UpdateED

On May 17, 2023, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) released to the public the text of proposed regulations to establish a new iteration of a Gainful Employment (GE) rule, which would terminate access to Federal financial aid for career training programs that leave graduates with unaffordable debt burdens or with earnings that are no higher than workers without any education beyond high school.

The proposed regulations will be published in the Federal Register on May 19, 2023. The public may submit comments on the proposed rule through the Regulations.gov website for 30 days. The Department expects to finalize the rules later this year. Under the master calendar requirements of the Higher Education Act, rules finalized by November 1, 2023, will go into effect on July 1, 2024.

The proposed GE rule applies to all Title IV eligible programs offered by proprietary (for-profit) institutions of higher education and less than 2 year (certificate) programs offered by public and private non-profit institutions. Institutions offering such programs should closely analyze the proposed rule and submit public comments within the 30 day open comment period. We will be publishing a more detailed analysis of key components of the rule in the near future.

The Department also included proposed changes to three other regulatory areas:

• Financial Responsibility, which includes proposals to make it easier for the Department to secure upfront financial protection when colleges start to exhibit signs of financial struggle, such as when an institution incurs significant debts or liabilities from a lawsuit or is at risk of losing access to Federal financial aid programs.
• Administrative Capability, which includes proposals to increase requirements for colleges to provide adequate career services and clearer financial aid information, and to limit the employment of individuals with a past history of risky behavior or misconduct related to the Federal financial aid programs.
• Certification Procedures, which includes proposals to make it easier for the Department to incorporate stronger safeguards into its written agreements with institutions for participating in Federal financial aid programs. These proposals also protect students by allowing the Department to require teach-out plans or agreements when a college is at risk of closure.

Finally, the regulations contain consensus language agreed to during negotiated rulemaking in Spring 2022 that will revise Ability to Benefit rules. These are provisions related to how students without a high school diploma may access Federal aid. In particular, the regulations would provide a more streamlined process for States to approve postsecondary opportunities for these students.

View an unofficial copy of proposed regulations here. A fact sheet on the GE and transparency parts of the rules can be found here and a fact sheet on the other provisions in the regulatory package are here. The Department is also releasing a version of the data that was used to model the effects of the proposed gainful employment and financial transparency rules in the Regulatory Impact Analysis, which can be found on this page.

Department of Education Releases Proposed Rules on Accountability for Certificate and For-Profit Programs and Transparency into Unaffordable Student Debt | U.S. Department of Education

On April 6, 2023, the U.S. Deptartment of Education released a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) on Title IX.  This NPRM focuses on the application of Title IX to gender in student sports.

The current Title IX rule (last amended in 2020 under the Trump Administration) does not expressly address the criteria a school should use to determine eligibility to participate on a male or female athletic team. This NPRM proposes to change that and “would establish that policies violate Title IX when they categorically ban transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.” However, in the NPRM, the Department states that it recognizes that in some instances, “particularly in competitive high school and college athletic environments, some schools may adopt policies that limit transgender students’ participation.” Through the proposed rule, the Department is attempting to provide schools with a “framework for developing eligibility criteria to protect students from being denied equal athletic opportunity, while giving schools the flexibility to develop their own participation policies.” 

Under the proposed framework, a one-size-fits-all policy banning transgender students from participating in athletics consistent with their gender identity is prohibited. The proposed regulation would be in the Title IX regulations at section 106.41(b)(2): 

“If a recipient adopts or applies sex-related criteria that would limit or deny a student’s eligibility to participate on a male or female team consistent with their gender identity, such criteria must, for each sport, level of competition, and grade or education level: (i) be substantially related to the achievement of an important educational objective, and (ii) minimize harms to students whose opportunity to participate on a male or female team consistent with their gender identity would be limited or denied.”

This NPRM will be open for public comment for 30 days from publication in the Federal Register and we expect comments to be strongly divided. Once the comment period closes, the Department will review the comments received and will either proceed with the rule as proposed, issue a new modified proposal or withdraw the proposal. 

Student Test Taker Privacy Protection Act (SB-1172), limits the collection of personal data by proctoring services. The pandemic created a surge of online-proctoring services which utilize various types of personal information, such as a driver’s license, other identification and/or biometric data, to verify a student’s identity during a proctored exam. SB-1172 seeks to establish data protections for the online test taker. The Act prohibits a proctoring service from collecting, retaining, using, or disclosing personal information except to the extent necessary to provide the proctoring services. 

Most higher education institutions use outside proctoring services (such as Proctorio, ProctorU, Exmanity and ExamSoft) to administer proctored online exams so the institutions would be directly responsible for regulating the information collected. However, higher education institutions should take steps to ensure that the proctoring services utilized adhere to the bill’s restrictions. Current proctoring service contracts should be analyzed and likely amended to at a minimum include that the service provider will not collect, retain, use or disclose student personal information except to the extent necessary to provide the proctoring services.