Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and Institutional Quality – 3/7/24

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 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

 OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

 NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING PROGRAM INTEGRITY 

AND INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY 

 SESSION 3, DAY 4, MORNING

MARCH 7, 2024

On the 7th day of March, 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. I'm Cindy 

Jeffries with FMCS, and I'll facilitate this morning. 

Just briefly coming on to let the public know that's 

standing by that we are running a little bit behind as 

the Department continues to work on state authorization 

to be better prepared to bring it to the table. So we 

will have a little bit of a delayed start, and we'll be 

getting going here as quickly as possible. Thank you. 

Good morning and thank you for your indulgence in the 

brief delay getting started this morning. But welcome to 

day three of session three on the negotiated rulemaking 

on Program Integrity and Institutional Quality. We will 

start with a roll call this morning, then some brief 

announcements, and then we will move into state 

authorization. So for roll call this morning for business 

officers from institutions of higher education, Joe 

Weglarz.

MR. WEGLARZ: I'm here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Hey, Joe. Dom Chase.

MR. CHASE: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Civil 

rights organizations and consumer advocates primary, 

Carolyn Fast.

MS. FAST: Good morning.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. And 

alternate, Magin Sanchez.

MR. SANCHEZ: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Financial aid 

administrators primary, JoEllen Price.

MS. PRICE: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. And 

alternate, Zack Goodwin.

MR. GOODWIN: One final morning, all.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. 

Historically Black colleges and universities, tribal 

colleges and universities, and minority serving 

institutions of higher education eligible to receive 

Federal assistance under Title III parts A and F, and 

Title V of the HEA, that primary is Dr. Charles Prince.

DR. PRINCE: I'm going to miss that 

introduction as it's the last day, but I'm here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright. Good morning, 

DC. And alternate, D'Angelo Sands.

MR. SANDS: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. 

Institutional accrediting agencies recognized by the 

Secretary primary, Jamie Studley.

MS. STUDLEY: Good morning, everyone.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. 
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Alternate, Michale McComis.

MR. MCCOMIS: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Legal 

assistance organizations primary, Robyn Smith.

MS. R. SMITH: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. And 

alternate, Sophie Laing.

MS. LAING: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Private 

nonprofit institutions of higher education primary is 

Erika Linden.

MS. LINDEN: Good morning, all.

MS. JEFFRIES: And her alternate is 

Scott Dolan.

MR. DOLAN: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning to the 

both of you. Programmatic accrediting agencies recognized 

by the Secretary to include state agencies recognized for 

the approval of nurse education primary, Dr. Laura Rasar 

King.

DR. KING: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: And alternate, Amy 

Eckerson.

MS. ACKERSON: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, both of 
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you. Proprietary institutions of higher education 

primary, Jillian Klein.

MS. KLEIN: Happy last day. Good 

morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Alternate, David Cohen.

MR. COHEN: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning to both of 

you. Public four-year institutions of higher education, 

Jason Lorgan is primary.

MR. LORGAN: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: And alternate, Alyssa 

Dobson.

MS. DOBSON: Good final morning, 

everyone.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Public 

two-year institutions of higher education primary, Jo 

Alice Blondin.

MS. BLONDIN: Hi there.

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, Jo. And alternate, 

Michael Cioce.

MR. CIOCE: Morning, morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Morning. State 

attorneys general. I'm sorry I lost my place here. State 

attorneys general, Diana Hooley.

MS. HOOLEY: Good morning.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Morning. And the 

alternate is vacant in that position. State officials, 

including state higher education, executive officers, 

state authorizing agencies and state regulators of 

institutions of higher education primary, John Ware. 

Morning. Alternate, Rob Anderson.

MR. ANDERSON: Good morning, everyone.

MS. JEFFRIES: Morning. Students or 

borrowers, including currently enrolled borrowers or 

groups representing them primary, Jessica Morales.

MS. MORALES: Morning. I feel like 

we're graduating. Yay!

MS. JEFFRIES: Emmett Blaney is the 

alternate.

MR. BLANEY: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: U.S. military service 

members, veterans or groups representing them primary, 

Barmak Nassirian.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. And 

alternate, Ashlynn Haycock-Lohmann.

MS. HAYCOCK-LOHMANN: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Federal 

negotiator, Mr. Greg Martin.

MR. MARTIN: Good morning.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. We are 

joined by several other participants from the Department

this morning of non-voting members. We will have Mr. 

Herman Bounds. Not sure if he's here yet. David Musser.

MR. MUSSER: Morning, all.

MS. JEFFRIES: Morning. Denise 

Morelli.

MS. MORELLI: Good morning, everyone.

MS. JEFFRIES: Is with us and Donna 

Mangold will be with us later on. Did I miss anyone? 

Okay, off to a good start. So with that, I want to make 

just a few announcements. Okay? We sent out a revised 

agenda last night, recognizing that we have pushed a few 

things to this final day. I want to make a couple- a 

correction to that. On the agenda, it lists lunch to 30 

minutes. The thought behind that was to try to maximize 

time. However, we need to stick with our 60-minute lunch 

break to allow sufficient time for the negotiators and 

the Department to work on things as well as most 

importantly, our production team needs the time to be 

able to reset for the afternoon session for public 

viewing. Another thing I'd like to bring up is that we 

would like to- we recognize that time is short, and 

there's a lot to cover today. So we have- the Department 

has checked with the necessary components and compliances 
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to see if we could go longer today than the 4 p.m. stop 

time and we are able to run at least until 5 p.m. to 

allow that extra hour or so to wrap things up if needed. 

Is that of a concern to the negotiators? Okay. Zack has 

his thumb up, I like that. Okay. So wanted to make you 

aware of that that we're trying to squeeze every single 

minute that we can into today's session. With that, I'd 

like to, you know, caucuses obviously our necessary at 

times, we are going to- we would like for you to be 

considerate of how many caucuses that you think you might 

need. If it's possible to talk about something at the 

table, let's please do so. And if you do feel the need to 

caucus, absolutely. Step forward and let us know. We'd 

like to limit those to no longer than 15 minutes in the 

areas that are possible. Okay? Recognizing again, 

sometimes it might go over a little bit. Other than that 

I don't think we have any more announcements. Let me just 

double-check here. I don't think so. Greg, do you have 

any opening remarks before we move to state 

authorization?

MR. MARTIN: No, I do not have any 

opening remarks.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Alright. So with 

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

MR. MARTIN: Thank you, Cindy. And I 
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want to say, one thing about the virtual environment is 

that if we go a little bit over, people aren't going to 

miss their flights. So that's one advantage of that. So 

in the past, we've had problems with people obviously 

having scheduled flights out so they couldn't stay any 

longer. Welcome back to the last day. I think we said 

yesterday that we were going to look at state 

authorization this morning and we are. We have a new 

proposal out there that's different than the one that we 

sent last night. So I just want to make you aware of 

that. So we'll have a few comments about what we've done 

when we've concluded with those, we'll go into the actual 

amendatory text that we have proposed here. And, you 

know, throughout this negotiated rulemaking process, we 

have considered various proposals that have been 

submitted by negotiators and listened to the concerns 

expressed during the sessions. In doing so, we have 

incorporated many of the provisions in the iterations of 

our proposal. For example, we added language related to 

reciprocity agreements from negotiators representing 

state officials. We incorporated the threshold for 

institutions enrolling a substantial number of students 

in one state, as proposed by consumer advocates, and 

added language around governance and complaints. In an 

effort to achieve consensus, the Department has made 
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substantial concessions on our proposal to compromise and 

work towards consensus in considering- in consideration 

of a widely diverging number of viewpoints. We modified 

our provisions on exemptions to address concerns from 

nonprofit institutions and community colleges while 

maintaining what we see as the most problematic 

exemptions in conflict with the HEA. We removed language 

on reciprocity, requiring agreements to allow states to 

enforce all applicable laws. To be clear, the compromise 

proposal does not represent the preferred position of the 

Department, and it is not our ideal proposal. It is also 

likely not your preferred option either. This is what we 

see as a compromise to the various viewpoints across 

negotiators that balances those viewpoints with our goals 

and concerns. We believe these changes shore up some of 

the holes within the program integrity triad with respect 

to states and help better protect students and taxpayers. 

We propose this in the hopes of reaching a consensus. But 

if consensus cannot be reached, we are not obligated to 

make the same concessions or include the provisions we 

have added in the NPRM or in the final ruling. Next, I 

want to talk a little bit about threshold and risk. We 

received questions from negotiators on the position that 

an institution with an increased presence in the state 

poses a greater risk, and we wanted to address that more 
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directly. An institution enrolling a greater number of 

students living in a state, in a given state rather, does 

pose a greater risk to the residents of that state than 

one that enrolls relatively few students. Of course, that 

doesn't necessarily mean that the institution will harm 

students, but for an individual state, more of their 

residents have the chance of being harmed by an 

institution, thus warranting greater oversight. This idea 

also aligns with the goals of reciprocity by not 

burdening the institution and rolling small numbers of 

students in the state, as discussed by negotiators 

numerous times. And it makes more sense for a state to 

review institutions by enrolling, rather, to review 

institutions enrolling large numbers of students with a 

significant presence rather than a minimal number. When 

negotiators first proposed the enrollment threshold, 

triggering the requirement that an institution receive 

direct authorization from a state, negotiators proposed 

1000 students in the state. We reviewed our existing 

regulations for an enrollment threshold and found the 

500-student threshold in our cash management regulations. 

We believe this threshold balances our concerns with 

protecting students, enabling access to distance 

education, and not putting excessive burdens on 

institutions. Institutions with a substantial presence in 
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the state do warrant greater oversight from that state. 

We know that requiring small players enrolling small 

numbers of students in states to obtain direct 

authorization would be burdensome and put a strain on 

their limited resources. Those with larger enrollment in 

the state will have more resources to navigate the 

various processes. As we discussed in our distance 

education conversation, the Department does not yet have 

a good idea on distance education. To estimate the impact 

of this threshold, we examined available data from NCSARA for a sample of years. Based on our analysis a 500 

enrollment threshold would have the following impacts on 

NC-SARA institutions and students. More than half of outof-state distance education students would now be covered 

by the direct state approval. Meanwhile, this would 

affect fewer than 5% of the more than 2000 NC-SARA 

institutions, 64 institutions in one year and 70 in 

another, and the burden on most institutions is minimal. 

