Notice Inviting Postsecondary Educational Institutions To Participate in Experiments Under the Experimental Sites Initiative; Federal Student Financial Assistance Programs Under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as Amended, 54052-54056 [2016-19297]
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Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C.
3506(c)(2)(A)), provides the general
public and Federal agencies with an
opportunity to comment on proposed,
revised, and continuing collections of
information. This helps the Department
assess the impact of its information
collection requirements and minimize
the public’s reporting burden. It also
helps the public understand the
Department’s information collection
requirements and provide the requested
data in the desired format. ED is
soliciting comments on the proposed
information collection request (ICR) that
is described below. The Department of
Education is especially interested in
public comment addressing the
following issues: (1) Is this collection
necessary to the proper functions of the
Department; (2) will this information be
processed and used in a timely manner;
(3) is the estimate of burden accurate;
(4) how might the Department enhance
the quality, utility, and clarity of the
information to be collected; and (5) how
might the Department minimize the
burden of this collection on the
respondents, including through the use
of information technology. Please note
that written comments received in
response to this notice will be
considered public records.
Title of Collection: Race to the Top—
Early Learning Challenge Annual
Performance Report.
OMB Control Number: 1810–0713.
Type of Review: An extension of an
existing information collection.
Respondents/Affected Public: State,
Local, and Tribal Governments.
Total Estimated Number of Annual
Responses: 11.
Total Estimated Number of Annual
Burden Hours: 1,320.
Abstract: The Department of
Education and the Department of Health
and Human Services (Departments) are
requesting renewal of the currently
approved Annual Performance Report
for RTT–ELC grantees, without making
any material change to the collection
instrument, instructions, frequency of
collection or use. The information
submitted in the Annual Performance
Report is used to verify that grantees are
making substantial progress toward the
achievement of approved objectives.
This grant awarded all funds up front,
so the APR will not be used to
determine continuation awards, but will
be used to provide necessary
performance information and data to
program staff and to the public. Further,
this APR form collects aggregate and
quantifiable data needed to respond to
the requirements of the Government
Performance and Results Act (GPRA).
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Information is collected under the
authority of Sections 14005 and 14006,
Division A, of the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act of 2009, as
amended by section 1832(b) of Division
B of Public Law 112–10, the Department
of Defense and Full-Year Continuing
Appropriations Act, 2011, and the
Department of Education
Appropriations Act, 2012 (Title III of
Division F of Public Law 112–74, the
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012).
Dated: August 9, 2016.
Tomakie Washington,
Acting Director, Information Collection
Clearance Division, Office of the Chief Privacy
Officer, Office of Management.
[FR Doc. 2016–19260 Filed 8–12–16; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000–01–P
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Notice Inviting Postsecondary
Educational Institutions To Participate
in Experiments Under the Experimental
Sites Initiative; Federal Student
Financial Assistance Programs Under
Title IV of the Higher Education Act of
1965, as Amended
Office of Postsecondary
Education, Department of Education.
ACTION: Notice.
AGENCY:
The Secretary invites
institutions of higher education
(institutions) that participate in the
Federal student financial assistance
programs authorized under title IV of
the Higher Education Act of 1965, as
amended (HEA), to apply to participate
in a new institutional experiment under
the Experimental Sites Initiative (ESI).
Under the ESI, the Secretary has
authority to grant waivers of certain title
IV, HEA statutory or regulatory
requirements to allow a limited number
of institutions to participate in
experiments to test alternative methods
of administering the title IV, HEA
programs. The alternative methods of
title IV, HEA administration that the
Secretary is permitting under this ESI
experiment are designed to facilitate
efforts by institutions to evaluate certain
innovative loan counseling practices
that can prepare students to manage
their college finances, inform them
about their student loan repayment
options, and ensure students are wellprepared to repay their loans on time.
Under this experiment, participating
institutions will have the flexibility to
require additional loan counseling for
student borrowers beyond the
statutorily required one-time entrance
and one-time exit counseling as a
condition for the students to receive
SUMMARY:
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Direct Loan funds, and to customize
counseling based on students’ needs.
DATES: Letters of Interest to participate
in the experiment described in this
notice must be received by the
Department no later than September 29,
2016 to ensure that the Department
considers the institution for
participation in the experiment. Letters
received after September 29, 2016 may,
at the discretion of the Secretary, be
considered for participation.
ADDRESSES: Letters of Interest must be
submitted by electronic mail to the
following email address:
experimentalsites@ed.gov. For format
and other required information, see
‘‘Instructions for Submitting Letters of
Interest’’ under SUPPLEMENTARY
INFORMATION.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Warren Farr, U.S. Department of
Education, Federal Student Aid, 830
First Street NE., Washington, DC 20002.
