Notice2024-13446
Request for Information on Identifying and Tracking Data Related to Early Childhood Education Providers
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
June 20, 2024
Issuing agencies
Education Department
Abstract
This notice is a request for information in the form of written comments that include information, research, and suggestions regarding operational aspects of the possible inclusion of for-profit early childhood education providers as eligible employers for the purpose of Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 89 Issue 119 (Thursday, June 20, 2024)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 119 (Thursday, June 20, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51878-51880]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2024-13446]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
[Docket ID ED-2024-OPE-0072]
Request for Information on Identifying and Tracking Data Related
to Early Childhood Education Providers
AGENCY: Office of Postsecondary Education, Department of Education.
ACTION: Request for information.
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SUMMARY: This notice is a request for information in the form of
written comments that include information, research, and suggestions
regarding operational aspects of the possible inclusion of for-profit
early childhood education providers as eligible employers for the
purpose of Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
DATES: We must receive your comments by July 22, 2024.
ADDRESSES: Comments must be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking
Portal at <a href="http://regulations.gov">regulations.gov</a>. However, if you require an accommodation or
cannot otherwise submit your comments via <a href="http://regulations.gov">regulations.gov</a>, please
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contact the program contact person listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
CONTACT. The Department will not accept comments by email or by fax. 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: Go to <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">www.regulations.gov</a> to submit
your comments electronically. Information on using Regulations.gov,
including instructions for accessing agency documents, submitting
comments, and viewing the docket, is available on the site under the
``FAQ'' tab.
Privacy Note: The Department's policy for comments received from
members of the public is to make these submissions available for public
viewing in their entirety 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. We encourage, but do not require, that each respondent
include their name, title, institution or affiliation, and the name,
title, mailing and email addresses, and telephone number of a contact
person for the institution or affiliation, if any.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Greg Marak. Telephone: (202) 401-6250.
You may also email your questions to <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#583f2a3d3f7635392a3933183d3c763f372e"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="01667364662f6c6073606a4164652f666e77">[email protected]</span></a>, but as
described above, comments must be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking
Portal at <a href="http://regulations.gov">regulations.gov</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:
Congress created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program
in 2007 as part of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, Public
Law 110-84, to encourage individuals to enter into and remain employed
in public service professions. The program alleviates financial burdens
associated with Federal Direct Loans for borrowers working for certain
public service providers by forgiving all remaining loan balances
following 10 years of public service while the borrower makes
qualifying student loan payments. Since its creation in 2007, PSLF has
been available to borrowers working for government at all levels, non-
profit organizations that are tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the
Internal Revenue Code, and other non-profits that provide at least one
of the specific services listed in the statute. This includes early
care educators who work in the public sector or for non-profit
organizations.
A significant share of early care educators, however, are not
considered public sector or non-profit employees and current
regulations do not provide a pathway for their eligibility for PSLF.
Data from the National Survey of Early Care and Education, conducted by
the Department of Health and Human Service's Office of Planning,
Research, and Evaluation, estimates that extending PSLF eligibility to
early childhood education (ECE) workers regardless of the tax status of
their employer would allow more than 450,000 additional ECE workers to
earn credit toward PSLF--about 68,000 who work in home-based settings
and 390,000 who work in center-based settings--if they have student
loans.\1\ This reflects roughly one-third of the overall ECE workforce.
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\1\ These estimates are from the Administration for Children and
Families' National Survey of Early Care and Education, both the 2019
Home-Based NSECE chartbook and the 2019 Center-Based NSECE
chartbook. These data show that approximately three-fourths of home-
based providers had at least some college, and 72 percent of for-
profit ECE workers had some college or higher.
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On July 13, 2022, the Department published a notice of proposed
rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register (87 FR 41878).\2\ In the
NPRM, the Department proposed improvements to PSLF that reduce
regulatory and administrative barriers that have historically made it
more difficult for borrowers to make progress toward forgiveness under
PSLF. This included simplifying criteria to help borrowers certify
employment, helping borrowers earn progress toward PSLF for months that
did not count before, and providing borrowers with more opportunities
to correct problems with PSLF.
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\2\ <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/07/13/2022-14631/student-assistance-general-provisions-federal-perkins-loan-program-federal-family-education-loan">https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/07/13/2022-14631/student-assistance-general-provisions-federal-perkins-loan-program-federal-family-education-loan</a>.
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Additionally, in the NPRM, the Department asked directed questions
about the possibility of allowing ECE providers who are private for-
profit businesses to be considered eligible employers for the purposes
of PSLF. In response, the Department received many detailed comments
about early childhood education as well as a range of comments in
support of making other for-profit employers eligible to serve as
qualifying employers for PSLF for individuals in certain occupations.
