processes that 

determine how students access their student aid that goes 

to living expenses. And when students leave in the middle 

of the term reforms to the so-called return of Title IV 

funds to protect students and taxpayers while easing 

administrative burdens for institutions. Finally, our 

negotiators and a dedicated subcommittee will consider 

how we can help more students benefit from the Trio 

programs. We hope that these new regulations will help 

students get the most from their education and from the 

Federal investment in college affordability. Again, I 

want to say thank you to the negotiators and members of 

the public who are volunteering their time. Thank you to 

the mediators who help keep us organized and on task, and 

making the most of all of our time. And to the Department 

staff who've worked on the issue papers and will continue 

to contribute so much in the coming weeks and months to 

writing these regulations. So thanks, everybody, and 

thanks for the opportunity to stop by. With that, I'll 

turn it back over to Greg.

MR. MARTIN: Thanks a lot, James. I was 
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trying to think if I have any other opening remarks, I 

don't really, I think our facilitator, Cynthia, will go 

over the protocols with everybody. And as I said before, 

I look forward to working with all of you and I know that 

we approach these things from different perspectives. And 

I hope we can all, you know, it's one of these situations 

where we have to sometimes agree to disagree and in the 

past, I think it's worked out really well at these tables 

where that's happened. And I hope we can continue that 

level of civility going forward. So with that, I'll turn 

it back over to Cynthia.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 

Undersecretary Kvaal and Greg for your comments. Next, I 

want to give special recognition and thank you to the 

people behind the scenes that are too many to mention. It 

really does take a village to make this virtual process 

possible. And all of those behind the scenes people are 

instrumental in helping us ensure our sessions are as 

seamless as possible. We also have several non-voting 

participants from the Department that I'd like to 

introduce now. From the Office of General Counsel, we 

have Ms. Denise Morelli, who will be for issues other 

than accreditation. Denise, welcome.

MS. MORELLI: Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: You're welcome. Ms. 
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Donna Mangold for the accreditation discussions. Welcome, 

Donna.

MS. MANGOLD: Welcome, everyone.

MS. JEFFRIES: From Federal Student Aid 

Office of Policy Implementation and Oversight, we have 

Mr. David Musser. Welcome, David.

MR. MUSSER: Hello, everyone.

MS. JEFFRIES: From the Office of 

Postsecondary Education Accreditation Group, Mr. Herman 

Bounds. Welcome, Herman.

MR. BOUNDS: Welcome, everyone.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you to the 

Department. Now we are going to introduce the esteemed 

members of our Program Integrity and Institutional 

Quality Committee. These negotiators have been nominated 

by the public and selected by the Department to represent 

14 respective constituencies. For each constituency, we 

will invite the primary negotiator and alternate 

negotiator to briefly introduce themselves on behalf of 

their constituency group. So with that for the 

constituency of business officers from institutes of 

higher education, primary Joe Weglarz.

MR. WEGLARZ: Good morning, all. I'm 

looking forward to our discussions, alright, through the 

next several months. I'm actually the executive director 
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of student financial services in Marist College in 

Poughkeepsie, New York.

MS. JEFFRIES: And I believe your last 

name is Weglarz, correct?

MR. WEGLARZ: Weglarz, yes.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. And the 

alternate is Dom, right?

MR. CHASE: Good morning. Dom Chase. I 

serve as the senior vice president for business affairs 

and CFO for Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Civil rights 

organization and consumer advocates, we have a primary of 

Carolyn Fast.

MS. FAST: Hi, I'm Carolyn Fast. I'm a 

director of higher education policy at the Century 

Foundation. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Carolyn. Good to 

see you again. And alternate is- I may need some help 

with this, Magin Misael Sanchez.

MR. SANCHEZ: Close. Hi everyone. Good 

morning. My name is Magin Misael Sanchez. Serve as a 

policy analyst at Unidos U.S as higher ed policy analyst, 

our nation's largest Hispanic civil rights organization. 

And I'm also a recent graduate from the University of 

Virginia, where I was involved locally, state and 
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nationally in civil rights advocacy.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you for 

helping me with the pronunciation of your name so that we 

get it right going forward. I appreciate that. Financial 

aid administrators, the primary is JoEllen Price.

MS. PRICE: Hi, good morning. I'm 

JoEllen Price. I am the dean of financial aid and 

scholarships at San Jacinto College in Pasadena, Texas 

and I'm very happy to be here. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks. Alternate, Zack 

Goodwin.

MR. GOODWIN: Hi everyone, very excited 

to be working with you over the next few weeks. I'm the 

Executive Director of Financial Aid and Scholarships and 

Financial Literacy and Wellness at the University of 

Nevada, Las Vegas. Great to meet you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you Zack. Next is 

historically black colleges and universities, tribal 

colleges and universities, and minority serving 

institutions, which are institutions of higher education 

eligible to receive Federal assistance under Title III, 

parts A and F, and Title V of the HEA. The primary is 

Charles Prince.

DR. PRINCE: Good morning. Dr. Charles 

Prince, Chief of Staff and Chief Transformation Officer 
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here in the beautiful city of New Orleans, Louisiana, at 

Dillard University.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome. Alternate is 

D'Angelo Sands.

MR. SANDS: Good morning, everybody. My 

name is D'Angelo Sands. I'm the Executive Director for 

College Access and Outreach at Texas A&M University, 

Corpus Christi. Great to be here. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome. Institutional 

accrediting agencies recognized by the Secretary, we have 

Jamie S. Studley.

MS. STUDLEY: Thank you, Cindy. I'm 

Jamienne Studley. I'm President of the WASC Senior 

College and University Commission. I'm also currently 

serving as chair of the Council of Regional Accrediting 

Agencies. It's good to be back.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good to see you again, 

Jamienne. Alternate Mike.

MS. STUDLEY: Jamie is fine, Cindy.

MS. JEFFRIES: Yeah, I know, but I 

wanted to formally recognize. So thank you, Jamie. 

Alternate, we have Michale McComis.

MR. MCCOMIS: Good morning. Michale 

McComis, I'm the Executive Director with the Accrediting 

Commission of Career Schools and Colleges, serving as the 
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alternate negotiator for institutional accreditors. Good 

to be back and working on some really important topics 

here for this negotiated rulemaking.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome. Next, legal 

assistance organizations, the primary is Robyn Smith.

MS. R. SMITH: Good morning, everyone. 

Nice to see some faces I haven't seen in quite a few 

years. I am the Senior Attorney at the Legal Aid 

Foundation of Los Angeles and of counsel at the National 

Consumer Law Center.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome, Robyn. 

Alternate, Sophie Laing.

MS. LAING: Good morning. I'm Sophie 

Laing. I'm a Staff Attorney at Pine Tree Legal Assistance 

in Maine.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome. Private 

nonprofit institutions of higher education, primary Erika 

Linden.

MS. LINDEN: Good morning. I'm Erika 

Linden. I'm the Chief Compliance Officer and Title IX 

Coordinator for Des Moines University, which is a 

graduate health sciences institution. And I represent the 

private nonprofit.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Erika. 

Alternate, Scott Dolan.
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MR. DOLAN: Good Morning. Scott Dolan 

the Executive Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and 

Sciences at Excelsior University, online institution 

headquartered in Albany, New York. Thanks so much.

MS. JEFFRIES: You're welcome and 

welcome. Programmatic accrediting agencies recognized by 

the Secretary to include state agencies recognized for 

approval of nurse education. The primary is Dr. Laura 

Rasar King.

DR. KING: Good morning everybody. My 

name is Laura Rasar King. I am the Executive Director of 

the Council on Education for Public Health, which is the 

programmatic accrediting agency for public health schools 

and programs, representing specialized accreditation.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good to see you again. 

Alternate, Amy Ackerson.

MS. ACKERSON: Good morning, I'm Amy 

Ackerson. I am the Director of Education for the Missouri 

State Board of Nursing.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome, Amy. 

Proprietary institutions of higher education. We have 

primary Jillian Klein.

MS. KLEIN: Good morning, everybody. 

Jillian Klein, Senior Vice President of Government and 

regulatory affairs at Strategic Education Incorporated, 
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which is the parent company of Capella University and 

Strayer University. This is my second time doing neg reg. 

I have 100% success rate on reaching consensus, so I'm 

counting on all of you. Nice to be with you today.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jillian, good 

to see you again as well. Her alternate is David Cohen.

MR. COHEN: Good morning, everybody. 

David Cohen, I'm the proud President of Five Towns 

College, located in Long Island, New York. I'm also the 

chair of the Association of Private Colleges in New York 

State.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome, David. Public 

four-year institutions of higher education. Primary, 

Jason Lorgan.

MR. LORGAN: Good morning. My name is 

Jason Lorgan. I serve as the Executive Director in the 

Division of Student Affairs at the University of 

California, Davis, and I'm happy to be here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome. Alternate is 

Alyssa Dobson. Alyssa, are you with us today? It doesn't 

look like she is if she joins.

MR. WEATHERS: Cindy? I did see her 

earlier and I had been in communication with her, and I 

think she's a little under the weather, so she may have 

stepped away.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. If she does feel 

better enough to join us, we will announce her when she 

is able to join. Public two-year institutions of higher 

education. Primary Jo Alice Blondin.

MS. BLONDIN: Hi there. Jo Blondin, 

President at Clark State College in Springfield, Ohio.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. And the alternate 

is Michael Cioce.

MR. CIOCE: Good morning, good morning. 

Yes, Michael Cioce, alternate. I'm at Rowan College at 

Burlington County in New Jersey and representing two-year 

colleges. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome. State attorneys 

general, we have primary Diana Hooley.

MS. HOOLEY: Good morning, everyone. My 

name is Diana Hooley. I'm an Assistant Attorney General 

in the Insurance and Financial Services division at the 

Massachusetts AG's office. Very excited to be a part of 

this process. And I'm representing the constituency of 

the state attorneys general offices. Nice to meet 

everyone.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. The alternate 

position for state attorney generals is vacant at this 

time. So we'll move to state officials, including state 

higher education, executive officers, state authorizing 
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agencies, and state regulators of institutions of higher 

education, with the primary being John Ware.

MR. WARE: Good morning, John Ware, 

Director of the Ohio State Board of Career Colleges and 

Schools.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome, John. And the 

alternate, Robert Anderson.

