Dear Colleagues:

In observance of Memorial Day, Washington Update is publishing a day early this week. It is hard to believe the unofficial start of summer is upon us. By now, most of you will have completed your traditional commencement ceremonies. I hope the joy of seeing students complete their academic programs reminds you of why all your hard work matters and inspires you for our continued advocacy efforts.

At NAICU, the Education Department’s new regulations on higher education financial value and transparency are dominating our work. You will see a top-level summary of what is being proposed in the lead story below. The proposal is extraordinarily complex and will, at a minimum, deeply affect workloads on campus. At its broadest scope it seeks to make families, students and the public more aware of the average debt and earnings levels for every program at every institution in the nation, moving the policy needle one step closer to equating value in higher education with earnings. Programs that do not meet a federally prescribed debt-to-earnings ratio or earnings premium metric will be labelled as “failing”.

The regulations also affect many other areas such as campus career services, the federal financial responsibility system, obligations to follow various state consumer protection laws, and state and professional licensing requirements for out-of-state students. 

Last week, we joined the higher education community on a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to extend the shortened 30-day comment period to 60-days so we can better gather and represent your concerns. While we do not know if this request will be granted, we do encourage you to review the proposed regulations and comment directly to the Department on their proposal by the June 20 deadline. The number of comments the Department receives does affect policy decisions and processes. 

This week I met with Mason Dyer and the members of the Association of Independent Kentucky Colleges and Universities hosted by John Marsden, president of Midway University. Among the topics we discussed was this new package of regulations. I heard many thoughtful comments which I brought back to the NAICU team. We would also like to hear your thoughts about this proposal. You can write to NAICU at regulations@naicu.edu.

Early next month, NAICU will host a member only webinar with Deputy Under Secretary Ben Miller and Deputy Under Secretary and Chief Economist Jordan Matsudaira on the Department’s regulatory proposal on Wednesday, June 7, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. EDT. You can register here.

Like many of you, we continue to monitor the debt ceiling negotiations between the President and Congress in hopes a deal will be reached that both prevents a government default and protects the student aid funding for our nation’s most vulnerable students. We will report on the implications for these programs if any deal is reached. 

On a more positive note, due to the great partnership with our state independent college association members, I was able to provide Secretary Cardona with excellent examples of how independent colleges and universities in 15 states are doing the hard work of ensuring students can successfully transfer among institutions and still complete their degrees. The Secretary is particularly interested in this topic and asked the presidents of the six major presidential associations to bring examples from our sectors to a recent meeting. I will admit my bias, but I thought the information our state associations provided to us of your work was the best among the sectors represented and it made me so proud of our work together. 

Soundbites

• The Education Department’s Office of Federal Student Aid is offering a series of 11 webinars during June and July to help institutions prepare for the changes to the federal student aid system because of the new FAFSA and need analysis system. Institutions can sign up for the webinars via the FSA website. 
• Applications for the Transitioning Gang-Involved Youth to Higher Education Program are now being accepted by the Education Department. The program supports partnerships between community-based organizations and higher education institutions to help gang-involved youth pursue higher education opportunities that lead to certification or credentials. Eligible applicants are public or private nonprofit institutions, and public and private nonprofit organizations and agencies that partner with higher education institutions. Applications are due on July 17.

In addition to the article on the new regulation package, today’s Washington Update includes information on this week’s House oversight hearing on the Education Department and House passed legislation to prohibit the Biden Administration’s student loan forgiveness plans.

I wish you well this weekend as we honor the brave members of our armed services who gave their lives in service to our nation.