Telephone: (202) 377–4380 or by email
at: Warren.Farr@ed.gov.
If you use a telecommunications
device for the deaf (TDD) or a text
telephone (TTY), call the Federal Relay
Service (FRS), toll free, at 1–800–877–
8339.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Instructions for Submitting Letters of
Interest: Letters of Interest should be in
an Adobe Portable Document Format
(PDF) attachment to an email message
sent to the email address provided in
the ADDRESSES section of this notice.
The subject line of the email should
read ‘‘ESI 2016—Additional Loan
Counseling.’’ The text of the email
should include the name and address of
the institution. The Letter of Interest
should be on institutional letterhead
and be signed by the institution’s
financial aid administrator. The Letter
of Interest must include the institution’s
official name and its Office of
Postsecondary Education Identification
(OPEID) number, and the name of a
contact person at the institution, along
with a mailing address, email address,
FAX number, and telephone number of
a person at the institution. The letter
should also include the information
described in the ‘‘Application and
Selection’’ section in this notice. Upon
receipt of a Letter of Interest, the
Department will notify the institution
by email that its Letter of Interest was
received. This notification should be
kept in the institution’s records.
Background
Accurate and timely loan information
is crucial for students to make informed
decisions about borrowing and to
understand their repayment obligations
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and options. However, there is limited
research on the effectiveness of loan
counseling, including which types of
content and modes of delivery of loan
counseling are most effective in helping
students to understand and manage
their debt, as well as when and how
often counseling should occur to be
most effective.
Since the start of his Administration,
President Obama has outlined an
ambitious agenda to make college more
affordable for American families and
promote student success. In his June 9,
2014, Presidential Memorandum for the
Secretary of Treasury and the Secretary
of Education, the President directed the
agencies to focus their efforts on
providing initiatives that help Federal
student loan borrowers manage their
debt.
In support of the President’s agenda,
the Secretary, under the Experimental
Sites authority in section 487A(b) of the
HEA, is offering institutions the
opportunity to participate in the
experiment described in this notice. The
experiment will provide institutions the
flexibility to require, as a condition for
a student to receive Direct Loan funds,
loan counseling that is in addition to the
entrance and exit counseling currently
required under statute.
Section 485(l)(1)(A) of the HEA
requires that each institution ensure that
first-time borrowers receive
comprehensive information on the
terms and conditions of the loan and of
the responsibilities the borrower has
with respect to the loan. This
information must be provided in a
simple and understandable format.
The Department’s regulations at 34
CFR 685.304(a) require institutions to
ensure that entrance counseling is
conducted with each Direct Subsidized
Loan or Direct Unsubsidized Loan
student borrower prior to making the
first disbursement of the proceeds of a
loan to the borrower, unless the
borrower has previously completed
entrance counseling at that institution
or at another institution, regardless of
when that counseling occurred. These
regulations do not allow institutions to
require counseling as a condition of
disbursement beyond the required firsttime entrance counseling and required
exit counseling, though the institution
may offer such counseling to students
on a voluntary basis.
The purpose of this experiment is to
test the effectiveness of requiring
additional loan counseling beyond the
counseling that is statutorily required.
The additional loan counseling is
expected to help borrowers better
understand their repayment options and
obligations and make more informed
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decisions about their debt. The
experiment may also identify the types
of borrowers who have benefitted most
from additional loan counseling. The
Department hopes to learn if the
additional loan counseling:
• Positively influences students’
decision-making about borrowing;
• Promotes successful repayment of
student loans, including reducing
delinquencies and defaults; and
• Has an impact on students’
academic performance (e.g., grades and
time-to-completion).
We also seek to learn whether
different types of content and modes of
delivery of loan counseling are more or
less effective in promoting the above
outcomes. This experiment can inform
any future policy changes around loan
counseling and efforts to inform
borrowers about repayment plans and
progress.
Details of this experiment are
provided in the section titled ‘‘The
Experiment’’ below.
The Experiment
Description
Under the experiment, an institution
will require all of its eligible Direct Loan
borrowers who have previously
completed first-time entrance
counseling to participate in the
experiment (or for some large
institutions, a subset of those
borrowers), with approximately half of
those borrowers randomly assigned by
the Department to complete additional
required counseling beyond the
entrance counseling normally provided
to first-time borrowers as a condition of
receiving their Direct Loan funds.