More than a third of the impacted institutions would only 

need approval from one additional state. Within 70% of 

the impacted institutions would be required to obtain 

approval from ten states or fewer. Fewer than 20% of the 

students that are subjected to any direct authorization 

requirements would be required to obtain approval from 

more than 25 states. However, those schools enroll more 
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than two-thirds of the students, who would now be covered 

by direct state approval. This highlights the balance 

between achieving the goals of reciprocity to reduce cost 

and burden for institutions enrolling relatively few 

students in a given state. The Department would like to 

thank the negotiators that submitted the proposal- so I 

want to thank all- I want to thank everybody for 

submission of their proposals. As I said before, we have 

reviewed these and determined that this is the best 

compromise we believe we can offer at the time. So with 

that, I will ask Joe to put the revised language up on 

the screen so we can walk through it. Thanks, Joe. So 

we'll scroll down to our first change here. And you can 

see the revision of the text we made. An institution 

described under 600.4, 600.5, and 600.6 is legally 

authorized in the state if the state requires the 

institution to comply with any applicable state 

authorization or licensure requirements and all 

applicable state laws and regulations except as provided 

in paragraph (d)(2) romanette (ii). So next what we'll do 

is walk down through the exceptions. And then when we're 

done with that, we'll go down to (d)(2). And here we have 

the exemptions, rather. The institution may be exempted 

from the requirements for initial or renewed application 

for authorization or licensure if the state authorizes it 
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to operate educational programs beyond secondary 

education, including programs leading to a degree or 

certificate, and it is a public institution backed by the 

full faith and credit of the state or a charter, statute, 

constitutional provision, or other action issued by an 

appropriate state agency or state entity establishes the 

institution by name as an educational institution. A 

state action exempts the institution based on the 

institution being in operation on or before November 8th, 

1965, without undergoing a change of ownership; or a 

state action exempts the institution based on the 

institution's accreditation by one or more accrediting 

agencies recognized by the Secretary, or based on the 

institution being in operation for at least 20 years, 

though this exemption shall expire on July 1st, 2030. An 

institution is exempt from state authorization or 

licensure requirements under this section that undergoes 

a change of ownership shall not be exempted from the 

requirements of 34 CFR 600.20 (h)(3) romanette (ii), 

which requires the institution to receive approval from 

the change of ownership, or the change of ownership, 

rather, from each state in which the institution is 

physically located, or for an institution that offers 

only distance education from the agency that authorizes 

the institution to legally provide postsecondary 
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education in that state. And finally, seek initial 

approval for state authorization. So with that, we'll go 

down to (d)(2), reciprocity. And starting with the 

[inaudible]. Here, if an institution is authorized to 

offer distance education in another state under a state 

authorization reciprocity agreement as defined in 600.2. 

We'll drop down to where it changes are, allow any member 

state of the agreement to enforce its own applicable 

general-purpose state laws and regulations outside of 

initial approval for state authorization of distance 

education. Applicable state laws related to closure, 

including record retention, teach-out plans or 

agreements, and tuition recovery funds or surety bonds. 

Allow any member of the state, any member state of the 

agreement, rather, to condition or revoke the 

authorization of an institution that operates in that 

state under the reciprocity agreement, based on 

violations of such state's general purpose laws and 

regulations. And we made a change down here under (5). 

Permit member states to, consistent with their own 

statutes and regulations. Accept, investigate, and 

resolve complaints about an institution of higher 

education that have not yet been submitted to and 

resolved by the institution of higher education. We've 

made a change here under (4). As a condition of 
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participation, the institution may not be authorized 

through reciprocity in a state where it enrolls more than 

500 students in the two most recently completed award 

years. So there's what we've put in the threshold. And 

with that, I will turn it over to David Musser, who has 

sharing some background data for us. David?

MR. MUSSER: Actually, Greg, I think 

you walked through the major items that we were going to 

talk through on the data. So I'll turn it over to the 

committee.

MR. MARTIN: Okay. Then we'll turn it 

over to- open the floor for discussion, rather.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. Justthe negotiators have put in the chat that they'd like to 

receive a hard copy of this as soon as possible, Greg, to 

be able to follow along. Also, Jillian, you have a 

question in the chat. Is it your intent to address that 

when it's your turn to speak?

MS. KLEIN: No, actually, it was a 

general question, which I understand this proposal is 

different than what was sent to negotiators last night. 

So I was just trying to understand what the differences 

were because I think a lot of us had spent time with that 

language last night.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. So Greg and Dave, 
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the question that she put in there was, could you specify 

exactly what is different here from what was sent last 

night to negotiators? That it's somewhat- very confusing 

for them. Is there a good way to address that or just as 

it comes along?

MR. MARTIN: Well, I mean, we could.

MS. MORELLI: I'll jump in. One of the 

primary changes, and I don't know if it's all of them, is 

number (4), on the reciprocity.

MR. MUSSER: Yeah. So if you scroll 

down.

MR. MARTIN: Right, that's yeah.

MR. MUSSER: I believe this is the 

only change from.

MR. MARTIN: This is the only real 

change.

MR. MUSSER: The version that we sent 

last night. I'll look to my colleagues to make sure.

MR. MARTIN: Yeah, I think that's it, 

Dave. The language- we changed the language here as a 

condition of participation, may not be authorized through 

reciprocity in the state where.

MS. MORELLI: It was the same 

principle; except we made the language more consistent 

with direct authorization in terms of trying to make sure
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we were capturing it correctly.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. 

Alright, with that, I show Rob Anderson is up first and 

he is in place of John Ware.

MR. MARTIN: Before we start there, 

Cindy, I just was notified. One thing we left out, we 

did- go back to that language, Joe. If you can, just for 

a second. Because there's one change we didn't note that 

was different. Where it enrolled more than 500 students 

in the two most recently completed award years. So I did 

want to clarify that. But, thank you.

MR. MUSSER: And just to make sure 

it's clear. The intent here was actually not to change 

the meaning of the one-year concept that was in the text 

that was sent to negotiators last night. This is intended 

to be a little bit more specific about how it will play 

out and exactly what data the school has to rely on to 

determine whether it's subject to this requirement. 

Essentially, once they have done- have more than 500 

students in one year, then they know that if that happens 

again in the following year, they will be subject to 

this. And therefore they may need to obtain direct 

authorization.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you for 

that clarification, Dave. Rob Anderson, you are up next.
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MR. ANDERSON: Yeah. Thanks so much. I 

really do appreciate the efforts of the Department to 

look for some compromise language. Unfortunately, you 

know, from my perspective, it's still too just all over 

the board. There are pieces in here that probably have 

ripple effects that go way down the line that really need 

to be analyzed. And to have some of this coming in on the 

last evening or even this morning some of these are 

really tough to consider because of what might happen. 

And, you know, I took it a bit personally, frankly, that 

it felt like a bit of a threat. You know, we tried to 

compromise and take it now because you might not get 

this, you know, I felt about like a defendant in front of 

a prosecutor and a judge. This might be your best offer. 

I'm not quite sure what to do with this. It's a process 

that's confounding and broken in many ways, yet kind of. 

Here we are. What I will comment to is the 500. As 

several of us have stated before, it's still- you know, 

you mentioned how does this figure balances your 

concerns. And I would ask how it balances your concerns. 

I mean, it still feels like an arbitrary figure. I'm 

reminded of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart when I'm 

asked about what obscenity is. And it was kind of I'll 

know it when I see it. And that's kind of what this feels 

like. And if we want to have conversations based on true 
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risk-based approaches, I think Jillian tried to get at 

yesterday. I would be happy to be a part of that type of 

a conversation. But as is now, I mean, there's just too 

much that's been added to really for me to consider. 

Obviously, I don't have a vote at the final table, but I 

would encourage others with these concerns to take heed. 

If I have a question about board composition, is that 

going to come up later or should I go ahead and ask that 

now?

MR. MARTIN: You can ask it now.

MR. ANDERSON: Okay. Regarding the 

composition, you know, it was stated at the outset. I 

still don't necessarily see what the problem is that is 

being solved. There was discussion around a possible 

chilling effect. This could lead to dot, dot, dot. Not a 

best practice, but it is a 501 C3 private nonprofit 

board. And SARA is not a direct link to Title IV in that 

if an institution participates in SARA or leaves SARA 

this doesn't have impact on their Title IV status. We 

have conflict of interest clauses within our board 

members and what they have to sign on. And there are 

sanctions by the IRS that we're seeing to violate if 

we're found to, I should say. And so we're very 

transparent in our meetings and what policy is being 

passed and who's voting yay or nay. If there's a problem 
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and there seems to be a conflict, let us know. We've 

offered compromise language that was added and then 

deleted. We'd be happy to revisit this again. Or if you 

wanted to have a discussion around proportional 

representation of board members and what that might look 

like. Thank you for your efforts. But for me, it still 

falls short.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Rob. 

Jillian?

MS. KLEIN: Thanks. I have several 

comments, so if I run out of time, I'll just hop back in 

line. So I'm still not clear, I guess, on what the 

Department's data is that they have that shows a 

correlation between size, number of students enrolled in 

the state, and risk. So can you provide us with that data 

that shows that correlation?

MR. MUSSER: So, Julian, I'll just 

respond quickly. If you look at almost any risk analysis 

process, there's different- there's several factors to 

the risk. And I agree with you that size is certainly not 

the only factor that any risk analysis would use. It has 

to consider the various aspects of risk, including 

potentially, you know, things that have been identified 

about the school's financial situation, things that have 

been identified about their compliance, etc. We aren't 
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dealing with those items here in this specific item. 

However, any risk analysis is also going to put emphasis 

on the amount of risk that is associated with the number 

of students or the potentially impacted individuals. 

That's what we're getting at here. This is one factor and 

the idea is the state can then look at other factors with 

its direct authorization process. And it may have many 

things that it wants to consider. That's what we're 

getting at.

MS. KLEIN: Can you share the data 

that shows that an institution that enrolls 501 students 

in a state is notably riskier than an institution that 

enrolls 499 students in a state?

MR. MUSSER: Are you asking for why 

this particular threshold?

