Updates on Regulations and Regulatory Process

  

The Regulatory Process

 

The Department of Education has created a page that post the latest information and updates on HEOA, including transcripts of negotiated rulemaking sessions and other important information. Click here for more.

In addition, the Department has posted links to its final HEOA regulations dealing with accreditation, loans, and general & non-loan programmatic issues.

Click here for updates.


The regulatory process will not be quick. Many of the changes to IPEDs must go through technical review panels. Most of the Title IV provisions - from student aid to disclosures to accreditation - will go through a nearly year-long negotiated rulemaking process in which the higher education community helps the Department of Education write the regulations.

Some of these regulations are further subject to the Master Calendar requirements that regulations must be published by November 1, if they are to be effective at the start of the academic year beginning the following July 1. While these processes are essential procedural tools to ensure that regulations are well thought out, they can leave colleges in a compliance limbo for nearly two years.

A further complication is that the reauthorization really passed in three legislative steps - a February 2006 bill1, a September 2007 bill 2, and the final Higher Education Opportunity Act3 approved in 2008. So, some of the regulations on the previously enacted bills have already been issued, while others won't be in place until November 2009 or later.

The prelude to negotiated rulemaking -- regional hearings -- have already taken place during Fall 2008.  Check back to this section of the Web site regularly if you are interested in highlights as the process evolves.

Updates

Articles from NAICU Washington Update
"Neg Reg" Teams Finish Round One (3/9/09)
. . . And you thought reauthorization was over . . . (3/2/09)
 

A lot of proposed and final regulatory notices have been published recently. Some are from the Department of Education and some from other agencies.

On July 23, the Department of Education published a Notice of Proposed Rule-making (NPRM) on the HEOA loan provisions negotiated by Team I this spring. (Federal Register. Vol. 74, No. 140.) Team I reached consensus on the loan provisions affecting lenders and guarantors it considered during negotiations. These provisions constitute the bulk of the NPRM. NAICU did not have a representative on the Team I and therefore was not a party to the consensus agreement and not prohibited from commenting negatively. Comments are due by August 24.

On July 28, the Department of Education published an NPRM on loan provisions from the school perspective. (Federal Register Vol. 74. No. 143, pp. 37432-37494). This is a very important NPRM because it spells out the sunshine provisions and disclosure requirements. Although there were representatives from four year private institutions on Team II that negotiated and came to consensus on the draft regulations, NAICU had no official representation and therefore neither it, nor its members are prohibited from commenting negatively on the NPRM. Comments are due by August 27, 2009.

Also, late in July, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System released a final rule amending Regulation Z, which implements the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) following enactment of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) on August 14, 2008. The rule revises the disclosure requirement for private education loans which include certain institutional loans. Based on recommendations of Team I and II negotiators and others, some improvements in the draft regulations were made. Interest-free tuition billing plans of less than a year and emergency loans with terms of 90 days or less are excluded from the disclosures in TILA. Certain loans to students who have completed graduate or professional schools would not be excluded. Loan co-branding restrictions will not be applicable to institutional loans or loans of preferred providers.

The Federal Trade Commission announced on July 29, that it was once again delaying -until November 1, 2009 - the enforcement of the Red Flags rule that requires institutions to take certain precautionary steps to prevent identity theft from their communications and data systems. This delay does not affect other federal agencies’ enforcement of the original November 1, 2008, compliance deadline for institutions subject to their oversight.

On August 6, the Department of Education published proposed regulations dealing with accreditation. These proposals were negotiated by Team III, which reached consensus on them. NAICU was represented on the accreditation team and, therefore, may not comment negatively on the proposals. The public comment period closes on September 8.

Two more NPRMs will be published in the upcoming weeks. One on the TRIO and GEAR-UP programs (Team IV) and one a basket of student aid and institutional compliance directives (Team V). Neither of these teams achieved consensus, so the department was able to write the rules as they wished. The NPRM on the wide-ranging set of issues should be reviewed carefully when it is published because it contains many aid and compliance issues of concern to private colleges.

Notice of Establishment of Negotiated Rulemaking Committees

The Department of Education announced its intent to establish five committees to negotiate regulations for Title IV of the "Higher Education Opportunity Act."  Two if the committees will deal with student loans, with one committee for lender and guarantor issues, and one for college campus issues. A third committee will handle accreditation. The fourth will consider discretionary grants - TRIO, GEAR-UP, and the fifth is a combination of integrity, consumer information and student aid issues. Recommendations for negotiators must be received by January 23, 2009. The committees will meet in Washington, DC, starting in February. Final information will be provided in a subsequent Federal Register publication.

The Higher Education Opportunity Act Dear Colleague Letter  

On December 31, 2008, the Department of Education finally published the long anticipated "Dear Colleague Letter" on the "Higher Education Opportunity Act" that became law on August 14, 2008. The 220 page document is, essentially, a summary of the law. 

Updated Listing of TEACH Grant Eligible Institutions  

2009-2010 FAFSA  

This provides a printable copy of the FAFSA for the upcoming 2009-2010 academic year. It contains changes made by the "Higher Education Opportunity Act" that that are applicable for that year.