Institutions with particularly large
numbers of borrowers who would be
eligible for the experiment may request
to include in the experiment a subset of
those borrowers each year. The size of
the subset will be determined by the
Department in consultation with the
institution and will take into
consideration the overall number of
students needed to estimate impacts for
groups of institutions using similar
counseling models. Once the size of the
subset is determined, students will be
randomly selected by the Department
from the larger group of borrowers to be
included in the subset and to participate
in the experiment, either in the
treatment group or in the control group.
The Department will assign all
borrowers who have been determined to
be participants in the experiment to
either the treatment group or to the
control group. Borrowers assigned to the
treatment group will be required to
participate in additional loan
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counseling beyond the entrance
counseling they completed as first-time
borrowers, as a condition of receiving a
Direct Loan. Borrowers assigned to the
control group cannot be required to
complete, but may do so voluntarily,
any additional loan counseling beyond
the already-completed entrance
counseling and the statutorily required
exit counseling.
Under the experiment, institutions
cannot require additional counseling
more than once for each of the student’s
Direct Loan loan periods (generally once
for each academic year). Therefore,
students who are already required to
participate in entrance counseling in
any year (i.e., a first-time borrower at
any institution) will not be included in
the experiment for that year. Only
students who completed their loan
counseling during a prior year (whether
for enrollment at the participating
institution or at a different institution)
will be included in the experiment for
subsequent years.
If an institution participating in the
experiment currently offers voluntary
additional loan counseling to students,
it may continue to do so during its
participation in the experiment. If an
institution does not provide voluntary
additional loan counseling, it may not
begin to do so during its participation in
the experiment. To the extent possible,
the Department will require institutions
to provide information regarding the
students in the control group who
utilize the institution’s voluntary
additional loan counseling.
Institutional Flexibilities
An institution participating in the
experiment will have flexibility in the
content and modes of delivery of its
additional loan counseling (e.g., online,
individual in-person, group in-person,
student-to-student). The institution will
be allowed to choose the counseling
approach it will use for the required
additional counseling by choosing one
of the following: The Department’s
Financial Awareness Counseling Tool
(FACT); a third-party counseling
product or third-party servicer; or
institutionally developed alternative
counseling.
The additional required counseling
provided to borrowers by participating
institutions may vary based on the
students’ expected remaining time to
complete their program. That
counseling may also vary for different
groups of students depending on their
prior borrowing.
The institution may include, as part of
its additional counseling, a test or other
evaluation to assess the student’s
knowledge of the information presented
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as long as the test or evaluation is
presented in a format accessible to
students with disabilities, including
students with visual or hearing
impairments, and is in a language
understandable by students with limited
English proficiency. This may require
the use of interpreters for oral or written
communications with such students, as
well as translations of written materials
provided to such students. However,
any such evaluation may not impede a
student’s ability to borrow, for example,
by establishing a passing score for the
test or evaluation before the student can
receive Direct Loan funds.
Institutional Requirements
Institutions participating in this
experiment will be required to:
• Work with the Department to
establish the number of its Direct Loan
borrowers who will be included as
participants in the experiment.
• Track and provide data to the
Department for its borrowers who were
assigned by the Department to the
treatment group and its borrowers who
were assigned to the control group.
• Ensure that the additional
counseling required of the borrowers in
the treatment group is reasonable as to
time and effort, and is relevant to the
student’s borrowing decisions; and that
the additional counseling is not biased
or restricted based on students’ religion,
national origin, race, color, sex,
socioeconomic status (including
income), disability, place of residence,
physical location where the student will
be enrolled, or educational program.
• Ensure that the additional loan
counseling does not discourage students
from taking on debt needed to
successfully complete their studies,
while not over-borrowing taking into
account anticipated earnings.
• Make loan counseling reasonable
and not so burdensome that it becomes
a barrier to receiving Direct Loan funds.
• Ensure that for each particular year,
Direct Loan borrowers already required
to receive loan entrance counseling at
that institution (i.e., first-time
borrowers) are not subject to required
additional counseling for that year.
These students would be eligible to
participate in this experiment in
subsequent years.
• Disclose to all borrowers included
in the experiment (both those in the
treatment group and those in the control
group) that the institution is
participating in an experiment related to
loan counseling and that some of the
students in the experiment may be
required to participate in additional
loan counseling as a condition of
receiving Direct Loan funds.
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• Inform students who have been
selected to receive additional
counseling that their Direct Loan
disbursements are conditional upon
completion of that counseling.
• Ensure that the institution’s policy
for providing counseling under the
experiment remains consistent
throughout the institution’s
participation in the experiment. A
participating institution is also expected
to ensure that its delivery of counseling
does not change significantly during the
institution’s participation in the
experiment.
