Notice2023-03261
Announcement of Listening Sessions
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
February 16, 2023
Issuing agencies
Education Department
Abstract
The U.S. Department of Education's (Department's) Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) announces virtual listening sessions to receive public comments, recommendations, and suggestions to improve guidance on the incentive compensation prohibition under title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA), particularly with respect to bundled services. This notice sets forth the dates and times, agenda, and instructions for attending and providing live comments at the virtual listening sessions, as well as instructions for submitting written comments.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 88 Issue 32 (Thursday, February 16, 2023)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 32 (Thursday, February 16, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 10101-10103]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2023-03261]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
[Docket ID ED-2023-OPE-0030]
Announcement of Listening Sessions
AGENCY: Office of Postsecondary Education, U.S. Department of
Education.
ACTION: Announcement of listening sessions.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Education's (Department's) Office of
Postsecondary Education (OPE) announces virtual listening sessions to
receive public comments, recommendations, and suggestions to improve
guidance on the incentive compensation prohibition under title IV of
the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA), particularly with
respect to bundled services. This notice sets forth the dates and
times, agenda, and instructions for attending and providing live
comments at the virtual listening sessions, as well as instructions for
submitting written comments.
DATES: The virtual listening sessions will be held on:
March 8, 2023, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Eastern time
March 9, 2023, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Eastern time
The Department will accept written comments via the Federal
eRulemaking portal until March 16, 2023. See the ADDRESSES section of
this document for submission information.
ADDRESSES: The listening sessions will be held virtually. See the
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for information on how to register to
attend or to provide live comments during a session. Written comments
must be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at
<a href="http://regulations.gov">regulations.gov</a>. If you require an accommodation or cannot otherwise
submit your comments via <a href="http://regulations.gov">regulations.gov</a>, however, please contact the
person listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT. The Department
will not accept comments submitted by fax or by email or comments
submitted after the comment period closes. To ensure that the
Department does not receive duplicate copies, please submit your
comments only once. Additionally, please include the Docket ID at the
top of your comments.
Federal eRulemaking Portal: Please go to <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">www.regulations.gov</a> to
submit your comments electronically. Information on using
<a href="http://regulations.gov">regulations.gov</a>, including instructions for accessing agency documents,
submitting comments, and viewing the docket, is available on the site
under ``FAQ.''
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Privacy Note: The Department's policy is to make all comments
received from members of the public available for public viewing on the
Federal eRulemaking Portal at <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">www.regulations.gov</a>. Therefore,
commenters should be careful to include in their comments only
information that they wish to make publicly available.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ashley Clark, U.S. Department of
Education. Telephone: (202) 453-7977. Email: <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#6b0a1803070e124508070a19002b0e0f450c041d"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="fb9a8893979e82d598979a8990bb9e9fd59c948d">[email protected]</span></a>.
If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability and
wish to access telecommunications relay services, please dial 7-1-1.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background: Since 1992, section 487(a)(20) of the HEA has
prohibited institutions of higher education (institutions) from
providing any commission, bonus, or other incentive payment to
individuals or entities based, directly or indirectly, on success in
securing enrollments or financial aid to any persons or entities
engaged in any student recruiting or admission activities or in making
decisions regarding the award of student financial assistance, subject
to certain exceptions. In 2011, the Department issued DCL GEN-11-05 to
provide guidance on the Department's interpretation of newly issued
regulations (75 FR 66831) relating to the prohibition on incentive
compensation and other title IV program integrity issues in Sec.
668.14(b).
As noted in that guidance, the prohibition on incentive
compensation applies to both individuals and entities. The Department's
guidance also sets forth examples of activities that the Department
believes would violate the prohibition and examples of allowed
activities. Under that guidance, direct payments to recruiters based on
tuition generation are considered prohibited incentive compensation.
However, in the case of a third-party entity that is not affiliated
with the institution it serves and is not affiliated with any other
institution that provides educational services, the guidance specifies
that providing a set of services that includes recruitment (known as
bundled services) does not violate the prohibition on incentive
compensation as long as the entity does not make prohibited
compensation payments to its employees, and the institution does not
pay the entity separately for student recruitment services.
Since issuing that guidance, the number of students who were
recruited to institutions by entities operating under this bundled
services exception has increased significantly, particularly through
online programs operated by third-party entities, including Online
Program Managers (OPMs). These online programs are not subject to the
same enrollment constraints, such as physical classroom space or the
amount of potential students in the surrounding area, as in-person
programs. As a result, the Department is seeking to better understand
the impact of the bundled services exception in the context of growing
online enrollment and associated Federal student loan debt.