MR. ANDERSON: Hey, everybody. Rob 

Anderson here. Very good to see a bunch of colleagues 

gathered. I am the President of the State Higher 

Education Executive Officers Association. Been in that 

capacity for about six and a half years. Worked at state 

SHEEO offices for a decade plus before that. And the 

current incoming chair of the board of directors for NCSARA.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Students or 

borrowers, including currently enrolled borrowers or 

groups representing them, primary Jessica Morales.

MS. MORALES: Hi, everybody. I'm 

Jessica Morales I am currently in Texas, but go to school 

in D.C. And I go to American University, Washington 

College of Law. And I've worked with many of you and I'm 

excited to work with those that I haven't.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome. And alternate 

is Emmett Blaney.
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MR. BLANEY: Hello, everyone. I'm 

Emmett Blaney, I'm a recent graduate of the University of 

Denver for my Master of Social Work, and I'm also the 

Policy Coordinator for Young Invincibles out here in 

Denver.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome. U.S. military 

service members, veterans or groups representing them, 

primary Barmak Nassirian.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Good morning. My name 

is Barmak Nassirian, Vice President for Higher Ed Policy 

with Veterans Education Success.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good to see you again, 

Barmak. And alternate is Ashlynn Haycock-Lohmann.

MS. HAYCOCK-LOHMANN: Good morning, 

everyone. I'm Ashlynn Haycock-Lohmann. I'm the Deputy 

Legislative Director at the Tragedy Assistance Program 

for Survivors, or TAPS. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. I did- there is a 

message from Allison Dobson who states that she is here 

and listening in. She thinks their audio was not working. 

She is under the weather, but she does express that she 

wouldn't miss this for the world. So she is present. 

Thank you all for introducing yourselves and for your 

time, efforts, expertise, and commitment to this process 

and the representation of your constituency. We are glad 
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to have the opportunity to work with each and every one 

of you. In addition to the main committee, there will be 

a subcommittee on Federal TRIO programs. I'm going to 

introduce the participants of that TRIO program and then 

explain to you a little bit how that program and 

subcommittee will work. So participating in the TRIO

committee program will be- subcommittee will be 

participants from the Department of Education including 

Aaron Washington, who will be the subcommittee leader 

from the Office of Policy Planning and Innovation within 

the office of postsecondary education. I do know that 

Aaron is present because he is also in the background 

here. Aaron, do you want to introduce yourself?

MR. WASHINGTON: Hi, my name is Aaron 

Washington. Like Cindy said I'll be the subcommittee team 

lead. I will be meeting on Friday, this Friday from 10 to 

3 to discuss one issue related to a participant 

eligibility and TRIO programs. You all from the main 

committee are welcome to watch as well as the public. And 

I probably will see you all again at the second session 

in February when the subcommittee reports out our initial 

discussions to you all. So it's very nice to meet you all 

and I look forward to working with you all. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Aaron. Gaby 

Watts from higher education programs office within the 
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office of postsecondary education. Gaby, are you present 

today? Doesn't look like it. And that's going to be 

Hannah Hodel fromMS. WATTS: I'm here, Cindy.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. There you are.

MS. WATTS: Good morning, everyone. 

This is Gaby Watts. I'm the Senior Director for Student 

Service in the office of postsecondary education. We're 

going to be working with Aaron on the subcommittee. Thank 

you all.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Gaby. Hannah 

Hodel from the Office of General Counsel. Okay. The TRIO

subcommittee will consist of five constituent groups,

including institutions of higher education within 

negotiator D'Angelo Sands. D’Angelo is also part of the 

main committee, but he is the only one from the main 

committee on the TRIO committee. Current or former 

participants in a Federal TRIO program negotiator Wade 

Williams. Secondary schools, including local education 

agencies with secondary schools and negotiator will be 

Jeff Garner. Organizations, including community based 

organizations with experience in servicing disadvantaged. 

The negotiator will be Emilyn Lappeth. State officials, 

including higher education, executive officers, state 

authorizing agencies, and state regulator institutions of 
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higher education is currently vacant. So for the 

subcommittee process, FMCS will be the facilitator for 

that subcommittee process. We want to give a big thank 

you to the subcommittee participants, and we look forward 

to working with you. This subcommittee will meet on 

Friday, January 12th and Friday, February 9th of 2024 to 

discuss the TRIO issue paper that you all received as 

well. Per protocols, the subcommittee does not have 

authority to reach consensus with the Department as a 

stand-alone committee. However, they will be focusing on 

bringing a recommendation to the full committee for 

discussion and consensus by the full committee during the 

last session or before, if there ready of this rulemaking 

in March 2024. This full committee is the only one that 

has the ability to reach consensus on a recommendation 

that the subcommittee brings forward. Next, I'd like to 

take a moment to introduce you all to your FMCS 

facilitation group. I and four of my colleagues who will 

introduce themselves momentarily, our commissioners slash 

Federal mediators with the Federal Mediation and 

Conciliation Service who will be referred to going 

forward as FMCS. I myself have been with FMCS for a 

little over 13 years. I currently work outside of 

Orlando, Florida and I previously was stationed in 

Albany, New York. I especially enjoy these multi-party 
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high stake negotiations and appreciate getting the 

opportunity to work with subject matter experts in a 

variety of sectors, industries and circumstances. I have 

been doing negotiated rulemaking for several years now, 

and this is my fourth one with the Department surrounding 

the Higher Education Act. I am joined by four fellow FMCS 

colleagues who I'd like to invite to introduce themselves 

and anything I may not have mentioned so far. 

Commissioner, Brady Roberts.

MR. ROBERTS: Morning, everyone. Brady 

Roberts from the Philadelphia field office of FMCS. This 

is my fourth reg neg with the Department. And Cindy, I 

think you've hit everything.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thanks. 

Commissioner, John Weathers.

MR. WEATHERS: Thank you, Cindy. John 

Weathers I'm sitting outside of Denver, Colorado. I've 

been with FMCS for seven and a half years, and this is my 

second reg neg with the Department. I'm looking forward 

to it. Thank you, Cindy.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, John. 

Commissioner, Krystil Smith.

MS. K. SMITH: Good morning, I'm 

Krystil Smith. I'm calling here from outside Washington 

D.C. office. I've been with FMCS for seven years and this 
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will be my first time facilitating with the Department.

MS. JEFFRIES: And last but not least, 

we have Commissioner, Kevin Wagner. Kevin?

MR. WAGNER: Hi. Good morning. My name 

is Kevin Wagner. I've been with FMCS a little over five 

years. Based out of the headquarters in Washington D.C., 

calling from Northern Virginia. This is my second reg neg 

with the Department and looking forward to working with 

everyone.

MS. JEFFRIES: Great. Thank you. So for 

those of you who may not be familiar with FMCS, we are a 

small independent Federal agency of the executive branch 

of the U.S. Government. We have several statutory bodies 

of work, one being negotiated rulemaking. Specifically, 

the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act of 1990 and the 

Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1990 authorizes FMCS to use 

its dispute resolution expertise to bring together the 

regulators and those impacted by the regulations in a 

collaborative process prior to the issuance of a new 

rule. Your FMCS is a neutral third party will facilitate 

your discussions and consensus for each policy proposal. 

We will assist the negotiating committee in identifying 

and overcoming barriers that arise in multi-party 

negotiations. We also will work with the committee as 

appropriate, and break out caucus faces during sessions 
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and work with groups between sessions. Solicit and 

distribute documents and information for the Department

Committee and capture the process and progress in 

drafting of a session summary. We are here to assist you 

in every step of the way. While you are all are the 

subject matter expertise or experts and focus on the 

topics before the committee, we will drive the process 

and move the committee through each session, navigating 

order and adherence to the organizational protocols, 

agenda timelines, strategies and dynamics at and away 

from the table, all to assist you to be solution oriented 

and to build consensus. We want to each of you to feel 

encouraged and empowered to reach out to us directly with 

questions, comments, and concerns throughout the entirety 

of this process. I believe we have now made all the 

introductions. If I missed someone, I do apologize and 

invite you to let me know at this time. Okay. So now 

we're going to move on to logistics and protocols. And we 

are asking the following. Please adhere to the naming 

convention indicating P for primary A for alternate 

followed by your name and lastly the constituency you are 

representing. So we ask everyone to adhere to that at 

this time. While you are not speaking, please keep your 

audio muted. This will help us cut down on background 

noise, distractions, and be able to identify the speaker 
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more readily at any given time. If you are at the main 

virtual table and have something to share, please raise 

your virtual hand by clicking the reactions icon at the 

bottom of your screen and selecting raise hand. We will 

generally call on people throughout the process in the 

order in which their virtual hands appear on the screen. 

Should you have any technology related questions today 

during our session, we will identify each day of the 

session in the chat the name and email address. Today it 

will be Krystil Smith. Krystil, if you could kindly put 

your name and email in the chat, we would appreciate it. 

Special note on the chat feature. It will remain enabled 

during our sessions together. Please know that all 

messages sent out to the full group are subject to an 

ongoing transcript that will be posted publicly. Each 

day, the public will have an opportunity to log in and 

observe our session via live streaming. The Department 

has posted a registration link for that on their website, 

and I will again ask Krystil to post that list in the 

chat right now, because this is the same place where

updates and shared documents will routinely be provided. 

Next, we would like to address the organizational 

protocols. I know that each of you previously received a 

copy of the protocols to review and briefly discuss with 

the facilitators who scheduled your outreach sessions. 
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Based on some of those discussions and the questions 

asked within, I would like to address a few concepts 

covered in that document. Primary and alternate committee 

members. We recognize primary and alternate committee 

members as a team representing their constituency. To 

that end, we value the input, expertise and 

representation that both bring to the table. To carry out 

our virtual process, we must note several important 

distinctions. Only the primary negotiator generally sits 

at the table. Only the participants sitting at the main 

table will have their cameras on while discussion is 

taking place on policy proposals. All others, including 

alternates, will be asked to turn their cameras off. This 

is to preserve the limited virtual landscape and to 

easily delineate between those participating for the 

purposes of determining consensus, which are the primary 

negotiators. Alternate committee members will be invited 

to turn their cameras on when they are at the main table, 

and this can occur in several types of instances. In the 

absence of a primary member, the alternate will 

participate at the main table, and for the purpose of 

consensus. The primary and alternate negotiator may 

decide that the alternate will take the primary's place 

at the main table, either for a certain topic or to have 

an opportunity to briefly comment on particular topic, 
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segment, subsection of a topic. In that case, the 

alternate would thus be on camera, and the primary would 

turn off their camera for that portion. We hope that 

everyone understands the virtual and logistical intent 

behind this practice, and would ask for advance notice to 

the facilitators when it is noted, knowing that an 

alternator, an alternator, an alternate will participate 

for a day, a topic, or speak on a sub topic. This allows 

us to plan accordingly and make announcements for the 

public that are viewing via the live stream. We will be 

engaging in consensus decision making to develop 

regulations. We will utilize good faith group problem 

solving to address interests of the committee members 

with the intent of reaching unanimous agreement, 

otherwise described as building consensus. It is not a 

majority vote, but rather an expression of agreement or 

dissent, and we will have built consensus once there is 

no dissent by any member of the negotiating committee. 