On November 1, 2022, the Secretary published final regulations \3\
in the Federal Register. Those final regulations did not include
regulations regarding whether, and under what circumstances, private
for-profit ECE providers employing borrowers working as early childhood
educators, should be treated as qualifying employers for PSLF.\4\
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\3\ <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/11/01/2022-23447/institutional-eligibility-under-the-higher-education-act-of-1965-as-amended-student-assistance">https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/11/01/2022-23447/institutional-eligibility-under-the-higher-education-act-of-1965-as-amended-student-assistance</a>.
\4\ Section 103(8) of the Higher Education Act contains a
definition of ''early childhood education program'' that includes
public preschool, Head Start, and State licensed and regulated child
care programs. It does not speak to the tax-status of providers.
Unlike the public Kindergarten through 12th grade system, which
provides free access to education for all age-eligible children and
youth, there is no parallel system for our country's youngest
children. As a result, ECE is delivered through a system of mixed
delivery that includes public programs, non-profit settings, and
for-profit settings. <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ecd/policy-guidance/dear-colleague-letter-mixed-delivery">https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ecd/policy-guidance/dear-colleague-letter-mixed-delivery</a>. The vast majority of ECE
settings are home-based, and do not carry non-profit tax
designations. Compensation across settings is low generally,
regardless of the tax-status of the ECE provider. <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_va.htm">https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_va.htm</a>.
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Solicitation of Comments:
Early care educators are among the lowest-paid workers in the
country; and the Administration has committed through Executive Order
14095, to better supporting the care workforce.\5\ The E.O. states that
investments in the care workforce are foundational to helping to retain
care workers and improving health and educational outcomes for those in
their care. The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to
gather information about ECE providers. This RFI and the comments
received in response to this RFI will not be considered as part the
Affordability and Student Loans proposed rule (87 FR 41878) and any
subsequent related final rules. The comments received in response to
this RFI will not be used as part of the rulemaking related to the
treatment of for-profit employers, including ECE providers, and
eligibility for PSLF. Instead, the feedback from this RFI will help
inform the Department's understanding of different approaches that
might be considered when implementing non-rulemaking solutions related
to this issue.
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\5\ Federal Register: Increasing Access to High-Quality Care and
Supporting Caregivers.
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Given the operational and implementation hurdles associated with
PSLF, the Department is interested in understanding whether there are
ways that eligibility could be streamlined if all ECEs became eligible.
The Department is soliciting information and data from the public on
how the Department could determine employer eligibility and related
considerations if for-profit ECE employers were to be considered
eligible employers if they provided one of the services listed in the
statute. The Department encourages
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comments from researchers, academics, policy experts, and other
individuals familiar with ECE employer data; organizations that work
directly with ECE workers; State and Tribal government officials who
oversee and administer ECE programs; ECE practitioners; and other
members of the public. The Department will review all comments
received, but does not intend to respond to comments.
The Department seeks feedback on the following questions:
(1) The Department has always relied upon employer identification
numbers (EINs) to identify whether an employer is a non-profit under
IRC 501(c)(3). This approach has allowed the Department to create a
comprehensive list of eligible employers and use a consistent
identifier system. However, some for-profit businesses may be sole
proprietors or other providers that do not have an EIN. Are there other
uniform sources that the Department might consider using for
determinations of qualifying employers?
(2) If there are not other uniform sources, how should the
Department address eligibility determinations of a for-profit ECE
employer?
(3) If in consultation with the Department, the U.S. Department of
Health & Human Services (HHS), issued a voluntary Public Records Act
request from the States to create a nationwide registry of EINs of ECE
providers, are State and Tribal agencies that oversee and administer
ECE programs in a position to collect this information? Do commenters
believe that all States would provide this information? Are there any
additional considerations the Department should be aware of should HHS
issue this request?
(4) What feedback can be provided concerning the time it would take
a State or Tribe to undertake the collection of EINs for licensed and
regulated providers, including the process, privacy, administrative, or
other considerations that the Department should take into account?
(5) Should the Department consider a process that relies on unique
identifiers associated with licensure as opposed to EINs to identify
eligible employers?
This is a request for information only. This RFI is not a request
for proposals and does not commit the Department to take any future
administrative, contractual, regulatory, or other action. The
Department will not pay for any information or costs that you may incur
in responding to this RFI. Any documents and information submitted in
response to this RFI become the property of the U.S. Government and
will not be returned.
Accessible Format: By 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 Portable Document Format (PDF). To
use PDF you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free at
the site.
You may also 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, Office of Postsecondary Education.
[FR Doc. 2024-13446 Filed 6-18-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P
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