The Department is currently reviewing the incentive compensation
guidance to determine what, if any, changes to the incentive
compensation guidance might be appropriate, particularly regarding the
exception for bundled services. To assist in that effort and ensure the
Department is hearing from a wide range of stakeholders, we are
convening virtual listening sessions and accepting written public
comment on this topic. Specifically, the Department invites comment
from institutions, faculty, OPMs and other third-party contractors,
scholars, advocates, and students on the following specific questions:
1. What are the benefits and disadvantages of the current incentive
compensation exception for bundled services for institutions and
students?
2. How can the Department better identify, define, and address the
activities that may raise concerns under the current incentive
compensation guidance?
3. How much of an institution's spending on a bundle of services
provided by a third-party entity is typically allocated to recruitment
and related expenses? This will help the Department understand the
proportion of the spending in the bundle that goes to recruitment
versus a range of services.
4. How has contracting with a third-party providing services under
the bundled services exception impacted enrollment, tuition and fees,
the types of programs offered, the modality through which programs are
provided, student outcomes, revenues, and expenditures at institutions?
How do these results compare to programs not supported by an OPM or
students attending in-person at a program that is also supported by an
OPM?
5. How would changing third-party servicer contracts from a
revenue-sharing model to a fee-for-service model impact the services,
such as recruitment, currently provided to an institution under the
bundled services exception?
6. How do tuition and fees of programs supported by third-party
services differ when provided under a revenue-sharing model as compared
to a fee-for-service model?
7. To what extent does the bundled services exception impact
institutions' ability to create or expand online education offerings?
To what extent would fee-for-service models impact institutions'
ability to create or expand online education offerings?
8. How might the Department more clearly define what it means to be
an unaffiliated third-party for purposes of the incentive compensation
guidance to ensure there is no affiliation between the institution and
the entity providing services?
9. What steps can the Department take to better ensure compliance
with the prohibition on incentive compensation?
Registration: Individuals who would like to present comments at the
virtual listening sessions must register by sending an email message to
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#94f9f5e6f3fbbae7f7fce6fbf1f0f1e6d4f1f0baf3fbe2"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="402d2132272f6e332328322f252425320025246e272f36">[email protected]</span></a> no later than 12:00 p.m., Eastern time, on the
business day prior to the listening session at which they want to
speak. The message should include the name of the speaker, the email
address of the speaker, and one or more dates and times during which
the individual would be available to speak. We will attempt to
accommodate each speaker's preference for date and time; however, if we
are unable to do so, we will make the determination on a first-come,
first-served basis, based on the time and date we received the message.
We will limit each participant's comments to 3 minutes.
The Department will notify speakers of their reserved time slot and
provide information on how to log in to the session as a speaker. An
individual may make only one presentation at the listening sessions. If
we receive more registrations than we can accommodate, the Department
reserves the right to reject the registration of an entity or
individual affiliated with an entity already scheduled to present
comments, to ensure that a broad range of entities and individuals are
able to present. Speakers will access the meetings through a link
separate from those who wish to listen to the sessions.
Individuals who want to observe the listening sessions, but who do
not want to present comments, also are required to register. We will
post registration links for attendees who wish to observe on our
website at: <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/policy.html">www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/policy.html</a>. There will
be a unique link each day for attendees who wish to observe. Non-
speaking
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attendees will be muted for the duration of each listening session.
Reasonable Accommodations: The sessions will be accessible to
individuals with disabilities. If you will need an auxiliary aid or
service to attend or to provide a live comment, please notify the
person listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT at least 1 week
before the scheduled meeting date. Although we will attempt to meet a
request received after that date, we may not be able to make available
the requested auxiliary aid or service because of insufficient time to
arrange it. Further information about requesting auxiliary aids and
services will be available during the session registration process. To
provide written comments, see the ADDRESSES section above.
Accessible Format: On request to the program contact person listed
under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT, individuals with disabilities
can obtain this document in an accessible format. The Department will
provide the requestor with an accessible format that may include Rich
Text Format (RTF) or text format (txt), a thumb drive, an MP3 file,
braille, large print, audiotape, or compact disc, or other accessible
format.
Electronic Access to This Document: The official version of this
document is the document published in the Federal Register. You may
access the official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of
Federal Regulations at <a href="http://www.govinfo.gov">www.govinfo.gov</a>. At this site you can view this
document, as well as all other documents of this Department published
in the Federal Register, in text or Adobe Portable Document Format
(PDF). To use PDF, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is
available free at the site.
You also may access documents of the Department published in the
Federal Register by using the article search feature at
<a href="http://www.federalregister.gov">www.federalregister.gov</a>. Specifically, through the advanced search
feature at this site, you can limit your search to documents published
by the Department.
Nasser Paydar,
Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education.
[FR Doc. 2023-03261 Filed 2-15-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P
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