Thus, no member of or minority group can be outvoted. A 

few important notes here. Per the protocols, members of 

the committee should not block or withhold consensus 

unless they have serious reservations about what is being 

proposed. Absence at the time of a consensus check will 

be the equivalent to not dissenting and will therefore 

not prevent consensus from being reached. To take 
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consensus checks, we will utilize a virtual three thumb 

approach. Thumbs up. This is an expression of agreement 

by one who agrees with and is in support of the proposal 

at hand. A sideways thumb. This is also an expression of 

agreement. It is in fact an indication that one does not 

feel as strongly favorable to the proposal, but will 

support and agree with the proposal and not dissent. If 

every if everyone is an up or sideways, you have reached 

agreement. A down thumb is an expression of dissent by 

one who will not support the proposal at hand. If one or 

more individuals are a thumbs down. You are not in 

consensus, and the dialog and work continues during our 

remaining scheduled session together, starting with the 

dissenter or dissenters being asked if there are 

additional concerns other than what was presented in the 

discussion prior to the consensus check, and asked to 

provide a change to what was proposed that might get them 

to consensus. Finally, we will be seeking consensus 

separately on each policy proposal. Each policy proposal 

will be subject to its own distinct consensus building 

and as a result, those where policy proposal consensus 

has not been reached will not hold back these policy 

proposals for the consensus was achieved. Okay? 

Throughout the process, we take the committee's 

temperature for purposes of tentative agreement. This 
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will help us monitor where the committee is at as a group 

with regard to specific policy proposals and solutions, 

so that we continue through the process towards 

consensus. Temperature checks will also be done using the 

same three thumb approach, and we will make it clear in 

any given instance whether we are taking the temperature 

or an official consensus check. Data and information 

requests and sharing and questions. To streamline and an 

effort and consistent process, we request that materials 

be provided to FMCS and we will distribute them to the 

full committee and Department. For the Department, for 

data requests to the Department, please refer to the 

protocols for additional information. These will be 

invited at the time of addressing the topic for which the 

request pertains. Any information provided by the 

Department in response to a data request will be sent out 

to the entire committee. The Department desires to share 

information when they can. However, please understand 

that there should be no expectation of a response given 

during a live session. In those circumstances, we will 

ask you to place your question or request in the chat for 

the Department to follow up on. This is not an attempt to 

delay responses, but instead to provide the Department 

time to provide the most accurate and meaningful 

response. Document and proposal exchanges and meeting 
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requests or scheduling. All documents exchanged between 

the parties will be sent to the FMCS team, who will then 

distribute them to the parties. This is applicable for 

the negotiators and the Department of Education. Any 

requests for meetings with the Department or the 

Department requests for meeting with the constituency 

group or groups, will also go through FMCS for 

confirmation and scheduling. We thank you in advance for 

understanding and cooperation. We will be using breakout 

rooms in caucuses and per the protocols, committee 

members may request a caucus for the purpose of 

consultation. To achieve this within our zoom.gov 

platform, the facilitators will move individuals into 

breakout rooms within the platform. These rooms are 

secure and private virtual spaces where there will be no 

live streaming or recording. The main table discussions 

will be paused during a caucus. For time management 

purposes, the facilitators will work with the committee 

members to ensure they are used intentionally and 

strategically for specific periods of time. It is no 

secret that we have several important topics to address 

in our limited time together, and we want to ensure that 

we are using each of your time most productively. In 

terms of participation, only those within the Zoom.gov 

platform will be able to access the breakout rooms 
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through Zoom. This means we will not be able to admit any 

additional individuals to the meeting for the purpose of 

meeting with you in caucus. However, while in the 

breakout rooms, we encourage you to contact and consult 

with others as you deem appropriate and necessary. Feel 

encouraged to call them, use conference lines, speaker 

phones, or other technology available to you. Social 

media. It is addressed in the protocols, and we ask 

everyone to refrain from posting and commenting on social 

media during our sessions, because we want everyone fully 

engaged and participating in our sessions. Outside of the 

sessions, we appreciate that social media can be an 

effective tool for positive use, such as soliciting 

feedback from your respective constituencies. Therefore, 

consistent with the protocols, all members shall act in 

good faith in all aspects of negotiations and should 

refrain from characterizing the views, motives or 

interests of others regarding negotiated rulemaking. 

Additional- adding additional constituency groups and 

members, the committee members may propose additional 

constituency groups for consideration by the committee. 

The cutoff date to propose new constituent groups, 

including primary and alternate, for the group, is close 

of business on the first day of session two, which is 

February 5th, 2024. If submitting a proposal, please 
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include the name of the proposed constituency group, why 

you feel they should be approved and the proposed primary 

and alternate negotiator along with their job, their 

bios. I'm sorry. Finally, it has been communicated to 

each of you that your agreement to serve as a negotiator 

indicated your willingness to follow the protocols which 

you received as a copy of. We are now going to ask you at 

this time to approve the organizational protocol as 

provided. This will be your first opportunity to use your 

thumbs and achieve agreement. Does the committee agree 

with formally adopting the protocols? May I please see a 

show of thumbs? Mr. Ware, I can't see. There you go. 

Alright. Looks like you have reached your first 

consensus. Congratulations. And we will reflect the 

adoption in our records. Public comment period. At the 

end of each day, that the main committee meets, with the 

exception of the final session day, we will reserve time 

for public comment. At that time, registered individual 

public commenters will be admitted one at a time at their 

scheduled time into our zoom.gov location meeting from 

the waiting room and be permitted three minutes to speak. 

They will be removed from the session when their remarks 

are committed, completed. So with that I open it up to 

any questions or comments for clarification on any of the 

things that we have gone through so far. Okay. Seeing no 
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hands, we will jump right into the agenda for today that 

you all received. And first, we will be dealing with cash 

management and issue paper number one. I will turn that 

over to Greg Martin, the Federal negotiator for an 

overview, and then we'll open it up for discussion. 

Robyn, you have a question? I think you're on mute.

MS. R. SMITH: Sorry about that. I'm 

the first one to do it. Okay. I wasn't sure when we're 

supposed to negotiate or supposed to nominate additional 

seats at the negotiating table.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. You are free to do 

that whenever.

MS. R. SMITH: Sure. Thank you. The 

Department has combined the consumer advocates, 

negotiator and civil rights organizations into one seat 

with the civil rights organizations representative as an 

alternate. Which means that the representative from the 

civil rights community, which seeks to advance racial 

equity through higher education, is effectively rendered 

without a vote for the purposes of achieving consensus, 

which of course has equity implications, and in addition 

means that in these discussions, one of the critical 

voices for student loan borrowers will always be excluded 

from the discussion. Either the civil rights 

organizations will be represented in the primary, or the 
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consumer advocates will be. And so I propose splitting 

that seat into two primary negotiators, with the consumer 

advocates having one seat and the civil rights 

organizations having a separate seat, with the current 

people who are proposed. So the alternate for the civil 

rights organization, Magin Sanchez would be appointed as 

the primary negotiator. I also propose adding alternates 

to each of those seats. So I propose, or I nominate Allan 

Wachendorfer if the committee decides to add a second 

seat for civil rights organizations. I would nominate 

Allan Wachendorfer, who serves as program manager with 

the Vera Institute of Justice Unlocking Potential 

Initiative, who's working to expand access to high 

quality postsecondary programs in prisons. He co-leads 

the initiatives Equity work, which includes identifying 

and reforming policies and practices that contribute to 

an equitable access, completions, and outcomes for 

incarcerated students of color. Allan also provides 

technical assistance to colleges, corrections 

departments, and nonprofits offering postsecondary 

education and reentry programs to incarcerated people. 

And we're concerned because given the implications for 

incarcerated students of accreditation changes, distance 

education, return of Title IV dollars and state 

authorization. And even colleges business management 
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practices, Allan's perspective would be critical to 

considering the impact of regulatory changes on a 

uniquely marginalized student population, and he has 

agreed to serve if the committee agrees to appoint two 

separate seats and add an alternate. I also nominate 

Stephanie Hall from the center for American Progress to 

serve as the alternate negotiator, for a consumer 

advocate position, if, again, those seats are separated 

out. And I think other folks on the committee may have 

some information about Stephanie's background.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. 

Carolyn.

MS. FAST: I just wanted to offer my 

support for this proposal. I think it's important that 

civil rights organizations have their own seat at the 

table, so that they can have the opportunity to directly 

influence outcomes in the consensus process. They bring a 

unique perspective with their focus on advancing racial 

justice and bring extremely valuable expertise, including 

expertise on how the rules that are under discussion here 

today can and do impact communities of color. So I would 

strongly support adding a seat for civil rights 

organizations, and I support making Sanchez to fill the 

role as primary for that seat. I just wanted to add a 

little information about the nominated for the alternate 
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seat for the consumer advocates. That is Dr. Stephanie 

Hall, who's acting senior director of higher education 

policy at the center for American Progress. And Dr. Hall 

is a leading expert on college accountability and the 

for-profit online higher education industry. And she has 

a lot of research and advocacy experience in these issues 

and has been- her research has been instrumental for 

proposed Federal and state legislation and Federal agency 

action. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Any other comments 

on that?

DR. PRINCE: Is it question time 

period?

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. I'm having a hard 

time deciphering what your name is by your naming 

convention. DC? Okay, alright, DC.

DR. PRINCE: Question. What was the 

purpose behind combining civil rights organizations and 

consumer advocates as one group? What was the intention 

there?

MS. JEFFRIES: Frank?