MS. KLEIN: I'm highlighting the 

conversation we had yesterday or whenever it was a couple 

of days ago when Greg acknowledged that the number 500 

was arbitrary. And so I think after yesterday, I was 

hoping, based on the comments we heard from the 

Department, that the Department was coming back with 

actual data that showed a correlation between the 

approach being proposed here and the risk to a state. And 

I still haven't heard any of that. I've heard about the 

size and burden- level burden to the institution, but I 
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haven't seen any of that data. So I'm asking for the data 

that supports that.

MR. MARTIN: Well, I want to- I want 

to point out that the 500 number, I don't- I only use the 

terms arbitrary. It is a selected number, you know, based 

on the data that we have. It- I pointed out what those 

reasons were. I think at a certain point, you know, it's 

like any number we come to, it's going to be a settled 

upon number based on an analysis of the data. We believe 

this is a fair number to arrive at. I don't- you know, 

it's- we- you know, it balances our concern. And it

represents a majority of students and doesn't place a 

burden or cost on small- on smaller players here. And 500 

is substantially larger than the median out of state 

distance enrollment. So I mean, that- you know, we tried 

to settle it with understanding that at this table we 

have profoundly different views on this. So this isn't athis is an attempt by the Department to recognize that 

there are- there is a- there is an admitted gulf between 

where people on this committee are and in an attempt to 

offer a, you know, a compromise position which may or may 

not be acceptable to the people on the committee, but 

it's incumbent upon the Department to try to offer 

something that represents a median ground between where 

both sides stand that might- may or may not be
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acceptable. But that's what we've attempted to do here.

MS. KLEIN: So I'll do respect, I 

think what you just said, and also the language we heard 

earlier this week, you actually did say the number was 

arbitrary. And so I'm just pushing on that in terms of

like wishing the Department had come back with something 

besides sort of. I'm sorry.

MS. JEFFRIES: Jillian, I want to give 

Denise Morelli a chance to add to what Greg said. Okay?

MS. MORELLI: And I just want to note 

that I think you're looking for specific data that we 

don't necessarily have, but we do, as Greg pointed out, 

show that there is a high risk for large volume 

institutions we've seen.

MS. KLEIN: What is that? Show me what 

that is, though. That's why I'm asking.

MS. JEFFRIES: Jillian, please do not 

interrupt. Thank you.

MS. MORELLI: I'm just telling you, 

Jillian, we have seen large closures and the impact and 

the detriment it's caused to students. We've seen them 

over the years. I don't really want to get into naming 

out these institutions right here on this but you've all 

seen them. They've been in the newspaper and we've had to 

deal with the impact. I wanted to just point out one of 
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the other things when we're talking about compromise and 

in between the situation, we do have data on why we hit 

the 500, but there was also comments made by a number of 

institutional representatives saying, we don't want to 

have to go and get direct authorization when we only have 

a small amount of students in a state. Therefore, we went 

back and looked to see what we could do with that. We hit 

the 500. We initially pulled it out of the tier two regs 

and tier one regs, but we did some additional data to see 

if we needed to move from that. And when this data was 

analyzed, it affects about 50% majority of the students 

that are in the distance education in the NC-SARA states. 

It also shows and as it points out that there is less of 

an impact on- there's not an impact on the schools that 

that fall below and that a lot of the institutions only 

have to get authorization in one state or less than ten 

states. So we did do an analysis, the data, and we'll get 

this document out to everybody, the data shows the impact 

isn't as bad as hitting everybody that's in the NC-SARA 

community right now. So we did do a balancing analysis, 

and this is what we came up with.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay Jillian, back to 

you.

MS. KLEIN: So I don't think we havewe don't fundamentally disagree, Greg, on the idea of 
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risk- using a risk-based approach here. And in fact, in 

response to your asking for it, we sent- several of us 

sent in a proposal that actually gets at evidence-based 

risk factors the Department has developed in the past. So 

things that trigger provisional status as outlined in the 

regulation. Things that are not as arbitrary as pulling

an enrollment number. And you guys didn't respond to 

that, or you didn't even consider the fact that that 

might be a better way to actually assess risk. Because 

you can have institutions that are tripping all of those 

triggers. They can be failing 90/10. They can have a high 

number of failing gainful employment programs. They can 

be in a bad financial state. And with your proposal, they 

would still be eligible to participate in a reciprocity 

agreement because they're not tripping an arbitrary 

number. So we'd love to hear from the Department about 

why that approach towards using evidence-based risk 

factors that have, over time, I'm assuming, been proven 

to be accurate because you all have continued to codify 

them, is not an approach that you're willing to consider.

MR. MARTIN: We did consider all 

approaches. I mean, there- you know, our position and you 

can disagree with it, is that there is, as David you 

know, pointed out, while it's not the only risk factor 

that is out there, there is always an, you know, an 
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inherently greater risk when the- when numbers are 

higher. We try to- we tried to come up with a number 

that- and that number is way above what the typical 

school has enrolled in these programs. So with such high 

numbers, there is a concern and I think that is in 

advance of a school being placed on provisional 

certification, which is at a point where we already have 

for other reasons, you know several compliance issues 

with the schools. So it just recognizes, I think, notit's not meant- it's- and that 500 is not to say that 

because there's- because that- because someone's above 

that threshold, it's a bad school or it's a bad player or 

it's linked to a failure to 90/10 or anything else, it 

just represents the fact that with such high numbers 

comes the potential for its greater exposure is the 

potential for greater risk. And yes, we considered 

everything that was submitted. We also had to consider 

things that were submitted from the individuals on the 

other side of this argument as well, which is why this 

represents- why it represents a compromise. David?

MR. MUSSER: Yeah. I actually wanted 

to say we appreciated that suggestion. We thought about 

it. And many of the risk factors that you presented are 

things that the Department does evaluate through its 

existing processes. When we identify those kinds of 
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problems, we take various kinds of actions. We put 

schools on provisional certification. And one of the 

things that we do in many of those cases is that we reach 

out to the states that are affected, and if it's a 

physical location, we would reach out to the state that 

authorizes the institution in that physical location. But 

in the case of reciprocity, aside from reaching out to 

NC-SARA, we really don't have the ability to reach out to 

the state that is most affected by the potential 

problems. Whereas here, if a state is directly 

authorizing a school, we are able to reach out to that 

state directly and say, look, this is an issue that we've 

identified. And you have a lot of students in your state 

that are affected by this. That is what we're trying to 

get at. This also allows us to apply our existing riskbased oversight directly to the states that are affected 

by schools that we've identified as problematic. And 

that's why we're using the size as an important criterion 

for distinguishing between whether reciprocity will apply 

or whether direct authorization will apply.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, all. I show 

three more hands up.

MS. KLEIN: I'm sorry. I'm not done.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, well, there are 

three more hands up, Jillian. So if you have another 
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question that is bringing up new information, please feel 

free.

MS. KLEIN: Yep, I do, thank you. So I 

think in January I had made the suggestion about 

codifying the certification procedures language, which I 

see you've done in the most recent proposal that looks at 

the closure rules, etc., that all institutions would be 

required to adhere to, even if they're in a reciprocity 

agreement. At least that's my reading of the language. So 

as part of that, right, institutions will be paying, all 

institutions will be paying into STRFs as required by a 

state. And so curious to hear from the Department. I 

mean, that is a lever that states already have in order 

to protect what they see as the risk in their state from 

institutions that are enrolling students. Now that all of 

our institutions will be paying into STRFs and states 

that requirement that require it. I'm curious the 

Department's perspective on that requirement. And then, 

you know, the need to sort of layer on what I'm hearing 

you say is supposed to address risk, even though states 

can already do that through STRFs now.

MS. JEFFRIES: Do you have a quick 

answer to that, Greg, or Dave?

MR. MARTIN: I'm not certain. So 

you're saying, Jillian, that the, I mean, regarding the 
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risk of closure. Yes, that certainly is a risk, a very 

great risk, and why we built that into the language. 

However, it's not the only risk that we perceive out 

there. It's certainly a major one, but I don't think that 

that alone addresses all of our concerns. But, David, do 

you have anything you want to add to that?

MR. MUSSER: Yeah, there are other 

factors. States may want to have stronger oversight over 

an institution with a large presence in its state. And 

right now it really- if it wants to apply its other laws 

to the institution, it really doesn't have the ability to 

do that if it's part of a reciprocity agreement. And 

we're essentially saying that once you're in that realm 

where there's that many students in a particular state 

the state needs to have the ability to apply all of its 

laws and regulations and oversee the institution more 

directly.

MS. KLEIN: I think the timing 

component on the language continues to be a concern. And 

we brought this up in our proposal. Thank you. States 

don't have- some states don't have these processes 

already or they take a very long time. So I would just 

push the Department again on sort of the language 

requirement in terms of when schools would be required to 

get this authorization at the point that they trip your 
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threshold. It's going to be sort of untenable. I think in 

some cases, I think last- yesterday or the day before, 

somebody at the table mentioned maybe 2030 as a date for 

that requirement, recognizing that states need to build 

processes and that institutions need a runway so that 

their students don't get sort of abandoned in the state. 

So can you speak to that briefly, too?

MR. MUSSER: So, Greg, I think I can 

talk a little bit about this. So one of the changes that 

we made this morning was in recognition that the way that 

the original proposal that you guys received last night 

was somewhat inconsistent with number one, the current 

approach to direct authorization in a distance education 

environment, and two, the approach described elsewhere in 

the proposed rules for direct authorization. And that is 

that under the current rules and other than in 

reciprocity, the Department's current view is that 

schools are subject to authorization in where states have 

such requirements in a direct authorization environment. 

So what this currently says is that the school can't be 

authorized if it has above 500 students as that 

threshold, it can't be authorized through reciprocity, 

and therefore it reverts to the original concept, which 

is that if the state has requirements, the school is 

subject to those requirements. So we don't believe that 
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most states would have to amend all their state laws to 

get to that. And it wouldn't require a long threshold. 

This would already- what we provided would already give 

at least two years from the implementation for schools to 

prepare for the new requirements. But we don't think 

there'd need to be significant changes by states with 

respect to how they operate their authorization 

requirements. And states all have an approach, whether 

it's not to have any requirements because most 

institutions have at least some small presence in states 

because many students- many programs are not covered by 

NC-SARA as you guys all know. So we're not- this proposal 

does not change the status quo for state authorization of 

distance education significantly enough, at least in our 

view, to mandate additional time.