The Department will perform ongoing
monitoring during the experiment to
ensure that participating institutions
meet these requirements throughout
their participation in the experiment.
All counseling provided to borrowers
must deliver information that, at a
minimum, includes the total amount of
the borrowers’ student loan
indebtedness. The institution may
customize the counseling based on the
borrower’s needs. However, the
Department encourages participating
institutions to include in its additional
counseling the following information,
where relevant, to assist students in
making more informed borrowing
decisions:
• Comprehensive information on the
terms and conditions of Federal student
loans, including information about
annual and aggregate limits, interest
rates, how interest accrues, loan fees for
Federal student loans, and the
responsibilities the borrower has with
respect to such loans.
• A reminder that students will be
required to repay their loans even if
they do not complete the academic
program.
• Information that indicates that
completing an academic program will
increase the students’ ability to
successfully repay their loans.
• Information about the requirement
to complete additional counseling and
to complete exit counseling upon
leaving the institution.
• A statement that, when determining
whether and how much to borrow,
students should consider how much
they can reasonably expect to earn after
leaving their academic program of
study. As part of this statement, the
institution may provide other relevant
information, such as earnings data,
Gainful Employment disclosures
required under 34 CFR 668.412(a), and
cohort default rate, if available and/or
applicable.
• Comprehensive information about
the different terms and features of Direct
Loan repayment options and forgiveness
benefits, including information about
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income-driven repayment plans, Public
Service Loan Forgiveness, and Teacher
Loan Forgiveness, and information
about student loan deferments and
forbearances.
• A reminder that information and
assistance with Federal student loans,
such as loan consolidation,
rehabilitation, and participation in
income-driven repayment plans, are
provided by the Department at no
charge and that the borrower does not
need to pay someone for help.
• Information about establishing a
relationship with a loan servicer,
including, among other things, keeping
address and contact information up-todate and learning who to contact and
how to ask questions.
• Information about the Department’s
Federal Student Aid Ombudsman
Group, including a description of the
services it provides and contact
information.
• Information about the Department’s
Federal Student Aid Feedback System
(see Electronic Announcement
published July 1, 2016, ‘‘Federal
Student Aid Launches Online Feedback
System,’’ located on the Information for
Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web
site).
Waivers
Institutions selected for this
experiment will be granted flexibility in
implementing their Direct Loan
counseling program. Section
485(l)(1)(A) of the HEA and 34 CFR
685.304(a)(1) and (a)(2) provide that an
institution must ensure that entrance
counseling is conducted with each
Direct Loan student borrower prior to
making the first disbursement of the
loan, unless the borrower has received
a prior Direct Loan or a Federal Family
Education Loan.
However, institutions participating in
this experiment will require additional
counseling for their Direct Loan
borrowers included in the treatment
group. The additional counseling
approaches to be used (i.e., the
Department’s FACT product; a thirdparty counseling product or third-party
servicer; or institutionally developed
alternative counseling) must be
identified by the institution in its Letter
of Interest. If the institution enters into
an agreement with a third party to
provide the additional counseling, that
agreement is subject to the third-party
servicer requirements of the regulations
in 34 CFR 668.25. As is required for all
third-party servicers, such third parties
must protect all student information
they receive from the institution.
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All other provisions and regulations
of the title IV, HEA student assistance
programs will remain in effect.
Reporting and Evaluation
The Department is interested in
assessing the impact of requiring
additional loan counseling for students
attending different types of institutions.
The evaluation will allow the
Department to examine the effectiveness
of requiring additional counseling
across all of the institutions and
students participating in the
experiment, as well as for groups of
institutions using similar types of
content and modes of delivery of loan
counseling for groups of borrowers.
To support an evaluation of the
impact of a policy change similar to the
one tested in this experiment, the design
of the evaluation requires data from
both a treatment group of students
required to participate in additional
loan counseling and a control group of
students who received their student aid
under existing rules.
Participating institutions will, on a
regular basis, provide to the Department
a list containing identifying information
for each of the institution’s Direct Loan
student borrowers who had previously
received entrance counseling from the
institution or from a different
institution. Those borrowers will be
considered for inclusion in the
experiment for the subsequent year.
The Department will assign each
eligible borrower to either the treatment
group, which will receive the additional
loan counseling, or to the control group,
for which the institution may not
require any additional loan counseling.
Once a borrower is placed into the
treatment or control group, the borrower
must remain in that group throughout
the borrower’s enrollment at the
institution during the institution’s
participation in the experiment.
To obtain some key outcome
measures (e.g., receipt and amount of
loan funds, academic progression,
completion or withdrawal), the
Department will draw on information
contained in the Department’s systems.