MR. MARTIN: When the Department puts 

together the constituencies, there are considerations of 

courses which constituencies are going to use. And also 

the consideration of the- besides the committee and, you 
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know. So I think in that case we looking at, I suppose, 

from a position of advocacy. And, you know, I do 

understand that those two are not necessarily, you know, 

wholly connected. There was no intention of sliding 

either one of those constituencies when we did that. As 

part of these deliberations is for the committee to bring 

this to our attention. So, I don't- in going back to, 

again, those considerations, we have a lot as you're 

aware, there are a lot of constituencies that we have to 

consider in putting on the committee. We can't and I 

think there are, in a perfect world, there would probably 

be even more. But we have to keep in mind, again, the 

logistics of the meetings, but the Department doesn't 

have any objections to this particular addition. And if 

it's the will of the committee to move forward, we would 

ask that the information and bios be submitted to FMCS. 

We'll need that information for vetting purposes. But, we 

can, if we want to proceed, if we want to proceed with a 

vote. Cindy, we can. Again, adding anybody to the 

committee, it is pending a vetting on the part of the 

Department, but we have no objections. And again, I just 

want to say that there was no, you know, no intentional 

slight on our part as far as the combination of them. 

It's just, when we do it, we have a lot of different 

constituencies where we're taking into account. So I'll 
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stop there and allow anybody else to make comments that 

they want to make before we move to a vote on whether or 

not we're going to add these individuals to the 

committee.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Greg. 

Barmak.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Yes, I'll be very 

brief. I completely understand the Department's 

rationale. But I would point out that civil rights is an 

overarching societal challenge for all of us, and the 

exclusion of an explicit participation and recognition of 

the importance of civil rights would be a mistake. I 

think it would strengthen the work of the committee to 

have that voice at the table. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Barmak. 

Magin?

MR. SANCHEZ: Thank you. I do wish to 

remind the panel also that previously civil rights and 

consumer advocates were separate seats, and there is 

prior precedence for separating these seats. We did about 

a year ago as well. On that note, I think I want to 

reemphasize again the importance of these are two 

different constituencies, and they would be better served 

if they had separate seats and the voting members to be 

able to represent each community's interests. I think, 
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particularly, you know, as we're discussing fundamental 

issues, you know, defining quality programs and the 

integrity of these institutions, we can't forget these 

historically underrepresented communities that 

disproportionately face barriers and that can benefit 

from a more equitable higher education system. These 

topics have impact on enrollment, completion and positive 

outcomes for these communities. And so they would be at a 

great disadvantage if we don't provide, again, the 

ability to have a direct voice on this matter and be 

represented in this process through civil rights 

perspective. And for that reason, again, we ask 

respectfully request that a civil rights committee be 

awarded its own seat at the table. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Greg?

MR. ROBERTS: You're muted, Greg.

MR. MARTIN: My mistake. Sorry about 

that. You think I'd know by now, right? I should set a 

good example, but I obviously am not doing that. Yeah, so 

from the Department's perspective, we agree with all 

that's been said. I think that it's definitely it's a 

very strong argument, you know, that everybody's made for 

the case that's the civil rights is certainly a huge 

consideration. Although there are certainly, you know, 

many constituencies one can think of and not to belittle 
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any of them but civil rights is an overarching concern in 

our, you know, in society as a whole and in these 

proceedings. So the Department is supportive of that. And 

I think that's where I'll leave our position for now. And 

others are welcome to give their views.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Greg. Jamie?

MS. STUDLEY: Very simply, I'll say

what I said in the chat. I'm very sympathetic to this 

proposal. I would- it would be helpful to know the full 

scale of proposed additions because there is an element 

of overall scale. But it would help me act on this one, 

which, as I say, I'm sympathetic to.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jamie. And 

that was a question that I was going to pose. Are there 

any other intended constituency group additions at this 

time that you're aware of? Because we would like to act 

on them all at once when we're able to once they are 

vetted. Rob Anderson? You're on mute.

MR. ANDERSON: Thanks. I wasn't sure 

about protocol whether my primary needs to hand it over 

to me now, but I raised my hand to answer the question. 

One area that I think permeates through a lot of these 

topics that really isn't directly represented is that of 

distance education. When you look at accreditation, state 

authorization, of course, distance Ed, return of Title IV 
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funds and cash management. I think greater expertise on 

this committee would be helpful. The Undersecretary 

mentioned at the onset, about some of the overarching 

principles and that some of this would get weedy. And I 

think this gets at part of that weedy part to where 

having expertise here and in the midst of the 

conversations instead of stat, you know, in between 

sessions as we make revisions for the next set of 

meetings would be helpful. It'll help us as a body move 

more quickly. And with that, I would nominate Sheryl Dowd 

as the primary for a distance Ed seat. She's the senior 

director for the state authorization network and WCET 

policy innovations. She would fill this nicely. Her 

colleague, Russ Poulin, has served in this role in the 

past, and they're both great colleagues. Very helpful. 

And I think would help us move with due diligence. I 

think we do have a couple of negotiators that have some 

of this expertise in different areas, but I think there's 

one who may be tied more toward the for-profit seat 

advantage point and another with private nonprofit. But 

you know, what Cheryl would help us with is the fact that 

when you look at IPEDS data, 32% of all students were 

enrolled exclusively in distance Ed, and 67% of those 

were at public institutions. And her vast depth and 

breadth of knowledge on this front, I think would be very 
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helpful. So I would nominate her as a primary for a 

distance education.

MS. JEFFRIES: And for alternate?

MR. ANDERSON: I don't have one.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. So, Greg?

MR. MARTIN: Thanks, Cindy. Yeah. With 

all these, I want to say that, you know, it's always a 

difficult, you know, decision to make whether, you know, 

whether we should add somebody else to the table. I want 

to reiterate, I refocus everybody, in fact, that when you 

pointed out earlier about consensus voting, that the 

consensus is just that it's consensus. There's no 

advantage to having more votes since it's not like a 

majority vote type thing. So I would point that out. 

Which is not to say that the expertise is not good at the 

table. I indicated the Department's, you know, upfront 

willingness for the vote to take place on the addition of 

the civil rights position. With respect to distance 

education. We're in no way disparaging the importance of 

distance education or any of the individuals who might be 

nominated to do that. The Department's position at this 

point is that we have a number of individuals at the 

table currently who bring a great deal of expertise in 

the area of distance education to the table. And we have 

at least one member who served on the distance and 
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innovation committee before, in the past and was put on 

that table specifically for their knowledge of that 

topic. So at this point, we're inclined to take the- to 

proceed whenever we're ready with a vote on the addition 

of the civil rights position. But we would, at least 

right now not want to move forward with adding anybody 

else to the table. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. Jo 

Blondin?

MS. BLONDIN: Yes. I think we need 

somebody at the table around distance education. Speaking 

from the two-year sector, I think it would be extremely 

helpful for us to have that person. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Okay, so not 

seeing any additional hands. I just want to recap here. 

The Department, it takes consensus by the group, 

including the Department, to approve adding a 

constituency group as well as a primary and or an 

alternate for each group. The Department has indicated 

their support of the proposed split for consumer 

advocates and civil rights. But they have made it clear 

that they're not in support of adding a separate 

constituency of distance ed, indicating at least one 

[inaudible]. But I think that, Greg, I think that we 

should go ahead and take the consensus check on the civil 
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rights consumer advocate. We will still need those bios 

submitted to FMCS so we can get them to the Department. 

And all of the negotiators. As Greg indicated, they need 

to be vetted. And you all are entitled to see all the 

details of their backgrounds. Okay? Before making a 

decision on that. So it is up to the committee if they 

want to proceed with the entire vote right now, as far as 

splitting the group and having to come back to adding the 

proposed participants for each of the groups once they 

are vetted and looked at, or if you want to hold off and 

do it all as soon as that process is completed. Comments? 

DC?

DR. PRINCE: Yeah, I think I would 

propose that we would hold off on voting until we see 

who- until a vetting process had been done. And then we 

would take a vote. I don't want to delay anything. But I 

will be open and transparent that I'm not necessarily 

convinced by today's discussion that we need these 

additional constituency groups. And so it would, you 

know, we all have to go through a process. We all have to 

be vetted and reviewed. And so I think that process 

should still be in place before we decide to vote. I 

would also consider that we would vote on each 

constituency group individually rather than an entire 

collective. So, that's what I would propose as a way 
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forward.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. And to answer that 

question. Yes, when the vote is- when the consensus is

taken, it would be one consensus on separating consumer 

advocates and civil rights into two separate 

constituencies with the proposed people that were made as 

long as the vetting process is done and then there would 

be a separate consensus vote process on whether or not to 

add this distance Ed seat. Okay? Any other questions? So, 

Greg, if you're okay, can we postpone doing the consensus 

on this until we get those bios out for people to look at 

so that we can take care of it in one fell swoop?

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, I think we can do 

that. That we can get the bios out and let people take a 

look at them before they have to determine whether 

there's consensus. So I don't have a problem with that. 

We can get those bios out. It's not urgent that we add 

someone to the very beginning of our negotiations. So, as 

you're aware, everybody's aware from the protocols, we 

have up until the first day of the second round. So we 

should be able to accomplish that fairly early this week. 

But that's not a bad idea to let people look at those 

bios first. I don't have a problem with that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Jamie?

MS. STUDLEY: Short, but maybe not easy 
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question, whether the concept of splitting the seats is 

identical to whether these people would be seated. Is it 

one question about the concept and then the Department 

has to screen the people? Or is it two questions? I leave 

that to Greg and the facilitators.

MR. MARTIN: That's a good question. We 

certainly could, you know, just take- we could take a 

vote now to add the slot and then consider the actual 

individuals who've been nominated subsequent to that, if 

that's what you want to do. I don't have a problem with 

that if everybody's amenable to that. I we want to right 

now, just establish that it is the will of the committee 

to add- to split those constituencies up, then we can do 

that now if you want to. Again, as Cindy points out, it 

does require consensus of everybody in order for that to 

happen. So I just want to make that clear, if anybody on 

the committee is opposed to it and votes and indicates 

they do not agree with it, then it won't go forward.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Robyn?

MS. R. SMITH: Yeah, I was going to 

say, I don't think there's any problem, you know, if we 

want to, sorry, I'm losing my feed. Sorry, okay, there we

go. I don't think there's a problem with voting on that 

now if people feel comfortable approving it or voting on 

it, that would be fine. I don't see any reason not to.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. 