MS. KLEIN: I would just say 18 to 24 

months is not uncommon in terms of state approval 

timeline. So we'll just encourage the Department to think 

about sort of the reality of that timeline. Thanks.

MS. JEFFRIES: Jillian, your time has 

expired. We're going to move on to the four hands that 

are up, and then we're going to take the consensus on 

this and move to distance ed. So the three remaining 

hands we have are Robyn, Erika, Diana, and Carolyn. If 

you have something new to add please feel free. Robyn, 
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you are up next.

MS. R. SMITH: Actually, I think 

Carolyn was first.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Yeah, okay. She 

was and then she popped to the end.

MS. FAST: I'm sorry. I'm happy to go 

after Robyn if that's fine. I'm fine with that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Okay. Alright.

MS. R. SMITH: So first of all, I just 

want to say thank you to the Department. I really 

appreciate that you are trying to do the right thing here 

by balancing sort of institutional burdens and student 

protection and recognizing that student protection is 

extremely important. And that reciprocity agreements 

shouldn't enable- shouldn't prohibit states from 

enforcing their consumer protection provisions, 

especially when students are at risk, many students are 

at risk. Just a couple of things I want to push back on. 

I'm concerned that 500 is actually too high of a 

threshold. You will have states like California, where 

probably many schools will meet that threshold, and then 

states like Wyoming or New Mexico, or smaller states 

where they will rarely meet that threshold. And so I 

think I'm going to push back and say, I think the numbers 

should be lower somewhere around 200 to ensure that 
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students in the smaller states who enroll in these 

schools still, when there are enough of them, will have 

some protection from the state. The second, I want to 

make sure this is correct. It sounded like what you just 

said is that your intention is to have schools who have 

to get direct authorization from the state to be subject 

to all applicable state laws in that state. Is that 

correct?

MR. MUSSER: Yes. Yes, that is 

correct. So it's any applicable law in that state.

MS. R. SMITH: Okay. Got it. I think 

my concern is that little sub little (i) because it's 

part of the same, you know, it goes through all of them. 

It appears that if a state joins a reciprocity agreement 

then it still limits what they can- the way it's worded, 

I'm concerned is it would still allow the reciprocity 

agreement to limit what those states can do with the 

direct authorization schools. And so yesterday, Carolyn 

provided language that would be clear, that would make it 

clear that those states are subject to all applicable 

state laws. So I really think it's important to add that 

provision if that's in fact your intention. The other 

thing I wanted to talk about is I still think it's really 

important to ensure that whatever body is making the 

policy decisions and or can overturn state decisions in a 
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reciprocity agreement should be composed entirely of 

state regulators or attorney generals and not composed of 

the regulated entities themselves because they have a 

clear conflict. I want to push back, I think the 

compacts- they already have steering committees, which 

are composed of both state regulators and schools they 

could easily change the composition of those steering 

committees to be all state regulators and AGs to make 

those kinds of decisions. This is something they can 

change and NC-SARA can change. None of this is set in 

stone. I want to push back and I want to say I think this 

change is possible. So that's important to me. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Robyn, I 

appreciate it. Erika?

MS. LINDEN: Thank you. I do want to 

thank the Department for attempts working with us to come 

to a compromise. And I think some of the movement we've

made is helpful and supports the shared goals of 

supporting students, protecting students, while 

organizations remain able to function within the really 

vast regulatory scheme that we're asked to do, both at 

each state level as well as at the Federal level. And so 

I think that's- I want to say thanks on that. I'm still 

concerned about the leadership or decision-making 

threshold or issue for SARA and those compacts. And I 
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still find that a significant challenge because I think 

there are many others who can contribute to the thinking 

that goes on for the oversight of those organizations 

through reciprocity. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Erika. Carolyn. 

I'm so sorry. You were supposed to go after and so I'm 

going to call on you next. If that's okay, Diana? Thanks. 

Carolyn.

MS. FAST: Thanks. I appreciate the 

Department's efforts here to come to the right balance. 

And I do think the idea of having a threshold based on 

size makes sense, especially in light of the argument for 

permitting reciprocity agreements in the first place to 

satisfy state authorization requirements, which is a 

statutory requirement that the Department doesn't have to 

permit this sort of getting around the ordinary method of 

authorization. But the argument for it was that it would 

be difficult for small schools that might only have a few 

students in each state to operate in this online world 

without this sort of reciprocity agreement. It was for 

that reason, and not for the reason of allowing large 

schools with lots of resources to get around this state 

consumer protection laws. And that is, unfortunately, how 

it has evolved. But that has never been an appropriate 

reason for a reciprocity agreement to be recognized by 
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the Department. So I think that having a numerical 

threshold makes a lot of sense. I share Robyn's concerns 

that the number is too high, and I very much am 

concerned, and it would be sufficient not for, in my 

view, to not support this proposal. I am concerned that 

the language is not clear, that when in the provision in 

the proposed language, when they talk about- when the 

provision that talks about a 500 student threshold, it 

doesn't make it clear that those schools would be subject 

to all applicable state laws, consumer protection laws, 

and because that is the key information and it is not 

clear in the language. So I would not be able to support 

a proposal that does not clarify that for schools that 

have above a 500 student footprint in a state, whatever 

applicable state laws, consumer protection laws apply in 

those states would apply to protect those students and to 

allow states to enforce the laws as they apply. So those 

are two concerns. And I want to also echo Robyn, in that 

I think that the delegation issue is not fully solved. 

The delegation of decision-making and oversight authority 

is not fully solved. We have very serious concerns about 

that going to non-state actors and conflicted actors. But 

we don't think that the changes that we have proposed 

would actually lead to the need for really substantial 

changes to the current regional compacts system. It could 
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be just as easy as making sure the steering committees 

that have decision-making authority are just regulators 

right now. They have some other people. But this would 

not cause a fundamental upheaval in the way that the 

regional compacts currently operate. The reciprocity 

agreement, it would not cause any huge problems. They 

would just have to make some slight changes to the makeup 

of these steering committees. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Carolyn. 

Diana.

MS. HOOLEY: Thank you. We also want 

to thank the Department for engaging on this issue as 

much as we have throughout this process. I think that the 

intent is the right one as Carolyn just noted, you know, 

we're trying to balance the needs of the students, you

know, with the burdens on the institutions. I understand 

where the Department's coming from there. You know, as 

attorneys generals, we have, as attorneys general, we 

have a mandate to protect all of the consumers in our 

states. And my concern is still that even with this 

proposal that we'll be perpetuating a two-tiered system 

of consumer protection. So full consumer protection for 

those students who aren't attending NC-SARA schools and 

not full for the ones that are. So that remains 

problematic for us. I think that- I also wanted to just 
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add on to the points raised by Robyn and Carolyn that as 

it's written, were the Department to go forward with this 

type of language, that limiting it to the applicable laws 

and regulations may have the unintended consequence of 

continuing to allow those students who are authorized 

under reciprocity agreements to avoid the obligation. So 

I'm just wording it a third way, which maybe isn't 

helpful, but it's the same concern. I think there needs 

to be a fix there. And again, yes, we still have the 

ability to pursue general-purpose, you know, remedies, 

enforcement actions under those laws. But as we have 

investigated these types of concerns and made and forced 

our regulations against- and pursued bad actors pursued, 

you know, we have had the ability to craft and 

specifically Massachusetts and other states as well, 

craft specific language that is responsive to these types 

of behaviors. And in order to prevent them and to provide 

students with more information going in. These were all 

benefits. And under the- as written, there's still a lot 

of students that will not have the benefit of those 

increased protections. So thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Diana. 

Alright. Dave and Greg, are you ready to move to 

consensus?

MR. MARTIN: We are.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Alright. We'll do 

a roll call consensus. So when I call your name, please 

indicate thumbs up, in support. Sideways, you can live 

with it. Thumbs down, you have some serious reservations 

about it. Okay, Jo Blondin. She's a thumbs down. Jillian 

Klein. Thumbs down, Robyn Smith. Thumbs down. Laura Rasar 

King. She is sideways. Carolyn Fast. She is sideways. 

Diana Hooley. Her thumbs down. JoEllen Price. Sideways. 

Erika Linden. Thumbs down. Jamie Studley. Thumbs down. 

Joe Weglarz. Sideways. Jason Lorgan. Thumbs down. Barmak 

Nassirian. Thumbs down. John Ware. Thumbs down. Jessi 

Morales. Thumbs down. And DC. Sideways. Greg Martin. 

Thumbs up. Okay. So consensus has not been reached on the 

state authorization. We have one hand up and we'll take 

that, and then we're going to move to distance ed. John 

Ware.

MR. WARE: Yeah, just real quick. I 

just wanted to explain my vote. I also wanted to thank 

the Department for trying to make a significant effort 

here to reach a compromise. And I do support a lot of 

what was proposed in state authorization. However, I 

didn't feel like I'd unilaterally agreed to significant 

changes to current and future reciprocity agreements 

without input from other states who would be impacted by 

the proposals. Because the nature of reciprocity requires 
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that all states have input. However, I do believe that 

many of the proposals the Department put forward and that 

have been raised by other negotiators should be given 

serious consideration by states compacts and the current 

reciprocity agreement governing board. And it's my hope 

and expectation that these issues that we have discussed 

will be addressed by states currently participating in 

the reciprocity process notwithstanding the result of 

this rulemaking process. So, again, appreciate the 

Department's efforts here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thanks, John.

MR. MARTIN: Thank you, John, we 

appreciate that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Is there anyone else 

that wants to give an explanation that they haven't 

already stated with their serious objections were or the 

rationale for their position? Okay. I don't see any 

hands. So with that, we'll move to distance ed. And 

following that, we're going to move on to accreditation 

and then we'll break for lunch. So Dave and Greg?

MR. MARTIN: I'll turn it over to 

David.

MR. MUSSER: Yeah. Thanks, Greg. So I 

wanted to thank negotiators for submitting a proposal for 

how we might put some more guardrails around clock-hour 
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programs that use asynchronous learning. I think this was 

a difficult discussion for a lot of folks. You know, we 

heard the concerns from schools about making this change. 