Carolyn?

MS. FAST: I just wanted to point out 

that Magin has already been vetted as a negotiator 

through the Department's process. So I don't think that 

there's necessarily a need to wait on a vote for vetting 

of him if there was a consensus to split the seat.

MR. MARTIN: Yeah. I don't want to. 

This- I think we should. This vetting thing is prettyit's certainly important, but generally speaking, unless 

there's some issue, it's not, let's say, I don't want to 

put too much emphasis on that. Yeah. You're right, 

Carolyn but I think we should do it for everybody at the 

same time. So, I mean, it's just- I don't see- I 

obviously don't see a problem with those individuals. 

There seems to be. But again, it's the entire committee 

has to vote. And I do want and not just vetting, I do 

think as someone pointed out it would be nice to be able 

for people to read the bios first. For those who aren't 

familiar with these individuals, it would be good for 

them to read the bios of that. So I think right now we 

can take the vote. I think it would send a signal to the 

community that the committee is- believes that these 

should be separated out and that we should establish this 

constituency, and then we can move ahead with the other 
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votes when we get to that point and I would like a chance 

to confer with leadership about what we can do that. But 

we're certainly, you know, we'd certainly go ahead that 

way and just go ahead. And right now, I'd like to make 

the vote to be limited to the establishment of civil 

rights as a separate negotiator on the main committee, I 

mean, for a primary and an alternate. And then we'll go 

ahead after later to move to put the individuals in those 

positions. That makes sense. That makes sense, Cindy?

MS. JEFFRIES: Yes, it does. So with 

that having been said, we're going to go ahead and take a 

consensus on separating consumer advocates into one group 

and civil rights into their own group. So could I see a 

show of thumbs, please? Okay. There is one dissent on 

that. So the motion has failed at this point. So, we are 

free to move on. At this point into the agenda, we will 

come back to the adding of a distance Ed seat, unless 

you'd like to do anything with that at this point. Barmak 

you have a question?

MR. NASSIRIAN: I do. I thought it was 

our practice to request comments from the descending 

member, from the dissenting members, just to understand 

what their objection is.

MS. JEFFRIES: And we do do that, 

Barmak. DC made his dissent clear before we took the 
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vote. But if you'd like to have him reiterate it, we can 

ask him to do that.

MR. NASSIRIAN: I would appreciate it.

Just so I understand, I'm not sure that I do.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, DC?

DR. PRINCE: I think it's clear that 

the groups had already been decided. I think what we get 

into is we start to have subsets of subsets of subsets of 

groups. You open up the door for additional groups to be 

had. So all of a sudden we're always going to be missing 

somebody. Or the other option to me would have been, I'm 

also getting advocated by other people who aren't 

represented on this group who are emailing me, give me 

ideas, thoughts and comments. So at the end of the day, 

for me, anyone can feel passionate about one particular 

group or the other, but I think the groups have been 

decided and we should move on from what's already been 

set. I think once you start separating that kind of 

group, you just start separating my group. You can start 

separating other people's groups and finding those kinds 

of niches to come to the table. Then this group grows 

even larger to even find further consensus. So you're, I 

think you're just asking for a larger problem later down 

the line. With our passion right now to want to include 

more people. So that's why I dissented.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, DC, for the 

clarification. Robyn?

MS. SMITH: I would just ask because 

there's still another outstanding seat. And that's the 

basis of the dissent is adding additional seats. I would 

ask that we revisit this issue when we vote on the 

distance education proposal.

MS. JEFFRIES: And we will take that 

under advisement and the Department will also do the 

same. And at this point, I think, we need to move forward 

with the agenda. Greg?

MR. MARTIN: Oh, no. I was just going 

to say, Cindy. And it looks like we yeah- I did want to 

move forward with the agenda. The Department is not 

amenable to a vote on distance at this time. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Okay. 

So moving on to the next agenda item, which is the issue 

paper number one, which is the cash management. So I'm 

going to turn that over to Greg for an overview of it, 

and then we'll open it up for discussion.

MR. MARTIN: Thank you, Cindy. And as 

you pointed out, we are going to be looking at issue 

paper number one, cash management. The issue papers are 

numbered for you for your convenience. A couple things 

about them. They all follow a similar format. We tried to 
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make them to bring some- one of these standard template 

for them. And by and large, did. I think when we get to 

accreditation that the regulatory changes being a little 

more robust, we have a whole separate addendum which has 

the red line regulatory changes that you have in addition 

to the issue paper. So that's going to be a little 

different. But for the rest of them, all the changes are 

contained in the issue paper. So we have an overview. And 

we also have the proposed regulatory changes that we 

would make. As far as walking through them, this neg reg 

is going to be a little different than others. I am the 

head negotiator and take the vote for the Department, 

obviously. I am joined at the table this time around by 

Mr. David Musser from Federal Student Aid. David and I 

are sort of sharing the responsibility of walking through 

these issue papers with you. So, I'm taking the lead on 

cash management and I will be doing state authorization. 

When we get to distance education and R2T4 Returning to 

Title IV funds, David will be the person taking over the 

discussion for that. That doesn't mean that there are 

three people at the table from the Department who will 

be, you know, commenting as we move forward. That would 

be myself, David and our attorney, our attorneys, which 

would either be Denise or Donna, depending upon the 

topic. So I think we'll all probably have something to 
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say, but I just wanted to point out that on certain 

topics, those topics I mentioned, David will be the 

person taking the lead for the discussion on those 

topics. With cash management. What I'd like to do is it 

being a topic which I think most people have at least 

some familiarity with, and others of great familiarity 

with. I think we'll go through each individual topic that 

we're going to look at rather than have me, you know, 

read through all of them and then go back and start at 

the beginning again. Why don't we just start with each 

subtopic in cash management. So what I'll do is just go 

over it and what we are proposing to do, and then we'll 

look at the regulation itself and then give a little bit 

of a discussion as to Department's rationale for wanting 

to make this change and then we open it up to the floor 

for general discussion on what we propose to do. I would 

ask that all of the commenters, all the negotiators, if 

they wish to comment on this, would try to focus their 

comments on the regulatory change itself. Keeping in mind 

that if you don't approve of what we have proposed here 

or have a reason to think it won't work or something, to 

think about what you would do, what you might do 

differently. Try to be as specific as possible so that we 

can move through these and gauge not only whether you 

support it, but if you don't support it, how you would 
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change that. So let's take a look at cash management. 

This one I think is fairly straightforward. At least the 

first one we're going to look at here. Just as an 

overview. Again, the cash management regulations are 

found in subpart L of the general provisions. And our 

screen sharer here, Vanessa has brought those up for you. 

And where we're going to start in 162. The cash 

management regulations establish rules and procedures 

institutions must follow in requesting, maintaining, 

dispersing, and otherwise managing Title IV funds 

proposals under consideration would create a more 

consumer friendly policy structure to ensure students 

have access to the aid to which they're entitled. The 

first one I want to look at is, and Vanessa has very 

kindly brought that up here. I want to thank our screen 

sharers, which are Vanessa Gomez and Joe Massman, both on 

the policy development group for sharing their expertise 

with us in doing this. I know I would totally crash and 

burn if I were to have to do anything with displaying. 

It's all I can do to get my visage on the screen, let 

alone these regulations. So I really appreciate that. But 

let's take a look then, if you'll all look on the screen 

or refer to your issue papers here to what is proposed. 

And this is under 34 CFR 668.162 in subpart L, in subpart 

K rather, I said L, L is financial responsibility, 
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subpart K as cash management. Requesting funds. So what 

we propose to do here is established 180-day time frame 

in which institutions subject to heightened cash 

monitoring and receiving funds under reimbursement method 

of payment. We refer to this generally as HCM2, must 

submit their final HCM2 request after losing eligibility. 

The 180-day time frame is tied to the Department's late 

disbursement regulations, which are found in 668.164. 

Currently, there is no time frame for institutions to 

submit final claims to support- final claims and 

supporting documentation after losing eligibility, and 

this leads to delays in submission and is likely to 

increase financial risk to students and taxpayers because 

of these delays. For those of you who may not be as 

familiar with the cash management regulations, 

institutions receive funding from the Department 

generally under what we call advance pay and that is when 

the institution wants to request funds, it does so. And 

it can do so whenever it chooses. When an institution 

generally for issues involving compliance is switched 

from advance pay to either- we don't use reimbursement in 

HCM2. There are some nuances there which I don't think we 

need to go into a whole lot. But with HCM2, what happens 

is the prior to being able to draw down funds, the 

institution has to submit a list of students for whom 
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they are requesting funds. And HCM2 requires then that 

the school has already disbursed those funds because it 

is reimbursement. Right? So understand that under advance 

pay, you don't have to have credited students accounts or 

posted prior to drawing the funds, though many 

institutions do so. But under reimbursement or HCM2 you 

must post those accounts indicate that the Department 

you've done that send that documentation to us and other 

supporting documentation. The Department has a specialist 

known as a method of payment analyst who reviews those 

requests, and then that person would either approve or 

reject that request. So this has to do with the 

timeliness of when those are being sent to us. And so 

what I want to do is then look at the regulation again, 

if you're looking in your in your paper, issue paper one, 

you can go over to page four where you will see the 

actual regulation itself in 668.162(d)(3) under 

heightened cash monitoring payment method. And you can 

see here, under the heightened cash monitoring payment 

method, the institution must credit the student's account 

ledger for the amount of Title IV program funds, the 

student apparent is eligible to receive and pay that 

amount, and any credit balance due before the institution 

submits the request for funds under the provisions of 

advanced payment. What we are doing here. If we look at 
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three, under (d)(3), you'll see that we have added, an 

institution that loses eligibility while on heightened 

cash monitoring while on a heightened cash monitoring 

payment method, must submit its final request for funds 

within 180 days from the date of loss of eligibility. 

Institutions must comply with any additional reporting 

requirements or procedures specified by the Secretary in 

relation to the submission of their final request for 

funds after the loss of eligibility. Failure to submit 

the final request for funds within the specified 180 

degree time frame, may result in forfeiture of the 

requested funds. Before we discuss this, I just want to 

say a little bit about why we're doing this. When 

institutions close, we are typically trying to close out 

all the obligations they have with us. Final audits, 

final requests. There have been many situations where 

institutions have closed and the request for payment 

under HCM2 have not come into us for some times a year, 

sometimes as long as two years afterwards. This is 

difficult for two reasons. The first being, fairness to 

students. Students for when schools have closed face 

enough difficulties and we would like institutions to 

disperse whatever funds are due to students as quickly as 

possible, get those to the students and get the request 

to us as quickly as possible. We see no reason why it 
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should take an institution which is closed a year or two 

years to submit a final request for us, to us rather. 