And I think you guys heard the Department's concerns 

about enforcement of these provisions about concerns 

regarding the way that Title IV funds and the use of them 

would be expanded to types of instruction that had not 

been used before. And we had- we wanted to hear from 

negotiators regarding ways that we might be able to allow 

for the practice with certain guardrails but in reviewing 

the proposal we do not believe that we can include a 

concession at this time. And we have not at this point 

made changes to our proposed language. So some of the 

reasons for this. First, while we appreciate that some 

institutional accrediting agencies may be open to 

including a review of these programs. And I would go- I 

should go back and give context. The proposal was to 

require in the accreditation regulations an agency that 

allows asynchronous distance education to require such an 

agency to limit the allowance for asynchronous distance 

education to only portions of the program that do not 

include hands-on learning objectives, to require the 

institution to demonstrate that asynchronous distance ed 

delivery methods are comparable to synchronous distance 

education, and to require student identity practices to 
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be used that are already required under a separate 

accreditation provisions. So while we appreciate that 

some accreditors might be open to that many institutional 

accreditors don't review programs at all except as part 

of substantive change evaluations. And we've frequently 

heard the refrain from some agencies that they are 

institutional accrediting agencies and not programmatic 

accrediting agencies. So we don't believe, given the 

various practices among agencies and the likelihood that 

the standards and review will vary significantly without 

a consistent standard that this is a feasible solution 

that will meet all of our concerns. And second, the 

proposal doesn't address our concerns about the technical 

capabilities of institutions that we brought up 

throughout this negotiation. We've heard requests from 

schools for specific compliance data on this. And while 

we don't have [inaudible] that we can share that give 

exact numbers, it is our view that unfortunately because 

this is such a difficult item for the Department and 

auditors to enforce, even if we had given very clear and 

specific requirements to auditors, we don't believe that 

they could have evaluated this and identified very many 

instances of it, given the technical expertise required. 

The rules as they were created simply require an 

extremely technical- require an understanding of 
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technical details and a significant amount of resources. 

And this particular proposal doesn't get to that level of 

review. There, you know, there might have been other ways 

to address this. But overall the Department just doesn't 

see any other way beyond what the institution has 

proposed that would alleviate all of our concerns. So at 

this time, we do not propose to make any changes.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Dave. 

Let's open the floor for discussion. I'm not seeing any 

hands. Greg, are you prepared to move to consensus?

MR. MARTIN: Yes.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. So I'm seeing no 

hands for discussion on distance ed. And there were no 

changes made in the document from the last time received. 

We'll go ahead and take consensus by roll call. Jo 

Blondin. Thumbs down. Jillian. Down. Robyn Smith. Thumbs 

up. Laura Rasar King. Sideways. Carolyn Fast. Thumbs up. 

Dana Hooley. Thumbs up. JoEllen Price. Thumbs down. Erika 

Linden. Thumbs down. Sorry. Thank you. Joe Weglarz. 

Thumbs down. Jason Lorgan. Thumbs down. Barmak Nassirian. 

Thumbs up. John Ware. Sideways. Jamie Studley. Sideways. 

Jessi Morales. Thumbs up. DC. Thumbs up. And Greg Martin. 

Thumbs up. So there were four thumbs down. Do any of the 

four of you JoEllen or sorry, Jo Blondin, Jillian Klein, 

JoEllen Price, and Erika Linden. Do you have anything new 
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to add as to what the serious concerns are? Jo.

MS. BLONDIN: I just think that it's a 

disservice to all the institutions that do this well and 

that we should find ways to, you know, work with the 

institutions who aren't doing it. And there is a 

compromise here. The other thing that I do want to add to 

is there is a vast amount of information. There has been 

so much packed into this rule, making so many diverse 

issues. And I think that at times I feel that it's 

intentional and I just want to share that as well. Thank 

you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jo. I should 

have mentioned Jo and Jason also as thumbs down. Anything 

from those who participated in the consensus? Alright. 

We'll take one comment from Scott Dolan, and then we'll 

move on to, I'm sorry, sorry losing my thoughts here. 

Accreditation. Thanks.

MR. DOLAN: Just quickly. Yeah, I am 

also appreciative of the Department's willingness to, you 

know, meet with us, and discuss a little bit more a 

potential middle ground here. And I understand, you know, 

there was the second component around the technical 

pieces. We heard from some public commenters over the 

last couple of days about opportunities that we might 

have around providing provisions that might help around 
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the technical monitoring. So I would be willing to work 

with the Department between now in writing if there’s an 

opportunity to talk through more reasonable ways for us 

to meet your concerns, which I think are valid. I think 

just a matter of how much time we’ve had to actually 

negotiate on these pieces when we haven’t seen any change 

between January and two days ago. So with that said, very 

appreciative of the conversation that we’ve had over the 

last few days. Thanks.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Scott. Alright, 

let’s move on to accreditation. We have until 12:00, 

where we will promptly break for lunch at that point. 

Denise?

MS. MORELLI: I’m just going to switch 

out with Donna. I just want to let everybody know. Donna 

Mangold will be replacing me.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Denise. Okay. 

Herman?

MR. BOUNDS: Alright. Good morning 

again, everyone. Vanessa, are you driving the show again 

today? Or is that someone else? Okay.

MS. GOMEZ: It’s Joe today.

MS. JEFFRIES: It’s Joe.

MR. BOUNDS: Oh, it’s Joe? Okay. 

Alright. So I think yesterday we were probably ready to 
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move over into 602.17, I believe. And under 17, there are 

really no significant changes or issues there from when 

we last met. I think we’re good to go down into 602.18. 

And also there’s not significant changes that we have not 

discussed in 18. If someone does see something you want 

to comment on, please let me know. But I think we can 

move down to 602.19.

MS. JEFFRIES: Herman, sorry to 

interrupt. Jamie has her hand up.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay.

MS. STUDLEY: Sorry. I was keeping up 

with Herman, so I’m on 19 also.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, great.

MR. BOUNDS: Alright. Thank you. 

Alright, so in 19 to begin in paragraph (b) we have some 

changes there. Basically, we clarified language to 

require monitoring and evaluation approaches must provide 

the agency with the current representative and accurate 

information. That it must account for risk. And so those 

are the changes related to that in 602.19 (b). And we’ll 

come back and cover 619 once we get through it. Yeah. If 

that’s okay. Yeah. So that is it under 602.19. So I will 

stop there and open up for discussion.

MS. JEFFRIES: Jamie?

MS. STUDLEY: Yeah. Very simple 
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suggestion that the word audit in 19 seems- accreditors 

are not auditors. We would prefer a word like review. 

We’re, you know, we’re fine with the rest of the 

responsibility, but that seems to set a bar that’s not 

appropriate here. 

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I don’t see an 

issue with that but I’ll wait for any other responses 

from our folks. Okay. Let me make a note of that.

MS. STUDLEY: We also got some 

questions about the sample of data and whether that’s 

clear enough.

MR. BOUNDS: Sample of data 

institutional programs. Yeah, I don’t- What would your 

suggestions there be?

MS. STUDLEY: For the language backup?

MR. BOUNDS: Yes.

MS. STUDLEY: It was more a question 

about what was meant and whether that would be doable. 

That’s all.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. We can definitely 

take a look at that. But we do- I do agree with you about 

the term audit. We can definitely- that one should 

definitely be easy to address. Okay. Alright. Yes. Is 

there another one?

MS. JEFFRIES: Barmak?
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MR. NASSIRIAN: Yes, I’m a little 

confused about what this exchange meant. I’m assuming, 

first of all, that it’s not just any sample of data, but 

a representative sample of data. That is the standard 

practice. If you’re not going to inspect universe data, 

you pull a sample and base your judgment on what that 

sample indicates about whatever it is you’re evaluating. 

What’s the objection?

MS. STUDLEY: I didn’t object. I said 

I was asked by some people for clarity about what sample 

of data meant. It would be helpful to see the language 

again.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. Page 20.

MS. STUDLEY: I have no problem with 

it. I think periodic reviews and a sample may be more 

specific than it needs to be, but do are responsible 

appropriate review. And they could review all of it if 

they want to review all of it.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Laura 

Rasar King?

DR. KING: Yeah. Thank you. I just 

wanted to hear from Herman about what he envisions that 

would look like. Periodic audit slash review, whatever 

that word is, of a sample of data from institutions or 

programs. What in practical terms would that look like? 
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I’m not sure what exactly that would mean that we would 

need to do.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I think it could 

encompass, Laura, I think it can encompass a, you know, 

different information. I would assume that we would be 

talking about a sample of information to determine thethat could be used, maybe to determine the compliance of 

the institutional program. You know, with, you know, with 

agency standards or procedures. And that’s why we just 

say, I think we’re just saying here a sample of data. 

We’re not, you know, we’re not saying that should be. But 

if you read that along the terms of what the other things 

that we’re asking for here, you know, measure the 

physical information below, you know, compliance with 

student achievement. I just think, again, we’re talking 

about just periodic audits, well, periodic reviews and a 

sample of whatever the agency thinks is appropriate for 

determining institutional program’s compliance.

DR. KING: SoMR. BOUNDS: Which is what- which is 

what you’re doing on a monitoring and reevaluation 

anyway. I mean, that’s the whole purpose of that section.

DR. KING: Right. So we are doing 

monitoring and evaluation of data. So this was added for 

a reason so it must mean something else.
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MR. BOUNDS: No, I think it’s just to 

provide more clarity for folks for, you know, for both 

accrediting agencies and for and even for institutions of 

program.

DR. KING: But I don’t think it 

provides more clarity to what’s already there. I think it 

adds an additional responsibility. So do you- are you 

envisioning that this means that for example, we would 

get graduation rate data through our monitoring reports, 

that we would take a random sample of our programs and 

request their underlying data? So student names and 

outcomes to see if their graduation rate reported was 

accurate. Is that, I mean, is that what you’re talking 

about here?

MR. BOUNDS: So I think if you look at 

it- so what if you- without the additions and again, I 

want to correct something I may have said, you know, we 

don’t require annual reports we just say periodic 

reports. I think I used the term annual report. And so 

right now, how the regulation reads is that you have to 

do these periodic monitoring activities, and we put what 

minimums in here which is, you know, financial 

information and then compliance with student achievement. 

What we’re saying here is a periodic review of a sample 

of data from institutions- so that just says other 
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components that might indicate an institution’s 

compliance with its standards periodically however you 

want to space that out in between the accreditation 

review. Just periodic reviews of other information that 

may be important to an agency to understand whether the 

institution and program is in compliance. That’s- I think 

that’s the key point of adding that language here.

DR. KING: Okay. I don’t think that 

that’s clear. I don’t think what you described is what is 

stated here. I’m still not- it’s hard to offer language 

because I’m still not clear exactly what- exactly what’s 

being envisioned here. But I don’t think what you said is 

what is written here. And I think what is written here 

then would have- would be misinterpreted very quickly by 

department staff.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. I’m not 

understanding how you interpret that differently from 

what I just said. 

DR. KING: I gave an example. I gave 

an example of what- of how I’m interpreting what this 

means. I mean, when I see periodic audits of sample data 

from programs, I am thinking that you want us to, again, 

take a random sample of programs and request underlying 

data for a data point that they already gave us. Is that 

what this means?
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MR. BOUNDS: I don’t see it that. 

First of all, I think we agree that we would remove the 

word, the term audit if that’s the word that’s causing, 

you know, everyone, you know, everyone the issue. Here, 

we’re just saying we want- we’re just adding periodic 

reviews of sample data, whatever may be important to the 

accrediting agency regarding the program’s or the 

institution’s compliance. That’s what we’re asking. I 

will ask my colleague. Donna, if you want to come in 

maybe I’m not explaining that clearly. If you have 

another- some other talking points here.

MS. MANGOLD: I think Laura is 

touching on an element, though that would be appropriate 

in the agency’s discretion. Is that if the, and it's part 

of what you're saying, but I think it is a way of- it's 

an example of it that you would actually if they're 

reporting graduation rates, you would test it. You would 

do a file sample and actually test it. That's one way. 

Herman is describing something bigger. And that's not the 

only way. But that's one sample of what you might do.

MS. JEFFRIES: Laura, does that help?

DR. KING: Yeah. I would go back to 

what Jamie said. We are not auditors. That's not the role 

that accrediting agencies play and that was what I was 

afraid that this meant. So I appreciate Donna 
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acknowledging that that's really what this means. IMS. MANGOLD: But I don't mean audit, 

I mean review. If we could- we will- I think we are 

comfortable that we would change that word from audit to 

review.

DR. KING: Right. I mean, it's- the 

intent is still the same though. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. I was going to 

ask if the Department wanted to make that real-time 

change or not.

MR. BOUNDS: We can.

MS. JEFFRIES: Give Joe a second to do 

that. He has to get in another screen. Carolyn, you're up 

next.

MS. FAST: Just wanted to offer 

support for the language that the Department currently 

has. Although I'm fine with the change to review. There 

have been multiple instances where accreditors have 

missed situations where accredited institutions were 

misrepresenting information about graduation rates, 

placement rates, and other things, and even may have been 

under investigation by state law enforcement or other 

regulators, with the accreditors continuing to just 

rubber stamp it. So it's really the least that 

accreditors could do to make sure, especially if there is 
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a red flag that the data being provided to them is 

accurate.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Carolyn. So 

you can see the Department made that change from audits 

to reviews. Jamie, you're up next.

MS. STUDLEY: I appreciated Donna's 

clarification that this is in the agency discretion. I 

can imagine lots of different ways it could be done 

responsibly, both for cause when there's a reason to look 

into the validity and veracity of the data that's 

provided random spot checks, if that's what the agency 

thinks would be helpful or you know, other routine 

practice or triggers. I thought it was a small point. 

Laura has now suggested that it makes sense to- I have no 

problem with expecting those, as long as it's- the agency 

determining on a reasonable basis to satisfy itself that 

it is working with valid information. The review may 

include comparing different sources of data to see 

whether the institutional and public data align with each 

other. But I think acknowledging that it's- I think the 

Department was wise here not to say how, but to leave to 

the agency to determine what's appropriate, subject to 

the oversight of the agency that happens in recognition. 

I'm not suggesting that we add that word. Did I miss 

something here?
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MS. JEFFRIES: Add what word, Jamie?

MS. STUDLEY: Representative. Was that 

just- was that something that had been there before? I 

just saw typing going on. I didn't want to be suggesting 

edits accidentally.

MS. MANGOLD: That was Barmak's 

suggestion.

MS. STUDLEY: Well, I think a sample 

is kind of useless unless it's representative, so I can 

hardly argue with that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Alright. Laura?

DR. KING: Again, the more specific 

that we get here, the more prescriptive that this 

becomes. And it becomes what I was suggesting that it 

would probably be. I don't think we need to be more 

prescriptive here. I think it should be in the agency's 

discretion if this is going to remain.

MR. BOUNDS: So are we concerned with 

what was just added here? The representative prior to 

sample of data? Just leave it sample of data?

DR. KING: Yes, please leave it sample 

of data.

MR. BOUNDS: Go ahead and strike. And 

again, Jamie, I'm glad you made the comments that you 

made. We have always left the monitoring activities, you 
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know, to the discretion of the accrediting organization. 

You know, we don't, you know, as the regulations are 

currently written, the only thing that we did prescribe 

that we do prescribe here is financial review and then, 

you know, compliance with student achievement. So all of 

these changes would be, you know, at the agency's 

discretion is when it thinks is important information to

determine the compliance position of the institutional 

program.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Robyn, you 

had your hand up.

MS. R. SMITH: Yeah. I just- I think 

representative is important to put in there because 

schools shouldn't, I mean, accreditors shouldn't be 

taking unrepresentative samples. I think it is important 

to be clear that any kind of sample is at least 

meaningful. So I would argue that should stay in.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. 

Barmak?

MR. NASSIRIAN: So I was going to make 

the same point, or at least urge the Department to make 

it random. Otherwise, whatever the institution, the five 

people who graduated would be the sample that would be 

submitted and the accreditor would not have a leg to 

stand on in demanding that the sample represents 
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something real. So make it at least random. But 

representative is the better word.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Any 

other comments? Okay. I want to make a note that Scott 

Dolan is at the table. And, Herman, I don't mean to 

backtrack here, but Scott did put a question in the chat 

when we started this. He was asking if there were any 

changes to 602.16? Because that's where we left off 

yesterday. So were there any changes to that so we can 

address his question?

MR. BOUNDS: We haven't made any 

changes as of yet. We are looking at the suggested 

language that I think Laura sent last night, but we have 

not incorporated anything at this time.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay.

MR. DOLAN: It was both that and the 

recognition of the manipulation of data, I think since

we're making real-time edits in other sections I just 

wanted to ask that question. But thanks, I appreciate it.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks. Alright, I 

think we're prepared to move on to the next section with 

change, Herman.

MR. BOUNDS: Okay. So let's scan down. 

And it looks like we start in enforcement of standards. A 
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lot of the blue we had discussed previously. I'm going to 

skip that and try to get to the yellow highlighted. But 

if there's when we open up the discussion, if there's any 

questions at all, please bring that up. So I think we 

should be on page 22 right now. And we just added the 

enforcement of intermediate checkpoints that allow the 

agency to ensure that the institution will be in full 

compliance by the end of the timeline. And then we added 

the timeline basically some grammar, we added the 

timeline must not exceed. No changes there with the 

lesser of four years or 150% of the program. And of 

course, this is related to student achievement. The one 

thing we did do in (c) is- I want to make sure I don't 

miss it, we limited the good cause extension for one 

additional year there. I don't know if that was noted 

previously. I want to make that known under (c). And if 

we scan down, we struck unless the agency determines 

there is good cause to extend a period of time. So we 

just removed that and we made these situations where if 

these things occur the agency could, in fact, allow 

additional time for the institution program to come into 

compliance. And I think we had some changes under (5). 

And I think if we go down to- I think it's page, yeah, 

24. And all we added here was to kind of, you know, be 

consistent with what we've added previously, where we say 
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the agency's timeline must include the enforcement of 

intermediate checkpoints that allow the agents to ensure 

that the institution will be in full compliance by the 

end of the time. And I think that wraps up basically 

602.20. So I would then open up questions for enforcement 

of standards under 602.20.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 

Herman. Jillian.

MS. KLEIN: Thanks. I have a question 

on page 22. I brought this up last time, and I thought I 

remembered the Department acknowledging that you guys 

would take this back. So just curious if you have an 

update. My concern was in the middle of that page in (b) 

where it talks about the timeline not exceeding the 

lesser of four years or 150% of the length of the 

program. And I indicated for doctoral programs 

especially, this doesn't work because you don't even have 

students moving through a program in this amount of time. 

And so I remember the Department was going to take that 

back, but I don't see an update.

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I think our 

internal discussions were to leave this section as is. I 

think what we have here, you know, constitutes the 

majority of programs. And no matter what program it is 

four years would be the max based on whatever is 
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published in the- whatever the institution publishes for 

the length of those doctoral programs because they're, 

you know, as you know, there are many different types. 

They're all different, you know, they're all different 

lengths. So we did not make a change- we did not make a 

change here.

MS. KLEIN: Yeah. So I'll just 

highlight again, I mean, I don't understand how this is 

supposed to work. So students who are already in flight 

in a program that lasts longer than four years. So 

essentially my read of this is if you have a doctoral 

program that's not meeting the standard, then you should 

just close your program because the accreditor is not 

going to have the flexibility to actually allow you to 

put in mechanisms that will enable institutions to be 

able to meet this requirement. I know I said it last 

time, I just don't understand. IMR. BOUNDS: I want to- I also want to 

make sure that I understand your- so this doesn't kick in 

until you get to the point where the accrediting agency 

finds the institution itself non-compliant. So from that 

point in time then the agency, of course, can allow that 

institution up to four years to make that, you know, to 

make that situation happen.

MS. KLEIN: Yeah, I understand that. 
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But the amount of time it takes students who start a 

doctoral program, and I'm just using that as an example, 

there might be other programs too, in a program that, for 

example, is published to take 6 or 8 years. Students 

cannot get through a program in four years. So you're not 

going to see an increase or a change in those graduation 

rates, no matter what the institution does, without a 

full cycle of students moving through whatever 

interventions the institution is taking towards the 

student. So it just- it doesn't- this works, I'm sure, 

for I think what most people think about in terms of like 

associate's programs, or bachelor's programs, certificate 

programs but it's not going to work for programs that are 

longer than four years.