There's also, procedural considerations within the 

Department trying to get these closed out. So we want 

this done in as effective a manner as possible. And we 

think that the 180 day time frame here, which we hold 

institutions to for late disbursements is an applicable 

number and is a fair amount of time to extend to 

institutions which have closed to get their requests in. 

We feel that this rule will encourage institutions to do 

that in a timely manner. And I will extend an invitation 

to my colleagues, Denise and David, to comment on that if 

they want to prior to my opening the floor. So I just 

want to make sure that neither of them have their hands 

up. If they do, we'll hear what they have to say. If not, 

then we would move on to a discussion.

MS. JEFFRIES: I'm not seeing any 

hands, Greg, unless they're off camera.

MR. MARTIN: I think we're good.

MS. JEFFRIES: Yep. Okay. So we'll go 

ahead and open the floor for discussion. Barmak?

MR. NASSIRIAN: This applies only to 

institutions that close while they're on HTM2, on 

heightened cash management, or to all institutions, 

regardless of how they happen to close?
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MR. MARTIN: Well, it would only be an 

instance where so if as you see in (3), an institution 

that loses eligibility while on heightened cash 

management. So what we're talking about here is if it's 

only if an institution is still participating, they can 

turn in their- submit the request whenever they choose to 

do so. We don't we don't regulate that.

MR. NASSIRIAN: I'm trying to 

understand the policy. I completely understand where the 

Department's coming from, and I support it. But I'm just 

asking, what about institutions that close for other 

reasons than that? You know, institution could close in 

an orderly fashion, right? I mean, it doesn't have to be 

on heightened cash management for an institution to 

close. I know it's a kind of a unicorn, but it happens, 

right?

MR. MARTIN: Oh, you're saying, oh, if 

an institution simply closed andMR. NASSIRIAN: Is the same rationale 

applied to all closures, not just those closures that 

happen to be triggered?

MR. MARTIN: I believe. I think and I'm 

going to invite my colleague David Musser from FSA 

because he's on the operational side of things. When an 

institution is closed, if they were on advance pay, they 
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would lose their access to be able to draw down funds at 

that point. But David has his hand up, so why don't we 

go.

MS. JEFFRIES: Greg, I also want to 

point out that Denise had her hand up to.

MR. MARTIN: Okay, well you go ahead 

and do the acknowledgments, Cindy. I'll just.

MS. JEFFRIES: Denise?

MS. MORELLI: I was going to let Dave 

go ahead and answer. I was going to jump in, but Dave 

probably has better experience. But at schools on 

advanced funding do have a stop pay that's put in when 

they lose eligibility. And then Dave can confirm whether 

or not they then are switched over and how their last 

claim for funds come in. So Barmak, that might address 

your question.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thanks, Denise. 

Dave?

MR. MUSSER: Yeah. This is exactly 

right. Once the Department becomes aware that an 

institution has closed or otherwise lost eligibility, we 

immediately place what's called a stop pay in the 

Department systems, which prevents the institution from 

drawing down any funds. And then subsequently, also 

prevents them from adding new disbursements to the common 
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origination and disbursement system, etc. Over the course 

of the next several months, the institution then 

undergoes its closeout audit. During which time it may 

determine that some students did qualify for loans, loans 

and grants, etc. other disbursements that hadn't been 

made. And at that point, it requests access from the 

Department on a case by case basis to make those 

disbursements, which the Department typically does grant, 

if the institution can show that it has caused to do so. 

And then the close out audit evaluates the accuracy of 

all those final disbursements, as well as the final 

period of the institution's participation.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Dave. Jillian?

MS. KLEIN: Thanks. I just have one 

question. Hopefully an easy one. This seems like a 

reasonable change to me. Just curious on the in the 

regulatory text where it talks about additional reporting 

requirements or procedures. I would just love to hear 

from the Department a bit about what exactly that's 

speaking to. I'm assuming this is sort of current

practice already, but can you just give an example of 

what types of the reporting requirements or procedures 

the Department may ask for when this is triggered? 

Thanks.

MR. MARTIN: You're talking in (3) 
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where we say must submit final request for funds 180 days 

and must comply with any additional reporting 

requirements or procedures specified by the Secretary in 

relation to the submission of the final request. So what 

we're saying there is that oftentimes with a request for 

reimbursement. Well, I should say under HCM2, there are 

additional there is initial set of documentation the 

school has to submit. Sometimes the method of payments 

analyst reviews these might request additional 

documentation to substantiate what was requested. But I 

think what I'm going to do, again, this is an operational 

thing here. So, FSA has a lot more experience with this 

as it functions. So I'm going to ask Dave if he has 

anything to add with respect to the submission of 

additional documentation.

MS. JEFFRIES: David?

MR. MUSSER: Well, sure. Just in- there 

are a variety of different things that the Department 

might require in these cases. Just as a general matter, 

any time we put a school on HCM2, the Department 

establishes the documentation requirements that the 

school needs to submit. And there is a sort of standard 

set of things that we require schools to submit in order 

to ensure that the files that they're providing us have 

adequate information for us to evaluate. But in some 
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cases, we also request unique information that is 

directly relevant to the school's particular situation. 

So, for example, if we have found discrepancies with high 

school diplomas, we might require the school to submit 

those diplomas along with the rest of the information 

that they submit or something else that is relevant to 

the particular problem that caused the school to be 

placed on HCM2 in the first place. In a final claim and 

Denise, I hope you can add or correct me here as well, 

the Department also requests that the institution provide 

them with its procedures for closing out the programs. 

For example, record retention standards, things of that 

nature that are directly related to the orderly close out 

of Title IV administration at the institution.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, David. Denise, 

did you have something to add? You're on mute. Denise, 

you're on mute.

MS. MORELLI: Oh, sorry, I thought I 

unmuted myself. We might be looking at all students, so 

there might be a little bit of change to policy on a 

final claim instead of just a sample where we usually do 

that in HCM2. We might ask for all the students just to 

make sure that we're paying out and closing out 

everything. So it just might change the policies and 

procedures a little bit in the final claims as they're 
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coming in.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Denise. I 

just want to make a general announcement here. Looking at 

the screen, there are still a few negotiators who have 

not conformed to the naming convention, so it's difficult 

for us to tell if your primary or alternate and what 

group you are associated with. So please make those 

corrections. Next we have Joe.

MR. WEGLARZ: Thank you. So how do we 

update our screen to show P?

MS. JEFFRIES: If you go up in the 

right hand corner of your picture and you see the three 

dots.

MR. WEGLARZ: Yeah.

MS. JEFFRIES: If you click on those, 

you can go down to rename.

MR. WEGLARZ: Okay.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay?

MR. WEGLARZ: That really wasn't my 

question, though.

MS. JEFFRIES: No, no. Go ahead.

MR. WEGLARZ: Very helpful though. So 

I'm assuming this appears to be an issue where schools 

that are losing Title IV eligibility they're not 

reconciling or submitting the required documentation in 
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the timely manner?

MR. MARTIN: Yes. That is our concern. 

And we have- there are examples and probably Denise might 

be able to elaborate because she's actually dealt with 

those. We have examples of schools that have ceased to be 

eligible where the requests have come in and what we 

consider to be an inordinately late manner. You know and 

right now we have no regulatory, say, you know, authority 

to tell a school, you know, no, you have to get this in. 

And so it's, as I said, it's bad on two counts. Bad for 

the Department, obviously, we're trying to get this 

closed out. And it's also not good for students because 

remember, if the school's on HCM2, the school does have 

to disperse first prior to making the request. If 

required to make this request in this more compressed 

time frame, we are hoping that they will make those 

disbursements, those final disbursements to students in a 

timely manner and then get their requests into us. And, 

you know, I think that we're talking about 180 days. 

You're giving- we're giving them essentially half a year 

here. And I think that it's reasonable when schools havewe hope- we know this doesn't always happen. But, you 

know, schools should close in an orderly fashion. And 

these, quite frankly, are things they should be thinking 

about when making the decision to cease operations.
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MR. WEGLARZ: Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Denise?

MS. MORELLI: I just wanted to add 

that, yeah, Joe, we wanted to make sure everybody's clear 

that we have seen a problem. That's why we're looking to 

change this. We've had claims come in two, three years 

after the fact, and there's a concern on students having 

a loan come in or all of a sudden, three years after 

they've left the school or the school is closed. So we 

have seen a problem in the Department's trying to remedy 

it by adding this provision.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Denise. 

Erika?

MS. LINDEN: Yes. Thank you. Just a 

couple of questions on process. What are the consequences 

for an institution that doesn't comply with submitting 

within that 180 days? I'm just pretty ignorant about that 

process in general. And what happens to any funds that 

students might have been eligible for?

MR. MARTIN: That's a good question, 

Erika. Under these regulations, you'll see here that the 

failure to submit the request for funds specified may 

result in forfeiture of the requested funds. I would 

yield to my colleagues, David and Denise here, but I 

don't- this regulation doesn't- we're not regulating the 
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Department here to a hard and fast cut off of 180 days. 

We say in this regulation that may forfeit in- it may 

result in the forfeiture of the requested funds. 

Obviously, our hope is that it helps schools get them in. 

I mean, if the situation you're envisioning is, I guess, 

we go to 180 days and the school has yet to do this. And 

if the Department says, you know, no, we're not going to 

under no circumstances will we approve these, it could 

result in the school, I guess, declining to disperse to 

students or do what it's supposed to do to make students 

get paid. Some of this would be procedural. I would, and 

again, I think I'm going to ask David to comment here. 

What he envisions the Department might do, FSA might do 

or compliance might do in a situation where we get to 180 

days. And the request does not come in. So again, we 

don't have that specified here in the regulations. There 

are probably be more of a procedural thing, but we have 

in this regulations left to the Department's discretion. 

But, I don't know if David has any comment on that. It 

appears he does, so.

MS. JEFFRIES: He does. David?