MR. BOUNDS: But I would just say that 

same situation happens at any, I mean, at any point, you 

know, in any program, we would hope that there would be, 

you know, once these things happen. I think that's why we 

have those teach-out requirements and all those things in 

place is to allow students to transfer to a place where 

they can, you know, where they can completeMS. KLEIN: Okay, so you're- so- I'm 

sorry. I'm sorry. So then the intention of this language 

is to allow students an off-ramp, not to allow 

institutions the chance to make their programs better. 
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That's what I heard you say. So I just want to make sure 

we were clear on what the intention was. Thanks.

MR. BOUNDS: I mean, the intention is, 

is to allow an institution overall time to come into 

compliance with an agency standards. And we're giving 

them that max of four years to do that. Even if you're in 

a bachelor's degree program and you may be halfway 

through the- you may not even, you know, have completed 

that program or master's program. We're looking at the 

institutions, the additional time that we're going to

allow the institution to come into compliance with 

standards. I mean, it's going to be hard to make an 

exception for each individual type and length of program 

that we have at an institution. I would also remind folks 

that under the regulations prior to the 2020 regulatory 

changes, institutions only had two years to demonstrate 

compliance. This is a significant increase than what was 

there previously.

MS. KLEIN: Yeah. I don't think it's 

hard to fix the language, just get rid of or the lesser 

of four years and just leave 150% of the program, which 

gets it literally a program of any length, I think, is 

indicative of the fact that there are multiple program 

lengths across all sorts of different career levels.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. I'm 
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going to note that Dom Chase has come to the table in 

place of Joe Weglarz for business officers and has his 

hand up. Dom?

MR. CHASE: Thank you. Three things 

just to raise here. And in (a)(1) appears to- the 

language appears to always require an adverse action, 

which seems inconsistent with due process that has 

historically been afforded to institutions by 

accreditors. And then on 602.2 (b). I would like to- I 

guess what does enforcement of a checkpoint, what does 

that mean? When the timeline provided for attaining 

compliance is a longer period, a check- what- a 

checkpoint appears to be just that. I just don't know 

what enforcement necessarily means on a checkpoint. And 

then the last is on section (c). Why is it being limited 

to one- why is good cause being limited to one year? As 

long as there remains a legitimate basis for a good cause 

extension, why couldn't it extend beyond one year? I'm 

wondering, what's the reason for one year? Thank you.

MR. BOUNDS: Let me- Cindy, can I 

answer this question first since he had some, since he 

had some- thanks. So we, you know, we discussed 

internally about the time limit for extension for good 

cause because we think there should be some time limit 

attached to that. And what we found out in our research 
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over with accrediting agencies is approximately, you 

know, about 20- 20 agencies currently allow for an 

extension for good cause period of one year. We have 

about 18 that offer, you know, slightly more than that. 

And then the rest offer a significant long time. So we're 

looking at the majority of agencies already offer an 

extension for good cause, period for around one year. And 

we thought that was a good point, a good point to start 

at. But we do think there needs to be some time limit on 

an extension, on an extension for good cause. The 

question that you asked about the enforcement of 

intermediate checkpoints along the way, we just want to 

make it clear that during the period of noncompliance 

that an agency will monitor the institution's progress in 

coming into compliance with those standards and make 

enforcement actions at that time if they see that either 

the situation has gotten worse, you know, within that 

enforcement timeline period. So we just want to make sure 

that they take these intermediate looks to see how the 

institution is progressing.

MR. CHASE: So I would just like to 

point out that good cause extensions help students by not 

disrupting their education as long as an institution is 

making steps to come into compliance. And there- I could 

foresee issues such as facilities related to facilities 
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that would extend beyond a one-year timeline. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Dom. We have 

Barmak and Jamie's hands up. We have approximately nine 

minutes before the top of the hour. So, Barmak, you are 

up.

MR. NASSIRIAN: Yeah, I think we're 

all here to help students. But you know what will help 

students the most is to be compliant. That little premise 

has gotten lost here. These are institutions that already 

have given us cause for alarm. That important fact is 

being overlooked in the name of prolonging how many 

epicycles of additional benefits of doubts can we extend 

to institutions. One of the points that I think is 

getting lost here is the faith-based assumption, both in 

Jillian and Dom's commentary, that, of course, of course, 

if you prolong the time, you help students who are in 

transit, because of course the institution is going to be 

just fine. And, of course, you know, my concern is what 

happens if it's not? What happens if the noncompliance is 

systemic and entirely endemic to the practices of the 

institution and the institution ends up collapsing? 

Prolonging the timeline for a non-compliant institution 

simply increases the number of victims that will someday 

have to line up for some kind of loan discharge by a 

sympathetic administration. One way to contain the damage 
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if you have, like a flood in the kitchen, is to shut off 

the water before you start mopping. The administration 

has done an enormous amount of quite appropriate mopping, 

some would say, to the tune of $138 billion to date and 

running. But, you know, let's stop some of the obvious 

sources of damage, and lousy programs are a huge source 

of the damage. Let's attempt at least to make a 

difference by turning off the spigot a little bit here. 

Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Barmak. 

Jamie.

MS. STUDLEY: You know, I'm going to 

let other people speak before lunch if that's okay, just 

to stay on point. Because I was going to raise some other 

issues.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Alright. Laura?

DR. KING: Sorry. Yeah, I had wanted 

to kind of return to Dom's second question about the 

language about including enforcement of intermediate 

checkpoints. I agree with Dom that an intermediate 

checkpoint in a term of a period in which the institution 

or program can come into compliance. They're just that, 

they're checkpoints. And what I heard you say Herman, is 

that you really want us to be monitoring them on 

intermediate checkpoints. Enforcement has a very specific 
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meaning, and I don't think that that meaning is 

appropriate in this sentence. Can we- can you consider 

changing the word to, the timeline must include the 

monitoring of intermediate checkpoints?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah. I mean, we can- we 

can take that into consideration. I think too, one thing 

I didn't state, we do want to make- I think the other 

time is when we say enforcement of intermediate 

checkpoints, I think it is that we really want agencies 

to have these intermediate checkpoints along the way 

during that period of noncompliance so that they are 

getting information, you know, whether the program is 

progressing or the institution is progressing well. So I 

think we do want to ensure that these intermediate 

checkpoints are there. And I think in this context, 

that's probably a better description of what we mean by 

intermediate checkpoints, enforcement of immediate 

checkpoints.

DR. KING: Yeah, I agree with that, 

actually. This language I believe was something I 

suggested in 2019, these intermediate checkpoints. So 

it's funny how it all comes around back to bite you. But 

I think- I do think, though, that enforcement of them 

seems to imply that you're supposed to take some kind of 

enforcement action at the intermediate checkpoint, but I 
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don't think that's what that means. I think it really 

means you want there to be intermediate checkpoints, and 

you want to monitor those intermediate checkpoints. And I 

fully agree with that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Laura. 

Jo Blondin.

MS. BLONDIN: Yes. I just wanted to 

say that as someone who has been around the table, 

considering institutions that are, you know, subject to a 

sanction or even, you know, other actions, I would just 

add to that the whole point of the accreditation process 

and deliberation is to make sure that these institutions 

are successful and succeed. So I don't want that to get 

lost in this conversation either that this is all about 

the bad actors. Of course, there are bad actors, but I 

also want to amplify the need to focus on quality 

assurance and that we're trying to help institutions 

improve as well. And I also want to amplify Laura's 

comment about monitoring rather than enforcement. Thank 

you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jo. Jamie?

MS. STUDLEY: Yeah. I want to for the 

moment, make a really specific point about the 

intermediate checkpoints in the monitoring. I think 

Herman's right that the focus belongs on monitoring and 
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creating an obligation that sounds like it has a new 

technical expectation of intermediate checkpoints that 

seem to be- supposed to be spread out over the time 

period that the institution is allowed. Creates an 

opportunity for an institution that is appropriately 

denied accreditation a technical basis for- it creates 

liability for the accreditor for not having done some 

mechanistic intermediate checkpoints mathematically, 

whatever this imposes, I can just see places that should 

rightfully be thrown out using it to say you didn't do it 

exactly right in whatever this is supposed to do, when we 

all know what monitoring is, and that is really the 

obligation. So I didn't realize it was Laura's provision, 

but I was just seeing that it has the risk of making 

accreditor decisions to close- we don't close 

institutions, to withdraw accreditation vulnerable in a 

way that is not in anybody's interest. If accreditors 

have done their job in monitoring and say that an 

institution now is determined not to meet standards and 

does not comply, we shouldn't burden- we shouldn't create 

new causes of action to say you didn't do it exactly the 

way that regulation describes. We've got a lot of 

responsibilities for due process that we follow 

exhaustively and with tremendous effort. And this would 

be in the opposite direction if it made those decisions 
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more vulnerable or harder to substantiate and put our 

effort in the wrong place when it should be on monitoring 

and determining compliance.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jamie. 

Herman, did you have something to say?

MR. BOUNDS: Yeah, I don't think 

we're- I don't think we're not opposed to that. So we'llwe can, you know, we can look at that hopefully and get 

back, you know, by the- you know, before we finish this. 

Yeah.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Alright. Thank 

you. Alright, it is almost 11:59. I'm going to just make 

a couple of quick announcements here and then take the 

adjournment for lunch. For our public viewers on the live 

stream link, please remember, there is a different link 

for this afternoon, so make sure you are utilizing the 

correct link to sit in and observe this afternoon's 

session. We will pick up with accreditation, wrap up this 

section, and continue to move forward on this topic 

throughout the rest of the afternoon, culminating in 

consensus at the end. Okay, we'll see you back here a 

little before 1:00, so we can get set up and get started 

on time.
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Zoom Chat Transcript

Program Integrity- Session 3 , Day 4, Morning, March 7, 2024 

*Chat was copied as presented, as a result minor typos or grammatical errors may be present.

From Krystil Smith | FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

Please don't forget your naming conventions!

From A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

Can we get a hard copy of this sent to our email addresses?

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "Can we get a hard co..." with ���

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Also can ED specify what exactly is different here from what was sent last night to 

negotiators? This is very confusing.