MR. MUSSER: Well, it's not going to be 

a great comment, but I'll try. Yes. As you guys can see 

from the proposed reg language, we intentionally use the 

word “may” in order to give the Department some 
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discretion in these circumstances. I think Greg is right 

that the default would be to deny any claims that are 

received following the 180 day deadline. There could be 

sort of very serious extenuating circumstances that and 

I'm just throwing some out here that in my mind might 

rise to the level of the Department granting a request 

for a payment after that point. For example, let's say 

that this many students were owed credit balance payments 

at the very end of their enrollment at the institution 

and the institution did not make those credit balance 

payments. The students were depending on them for rent 

payments, etc. they are in financial trouble, the 

students we are aware of those the students have informed 

us of it and we believe that it would be in the student's 

interest for the funds to come into the school. We might 

then approve a late request based on all of that 

information provided by the school. But I do think it 

would be these would be exceptions and that the school 

would have to give us a very, very good explanation as to 

why they should be = granted this ability after the 180 

day deadline. But Greg is right. How FSA views those 

would be established in internal procedures at FSA.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. David. 

Barmak?

MR. NASSIRIAN: You know, just to 
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follow up and try to understand this better. We are 

talking in most instances about funds that have already 

been dispersed by the institution to the student that are 

now being requested, because the institution was on HCM. 

What happens if the institution fails to submit within 

the 180 day period, the Department ends up rejecting the 

request because it's late. What happens to the funds that 

were dispersed to the student? Can the institution go 

back against the student at that point?

MS. JEFFRIES: David.

MR. MUSSER: That's a good question, 

Barmak. If the Department were to deny a request after 

the 180 day mark based on this regulation, what it 

essentially means is that the disbursement isn't made in 

the common origination and disbursement system, and 

that's the system that actually records the amounts that 

students receive in terms of Pell grants, teach grants, 

direct loans, etc.. and that means that the student is 

not- no pell grant amount would be considered used for 

the student. No debt would be considered to have been 

incurred for the student. From the Department's 

perspective, the student has a blank slate, and the 

institution also does not receive any of the funds that 

they presumably did disperse back at the time, as you 

said, in order to make the request. The school, if they 
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actually did make the credit balance payment to the 

student, which may or may not have occurred, depending on 

the circumstances, they are required to in order to 

submit the claim, but they may not have at the time that 

they were actually enrolled. Then the student, the school 

would simply be out that money and would not be able to 

obtain reimbursement for those amounts from the 

Department if we deny their ability to make that claim.

MR. NASSIRIAN: I understand that but 

can they go against the student? Is the question. Can 

they, at that point attempt to recover the amounts that 

they may have or must have dispersed from the student? 

You know, historically, the Department has paid great 

attention to its own financial stake in these 

transactions, not so much to what happens to the student. 

I just want to make sure I understand. Should you deny 

the request because it's late? Are you simultaneously 

protecting the student or are you just protecting the 

Federal fiscal interests here, leaving the student at the 

mercy of the institution at that point, or potential, you 

know, bankruptcy receiver or whatever?

MR. MUSSER: That's another very good 

question. And actually there is a new regulation that was 

published as part of the recent Financial responsibility 

Certification procedures, etc. regulations last year that 
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goes into effect on July 1st, that prevents institutions 

from requesting that students repay to the institution 

amounts that this institution disbursed, that they 

shouldn't have as a result of an error or omission or 

other fraud. I believe that would apply in these 

circumstances. Essentially, the school did not fulfill 

its obligations in a timely manner, which we would 

consider to be an error and therefore that new 

regulation, effective on July 1st, 2024, would prevent 

the institution from going after students for these 

amounts. So that wasn't the case necessarily before this 

new regulation will go into effect, but it will be at the 

time that these regulations become effective. You know, 

if the- once the Department publishes them at the end of 

this process.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Is there any way to 

syncopate that point, so that it is clear that the 

Department would view these as any funds disbursed as 

dispersed in error? Just so that we don't have lawyers, 

you know, debating whether it does or doesn't cover those 

kinds of transactions. It would be nice to have a little 

bit of language here to amplify the point.

MS. JEFFRIES: Greg?

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, that's a good point, 

Barmak. I think we could certainly be- that's certainly 
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something we might be able to address in the preamble to 

NPRM. You know, how that would- what that interaction 

would be that we would certainly be agreeable to that. I 

think overall here, these are all excellent points being 

made. I would hope the presumption of course, when a 

school, you know, we're talking about disbursements that 

likely, likely would have been made while the student was 

eligible and there, right? So in order to cover expenses 

for a period of enrollment. So in most cases, and it 

wouldn't always be the case, in most cases, the 

disbursements have been made. And you would hope or you 

would hope the school wants to get paid having made 

these. Right? They've laid out certain expenses. They'vecosts have been incurred even though the school is 

closing. We are presuming here that these institutions do 

indeed want to receive, you know, reimbursement for the 

expenses. This is, I think, encouragement for them to 

submit that to us so that if they have a proper claim, it 

will be processed. I think that there are, you know, 

while nothing is perfect and these things people have 

brought up are certainly valid concerns, that overall 

this will be I think in most cases where disbursements 

have been made, this is a benefit to students and the 

taxpayers and the Department. But I think Barmak to your 

point, yeah, that we could certainly that reg Dave 
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mentioned is very important one and we can certainly, you 

know, tie that into this through preamble language. Thank 

you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Any other 

comments, discussion on 668.162(d)(3) on the heightened 

cash monitoring payment method? Greg, did you just not 

put your hand down or do you got something more to say?

MR. MARTIN: I didn't put my hand down. 

So I'm going to lower my hand right now. But I'm done 

with that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright. I'm not seeing 

any more hands on this subject or on this subsection of 

that proposed regulation red line, Greg. Do you want to 

move on to 668.164?

MR. MARTIN: Yes. Let's move on to 

668.164, dispersing funds. Okay. And Vanessa has brought 

up the screen for us, brought up the actual regulation. 

So we are looking at 34 CFR 668.164. Again, we're in 

subpart K under cash management. And let's look at the 

bottom of page one. What we're proposing to do here is to 

require institutions to return the remaining funds from 

Title IV recipients meal plan accounts to students 

instead of sweeping them. Given the regulation, we would 

add there, students are often encouraged or required to 

purchase meal plans from institutions and institutions 
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can credit Title IV funds towards meal plan expenses. 

These plans often include the use of flex accounts that 

can be used like cash to cover expenses at campus grocery 

stores, food courts, and other meals if students have 

used their allotted meals for the week. At the end of the 

term, institutions can keep any of the remaining funds. 

This creates a financial penalty for students when 

institutions sweep unused meal plan dollars that include 

Title IV funds. Under this proposal, institutions would 

be required to return any remaining funds no later than 

14 days after the end of the payment period, and that 14 

days coincides with the requirement for alleviating 

credit balances. So if we look then at the regulatory 

changes under 668.164 and you'll see we can move on- if 

you're looking at your actual issue paper, I would refer 

you to page four, at the bottom where we have under C, 

crediting as students ledger account. And this has to do 

with institution make credit to students ledger account 

with Title IV HEA funds to pay for allowable charges 

associated with the current payment period. And then we 

discuss here what allowable charges are. And that has not 

changed. Where you see the additional language is where 

we begin. Any Title IV HEA program fund allocated for 

meal plans must be fully utilized for the benefit of the 

respective student. No institution may retain unused meal 
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plan funds that were paid for with Title IV program 

funds, and any remaining balance at the end of the 

payment period must be returned to the student as soon as 

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

payment period. And that's what we're going to look at. 

There are other things we're doing in disbursements. But 

I want to look at this as it relates specifically to the 

meal plans first and open the floor. First, I'll ask if 

either David or Denise has anything to add there. If not, 

we will open the floor to discussion.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. I'm not seeing any 

hands from Denise or David. So we'll go ahead and open 

the floor for discussion with the negotiators. JoEllen?

MS. PRICE: Yeah. I have a quick 

question about what they mean by fully used. Are they 

just talking about flex accounts here, or are they 

talking about students who purchase a meal plan and then 

don't use it? Especially the unlimited type meal plans. 

So I'm not quite sure which type of meal plan and if this 

could get confusing for schools when they're trying to 

enter into contracts with meal plan vendors.

MR. MARTIN: As written here, the rule 

refers to flex accounts with actual cash involved and 

cash that could be refunded. Not a traditional standard 

meal plan where the student may pay for the meals, but, 
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you know, those are usually restricted to, for instance, 

the school cafeterias and where the student, you know, 

may or may not eat. Like, I know my daughter's has a 

couple of meals a week or I don't know how many, we 

bought so many meals she can go to. But she doesn't have 

a flex, which this is. But this would be directed toward 

flex accounts.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Joe. 

You're on mute.

MR. WEGLARZ: Thank you. A couple 

comments on this. So once again, I'm assuming from a 

consumer's perspective that this matter is happening more 

in the industry and we care for it to happen with 

students are unable to use up all their funds. And if we 

were to go the direction of refunding these funds to the 

students, a couple of things, I think it would be a 

logistic nightmare, alright? But I understand if we got 

to make it happen, we got to make it happen. And the 

second thing would be, could we actually if the students 

still owed the institution money, with the students 

permission or without their permission, could we use 

these existing funds to offset any balances due to the 

college?

MR. MARTIN: I'll discuss that. Yeah, 

we do understand and recognize that it would- that there 
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would be some implementation. Let's say, would take some 

time to bring this up and there might be some level of 

complexity in doing this. But going back to our- the way 

we look at this. This is actual money we're talking here 

about, you know, essentially money on account, and if 

there are Title IV funds, they were specifically to be 

used for this if- it is the student's money. And so we 

feel strongly that where these funds are still on account 

at the end of the term are unused, that they not simply 

be swept back up by the school, as it is students money 

and it was to be used for the meals. As far as the 

question goes to would we allow an institution to apply 

money from this to any other expense a student has. And 

you were saying that it would be with us- the way you 

would envision it would be with the students 

authorization to apply these funds to other things. I 

don't think we necessarily be 100% opposed to that. I 

think you have to take that back and think about it for a 

while. I mean, certainly we would require a student's 

authorization if the student authorized those to be 

applied to other outstanding charges. Again, I don't know 

that I see an absolute inhibition there, but I think it's 

something we would want to consider. David, do you have 

any comment on that or? Just making sure I get an 

operational perspective here.
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MS. JEFFRIES: David? David Musser. 

Sorry, David.