From A, Rob Anderson, State Officials to Everyone:

+1 to Jillian

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to Jillian" with ���

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

Reacted to "Also can ED specify ..." with ���

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

Reacted to "Can we get a hard co..." with ���

From P- John Ware, State Regulator to Everyone:

Rob Anderson is coming to the table to make some comments on State Auth

From Cindy Jeffries-FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

Working on getting a copy for everyone now. Jillian, we will address your question.

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:
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Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and 

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Reacted to "Also can ED specif..." with ���

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

doesn't fully outline the data that we will utilize in a practical sense, but does provide the 

two consecutive years stipulation

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

plus 1--what risks does the department and others think the threshold protects? what is 

the evidence that the number of students is related to such risk?

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

+1 to Jillian;'s question on risk and size

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

what factors specifically are of concern to states?

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

not certain it's clear what criteria was used to derive that number

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

define small?

From Barmak Nassirian to Everyone:

To Jillian: the risk analysis is an "if => then" evaluation: IF an institution with a larger 

enrollment engages in misconduct, THEN more student / federal money is at risk

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

but it would be important to hear what types of misconduct states are concerned about 

that aren't covered reciprocity

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

 we added closure requirements to the language

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Replying to "but it would be im..."

I recall that that was an early data request in January.
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From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "I recall that that w..." with ���

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

Reacted to "To Jillian: the risk..." with ���

From Barmak Nassirian to Everyone:

Post-facto triggers are not gatekeeping: they are lagging indicators. state auth is supposed 

to be an upfront protection against the kinds of outcomes we currently tolerate

From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "Post-facto triggers ..." with ���

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

Reacted to "Post-facto triggers ..." with ���

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

agreed, fully supportive of using a risk as a trigger. and also supportive of adding the 

closure language to protect students appropriately. the concern is with using volume of students 

as the risk trigger without good evidence that there is a relationship between the two

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

Reacted to "Post-facto trigger..." with ���

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

important, department has highlighted these closure requirements as essential to their risk 

calculus

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

And, conversely, that enrollment numbers by state could reflect need for the program or 

concerns. I understand that there are other factors that drive enrollment numbers, but enrollment 

seems arbitrary. Enrollment can be both lagging and leading indicator.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

can we highlight the other risks more specifically?

From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:
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Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and 

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Jessica Morales coming back to the table for students/borrowers.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "And, conversely, tha..." with ���

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

I know folks continue to reference ITT and Corinthian - would just remind everyone that 

neither were part of NC-SARA.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Reacted to "I know folks continu..." with ���

From Cindy Jeffries-FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

You should now have the language in your email boxes

From Brady Roberts | FMCS Facilitator to Everyone:

Hi all- here is the revised state auth language the Department presented this morning. It is 

also being sent to your email.

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

I understand the facilitators trying to rush us along; would just again highlight that 

introducing a new concept in the third session and then truncating substantive conversation on the 

proposals is really challenging, especially in advance of a consensus vote.

From P-Jessi Morales, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Thank you, Brady!

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid orgs. to Everyone:

Suggest adding something like the following to the end of the last subsection: Schools shall 

be subject to all applicable laws and regulations of such State. Reciprocity agreements cannot 

prohibit participating States from applying all applicable State laws to such institutions.

From P-Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

I remain concerned about the board composition restrictions as well, and about denying 

states the ability to decide what exemptions they want to apply under their own state law.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

I would just like to note that we are going to be asked vote on a significant issue with some 
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Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and 

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broad implications, that we have had minutes to review.

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

And have been told represents a compromise.

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

Reacted to "I remain concerned a..." with ���

From A, Michael Cioce, 2 Year Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "I understand the fac..." with ���

From Barmak Nassirian to Everyone:

I hope the Department realizes that the numerous concessions it has made to 

accommodate institutional objections make no difference for purposes of consensus. The proposed 

language has been significantly weakened for the sake of institutional convenience, and I would 

urge the Department to reconsider the several ways in which its attempt at compromise expose 

students and taxpayers to predictable future losses as reciprocity agreements become ready 

vehicles for circumventing state oversight. Also, +1 on Robyn and Carolyn's comments.

From A, Michael Cioce, 2 Year Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "I would just like to..." with ���

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

Reacted to "I would just like to..." with ���

From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Re: ITT & Corinthian— NCSARA began in 2013 and those schools closed in 2014 and 2015. A 

more recent example would be the Center for Excellence in Higher Education (CEHE), which 25 

state AGs wrote about to NC-SARA because SARA policies prevented other states from protecting 

their residents prior to its precipitous closure, even with extensive evidence of misconduct.

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

Well said, John.

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

Reacted to "Suggest adding somet..." with ���

From P - Erika Linden - Private Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:
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Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and 

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Scott would like to comment

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

My comments are the same as they have been, which is without data from the Department 

on the issue here and approach on solution it's really hard to support policy change without the 

evidence that was requested.

From P - JoEllen Price, Financial Aid Administrators to Everyone:

My concerns are the same as what Jo stated.

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

Reacted to "Re: ITT & Corinthian..." with ���

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

were there changes to .16?

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "My concerns are th..." with ���

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

Scott Dolan will be at the table for Private Nonprofits

From Barmak Nassirian to Everyone:

samples should be either rigorously representative or at least randomly selected with a size 

that allows for statistical inferences

From Barmak Nassirian to Everyone: 

Why is the notion that accreditors should occasionally make sure that the schools are not 

reporting false data so problematic?

From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "Why is the notion th..." with ���

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid orgs. to Everyone:

+1 to Carolyn’s support for this provision.

From P., Diana Hooley, State Attorneys General to Everyone:
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Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and 

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+1 to Carolyn's comments and support for this provision.

From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

+1 to Carolyn and +1 to Barmak.

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

Reacted to "Why is the notion th..." with ���

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

Reacted to "Why is the notion th..." with ���

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

+4 to Carolyn and Barmak

From P-Jessi Morales, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to Carolyn’s supp..." with ���

From Barmak Nassirian to Everyone:

"trust but verify" has apparently devolved to "trust and hope for the best"

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

Reacted to ""trust but verify" h..." with ���

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid orgs. to Everyone:

I support the addition of the word representative to be clear that the sample must be 

meaningful.

From P-Jessi Morales, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "I support the additi..." with ���

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

Reacted to "I support the additi..." with ���

From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "I support the additi..." with ���

From P - Carolyn Fast, Civil Rights/Consumer Advocates to Everyone:
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Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and 

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Agree with Robyn that "representative" should be included.

From P-Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

if we have to do reviews the reg should not try to tell us how to do it.

From P-Jamie Studley, Institutional Accreditors to Everyone:

except of ocurse ot the extent that rerecognition reviews how agencies carried out their 

responsibilities 

From Barmak Nassirian to Everyone:

The program is NONCOMPLIANT! How much more time does it deserve to get its act 

together?

From Joe Weglarz (P) NACUBO to Everyone:

Dom will be coming to the table

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

Reacted to "The program is NONCO..." with ���

From Donna Mangold - ED OGC to Everyone:

4 years is in the current regs at 602.20(a)(2). This language was put in during the 2019 

negotiation 

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

Replying to "The program is NONCO..." 

to Dom's point. think it's important to recognize the various ways that an institution may 

be noncompliant. We noted these previously. And some of them might take extended periods of 

time. 

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Replying to "4 years is in the cu..." 

never too late to fix bad policy language.

From Joe Weglarz (P) NACUBO to Everyone:

I agree with Barmak

From P-Robyn Smith, Legal Aid orgs. to Everyone:
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Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and 

Institutional Quality - 3/7/24

+2 to agreeing with Barmak.

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

I agree with Barmak as well. Prolonging the timing for noncompliance increases the harm 

to students.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

it's giving the accreditor an opportunity to make those determinations.

From A, Emmett Blaney, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

+4 with Barmak.

From A. Ashlynne Haycock-Lohmann (vets) to Everyone:

Reacted to "+4 with Barmak." with ���

From P - JoEllen Price, Financial Aid Administrators to Everyone:

Reacted to "+4 with Barmak." with ���

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

+5 to Barmak

From P., Diana Hooley, State Attorneys General to Everyone:

Reacted to "I agree with Barmak ..." with ���

From P, Jillian Klein, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

All due respect, Barmak - I don't disagree with the concern you are raising at all. I'm just 

saying the math doesn't work on an 8 year program if you give them 4 years to meet a student 

achievement standard. I'm not even opposed to capping enrollment at 4 years or whatever, just 

being realistic about the impact of interventions on any cohort of students in a program.

From Barmak Nassirian to Everyone:

Just watching institutions fail to hit the timelines without taking action is how we got to 

where we are

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

Reacted to "I support the additi..." with ���

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:
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Negotiated Rulemaking Program Integrity and 

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Laura's point is an incredibly important distinction, especially given the direction of changes 

on minimum expectations of student performance

From Barmak Nassirian to Everyone:

The whole point is to help institutions succeed, but at whose risk?

From A-David Cohen, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

+ to Jo's comments. Across the various accrediting standards, there are literally hundreds, if 

not thousands of thresholds and portals that an accredited institution has to meet in order to stay 

in compliance. The suggestion that these are always simple or easy fixes is not accurate. 

sometimes it is an easy fix, but some fixes require layers of regulatory approval to implement. 

Accrediting agencies need discretion to assure that students have access to good accredited 

schools.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

risk comes with both opportunities and threats. standard risk analysis

From P. Jo Blondin, Community Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "+ to Jo's comments..." with ����

From P-Jessi Morales, Students/Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "The whole point is t..." with ���

From Barmak Nassirian to Everyone:

in this case, all the opportunities are reserved for schools and the risks are entirely assigned 

to students and taxpayers

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

not if the institution comes back into compliance.

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

students win

From A-David Cohen, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Obviously we do not want students to be at risk, but closing schools that can be improved 

does a disservice to the public policy concern of assuring equity and access - particularly in regions 

that do not have many schools.
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From Barmak Nassirianto Everyone:

And when it fails, oh, well

From A, Scott Dolan, Private/Nonprofit IHEs to Everyone:

hardly my stance

From A-David Cohen, Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Most schools that have adverse actions typically have the capacity to improve. The 

suggestion that they all fail is not accurate.