MR. MUSSER: No worries. No. Yeah, 

certainly no final comment. I agree with Greg. I think we 

need- the Department needs to chat about that a little 

bit more. I do have one quick question for Joe or 

potentially for other schools who are other folks who are 

familiar with this on a school basis. So my understanding 

is that typically the way this works is that the school 

has a charge on a student's account that is essentially 

the entire amount of the meal plan in these flex 

accounts. And then the student uses that amount over the 

course of some period, whether it's a term or a longer 

period. And then and essentially, at least as it works 

today, in many cases, that's just a charge and that it's 

never really reversed. It's always on the student's 

account. Is that accurate or are there nuances to it that 

I'm unfamiliar with? I think that might help inform our 

discussion on your question, Joe.

MR. WEGLARZ: Speaking for Marist, yes 

that would be how we account for those dollars. Now what 

we do, we actually allow the student if they have a 

remaining balance due to them at the end of the fall 

semester, they can carry it over into the spring 

semester. Alright? And we educate them on that process. 
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So we really and once again, this is just Marist. We have 

very few students by the time the spring semester is 

completed that actually have dollars remaining on their 

declining balance card due back to them.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Greg, would you 

like for Joe to put that question in the chat so that you 

can do some further follow up or do you have what you 

need?

MR. MARTIN: We do have no takers, and 

we do have a note of it but it might be a good redundancy 

to put it into- place in the chat if he's willing to do 

so. Joe, if you would.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, Joe, can you do 

that, please?

MR. WEGLARZ: Yep.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks. We always like 

to have as many checks and balances as we can to make 

sure nothing gets lost. So next is Jason.

MR. LORGAN: Thank you. So I'm 

generally in support of this item. And I wanted to 

mention I think the Department got the split right 

between swipes and flex dollars, but I did want to add an 

item for consideration. The flex dollars on some campuses 

like my own and like Joe mentioned at Marist, roll to the 

next term. And so I wanted to mention that the advantage 
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of this can be that some financial aid students do not 

travel home during breaks because they can't afford to do 

so and using these flex dollars for food during those 

times is a benefit. So perhaps allowing the funds to be 

rolled or extending the amount of time might be helpful 

so those students could access those funds in between 

terms.

MR. MARTIN: Yeah. That's an excellent 

point. And I think, you know, when we consider that, I 

think that we are certainly amenable to- I'll throw it 

out there for discussion. I think from the Department's 

perspective, there's a good case to be made for allowing 

the funds to go from one term to another and maybe 

structuring the regulation such a way that maybe at the 

end of the academic year, following the end of the 

academic year, that the stipulation come into play. I'd 

like to retain the 14 days because and I'll say whenever 

we use a number of days, the institutions are required to 

comply with something within, it's beneficial for us to 

key it to some other regulation that we have in place, 

rather than just come up with another number of days,

lest we be, I don't want to say accused, but lest someone 

suggest that there's a- that it's arbitrary or something 

like that. So because the 14 days is longstanding for 

credit balances and this and that has some connection 
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with getting funds back to student, I'd like to stay with 

that. I am certainly amenable to looking at a change that 

would allow you to carry it over from one term to 

another. So we will- please put that in the chat. We will 

take that back with us. But I do want to open the floor 

for how others feel about that or any other aspect of 

this proposed change.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Greg. David 

Cohen.

MR. COHEN: Thank you. I think it's a 

bad idea. Colleges offer meal plans, not restaurants. At 

many small schools like ours, it's essential that all the 

students participate in the meal plan in order for it to 

be effective. We have to hire students, we have to hire 

staff, we have to pay for food, run operations. It's not 

like a restaurant where we could close on Mondays, 

because there's not a lot of kids who want to eat. I 

think this makes participation in mandatory meal plans 

optional because students will just roll over their 

dollars, wait for the refund, and then they can eat off 

campus or go wherever they want. That favors wealthy 

kids, but it doesn't favor poorer kids who don't have the 

option to pay for DoorDash and UberEats and all the 

things they want to do. So I think it's a bad idea. The 

declining dollar program that most colleges have now was 
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instituted to give students better service than the 

former all you could eat plans. Before we had declining 

dollars, students opted in, they went to the meal plan 

when it was offered, and that was it. There was no money 

to roll over. This made things better for students. And I 

think that if we go with this option allowing students to 

opt out, colleges will just revert to the all you can eat 

plan. And so in the end, we're really going to decline 

services. We're going to revert to a way that things used 

to be. And I think, you know, for some schools, maybe the 

really big schools it's not an issue. But for small 

schools that operate just one or two dining halls, this 

could be a really, really big issue. So I think it should 

be thought about and I think we should get more input 

from colleges and universities. But and again, at the end 

of the day, it leads to a reduction in services that 

affect poor students. The wealthy kids can order 

DoorDash, pay those fees, the taxes. Meal plans in New 

York state are not subject to sales tax. So immediately 

students participating in meal plans save a lot of money. 

But if you want to get rid of the declining dollars and 

see students have to go back to the all you can eat plans 

that we saw in the mid-century last century, then, then 

this is great. But in the end, I don't think it really 

helps students. I think it hurts students and it hurts 
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the schools. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. David. Next 

we have about one minute before lunch. So we'll take one 

more comment and then we will take a lunch break and come 

back to cash management after lunch. Okay? So, Magin, 

you're up next.

MR. SANCHEZ: Thank you. I think 

supporting and particularly in returning students money 

in terms of unused flex dollars, I think of, you know, 

myself and my friends who were poor students of that 

money could have been really useful in terms of buying 

supplies to move out of my dorm at the end of the year. 

It could have been useful for those of us who weren't 

able to receive an internship that was paid extra cash to 

be able to go buy for that month or so after school. So,

I think to me it's important, you know, this provision in 

the sense of its returning students money so they can 

have their own choice in what they do with that. But I 

think it's also important to be able to have that 

flexibility. And I think that's why this provision is so 

important.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you for 

that. So, I want to thank the negotiators and the 

Department for the good discussion of this point. We will 

pick this topic back up at 1 p.m. after lunch. Please 
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come back a little bit early so that we can get started 

promptly at 1 p.m. With that, have a great lunch and see 

you in a little bit.

 
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Zoom Chat Transcript

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

Morning, January 8, 2024 

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

errors may be present.

John Weathers, FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

Folks, the naming convention is as follows... "A" for alternate 

or "P" for primary, the name you wish to be referred by, the 

constituency group you represent.

A-Alyssa Dobson, 4 Yr. Public Institutions to Everyone:

I am here. I think my audio wasn't working. * ** (redacted) 

***, but I wouldn't miss this for the world!

Krystil Smith | FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

Krystil Smith, ksmith@fmcs.gov and 202-606-5137

Krystil Smith | FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

Here is the link that will provide the running list of documents 

and links relevant to this session:

Krystil Smith | FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

https://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2023/index.

html

P Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

It would be helpful to know before we act on this whether there 

are other proposals to add seats.

P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Agreed

A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

Yes. I have one for distance education.

P, Laura Rasar King, Specialized Accreditors to Everyone:

Agreed - we need to hear all proposals before voting.

P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

I would also like for the proposed names to be put in the chat. 

Thank you.

P-Robyn Smith-Legal Aid Orgs. to Everyone:

Allan Wachendorfer from Vera Institute of Justice and Dr. 

Stephanie Hall from Center for American Progress

P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Instit to Everyone:

Agree with Jamie's comment

P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

With Allan Wachendorfer as a primary and Dr. Hall as an 

alternate, correct?

P, Jessi Morales, Student/Borrower to Everyone:

Reacted to "With Allan Wachendor..." with ���

P Carolyn Fast, Consumer/Civil Rights to Everyone:

Replying to "With Allan Wachendor..."

No, Magin would be the primary, and Allan Wachendorfer would be 

the alternate for civil rights.

P Carolyn Fast, Consumer/Civil Rights to Everyone:

Replying to "With Allan Wachendor..."
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Dr. Hall would be the alternate for Consumer Advocates.

P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

OK--we need the clarification. We are meeting a lot of new 

people.

P, Jessi Morales, Student/Borrower to Everyone:

Removed a ��� reaction from "With Allan Wachendor..."

P - Erika Linden - Private/Nonprofit to Everyone:

I support addition of distance ed as a separate constituency 

group

P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Rob-Can you include the name again for distance education?

P-Robyn Smith-Legal Aid Orgs. to Everyone:

Here is information regarding Dr. Stephanie Hall: 

https://www.americanprogress.org/people/stephanie-hall/

P-Robyn Smith-Legal Aid Orgs. to Everyone:

Here is information about Allan Wachendorfer: 

https://www.vera.org/people/allan-wachendorfer

A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

Cheryl Dowd

A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

Brief overview of Cheryl: https://wcet.wiche.edu/people/cheryldowd/

P Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

I'll defer to ED and the facilitators as to the best process

P Carolyn Fast, Consumer/Civil Rights to Everyone:

Agree with Barmak that it should be explicit that school cannot 

collect from students in this situation.

P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Instit to Everyone:

I think that clarifying question was a good one and I would 

suggest that the regulatory language is not clear that it is just flex 

accounts

A-Alyssa Dobson, 4 Yr. Public Institutions to Everyone:

Reacted to "I think that clarify..." with ���

P Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

Is "the payment period" defined by FSA or by the institution for 

the meal/flex plan? that could affect how Jason's comment could be 

implemented.

P-Joe Weglarz, to Everyone:

Would any remaining funds from flex dollars be able to be applied 

to any balances due on the student accounts? This would be with the 

students permission.

P Jason Lorgan, Public Four-Year Institutions of Higher Ed to 

Everyone:

Would recommend allowing flex dollars to roll to the next term, 

perhaps using the end of the academic year vs the end of the term

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

Can we ensure that we stipulate on 668.164 (1) that its either 14 

business days or 14 calendar days.

P Carolyn Fast, Consumer/Civil RIghts to Everyone:

My alternate, Magin Sanchez, will be joining the table now to 

comment.

John Weathers, FMCS Facilitator to Waiting Room Participants:

202.680.3091, could you identify yourself in rename function?
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P, Jessi Morales, Student/Borrower to Everyone:

I just want to remind folks that these are student dollars

P Carolyn Fast, Consumer/Civil RIghts to Everyone:

Reacted to "I just want to remin..." with ���

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

DoE Request: How serious is the problem? What data do you have to 

show support? How many students complain about this?