In addition, each institution will be
required to provide to the Department
existing school records for all students
participating in the experiment
(whether assigned to the treatment or
control group) for the purpose of
assessing the impacts of the additional
loan counseling intervention. The
records will likely include the
borrower’s academic information (e.g.,
credits taken, credits earned, grade
point average, completion information,
and credentials earned) as well as
financial information (e.g., cost of
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attendance, State and institutional aid
received, non-Federal loans received,
and other information relating to
financial aid received by the borrower).
Finally, on an annual basis,
institutions participating in the
experiment will be required to provide
information about the method and
content of the loan counseling and of
their experiences with the experiment.
The Department will collect from each
participating institution the details and
components of the additional
counseling that the institution requires,
including the content and method of
delivery (e.g., individual in-person
counseling, group counseling, Webbased counseling) for each cohort of
students. Institutions will receive more
specific information about evaluation
and reporting requirements prior to the
start of the experiment.
Institutions participating in this
experiment will be required to submit a
narrative description and selfassessment of their implementation of
the experiment. At a minimum, the
narrative should include any unforeseen
challenges and unexpected benefits.
Application and Selection
Institutions are invited to apply to
participate in the experiment described
in this notice. The Department is
interested in information such as: (1) An
estimate of the number of the
institution’s Direct Loan borrowers who,
for an award year, have previously
completed entrance counseling and, if
the institution believes it does not have
the capacity to include all of those
borrowers in the experiment, an
estimate of the number of borrowers it
wishes to include in the experiment
(both in the control and treatment
groups) for each award year; (2) how the
additional counseling will be provided,
e.g., through the Department’s FACT
product, a third-party counseling
product or a third-party servicer, or an
institutionally developed alternative; (3)
a brief description of the additional
counseling that the institution proposes
to use in the experiment, including its
content and mode of delivery; and (4)
how the institution’s proposed approach
to additional loan counseling is
supported by relevant and available
research or evidence (if applicable) and
the source of such research or evidence.
We understand that the actual number
of students who will be included in the
experiment may be different than the
estimate provided in the Letter of
Interest, as may the proposed
counseling method.
From the institutions that apply, the
Secretary will select a limited number
that represent a diverse cross-section of
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title IV participating institutions to
participate in this experiment. In
choosing participants, the Secretary will
consider, among other institutional
characteristics, the institution’s history
of compliance with the Department’s
regulatory and statutory requirements
for participation in the title IV, HEA
programs; the institution’s
administrative capability and financial
responsibility; and whether the
institution has adequately described in
its Letter of Interest how it will comply
with the requirements of the experiment
outlined in this notice.
In addition to the above items, when
selecting institutions to participate in
the experiment, the Secretary will
consider all available information,
including, but not limited to:
Institutional type and control, the
institution’s geographic location, the
institution’s cohort default rate, the
median amount of Direct Loan funds
borrowed by the institution’s students,
student outcomes (e.g., retention and
completion rates and loan repayment
rates), and the type of counseling the
institution intends to offer (i.e., FACT,
third-party product or third-party
servicer, or institutionally developed
counseling).
The Secretary’s selection of
institutions will be guided by the
purpose of the experiment, which is to
evaluate alternative delivery modes,
content, and timing to current
counseling requirements, and to inform
policymakers about any recommended
changes to those requirements. The ESI
does not provide broad regulatory relief
or general exceptions to the
Department’s statutory and regulatory
requirements.
If a selected institution consists of
more than one location (e.g., campus),
the Secretary may limit the experiment
to a single location, unless the
institution provides the Secretary with a
rationale for expanding the experiment
to one or more of the institution’s other
locations.
The Secretary will consult with those
institutions that have been invited to
participate in the experiment on the
final design of the experiment through
Webinars or other outreach activities.
Institutions selected for participation
in an experiment will have their
Program Participation Agreement (PPA)
with the Secretary amended to reflect
the specific statutory or regulatory
provisions that the Secretary has waived
for participants in the experiment at the
institution. The institution must
acknowledge its commitment to
adequately establish the procedures
necessary to successfully administer the
experiment. The amended PPA will also
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document the agreement between the
Secretary and the institution about how
the experiment will be conducted and
will specify the evaluation and
reporting requirements for the
experiment.
Accessible Format: Individuals with
disabilities can obtain this document in
an accessible format (e.g., braille, large
print, audiotape, or compact disc) on
request to the contact person listed
under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
CONTACT.
Electronic Access to This Document:
The official version of this document is
the document published in the Federal
Register. Free Internet access to the
official edition of the Federal Register
and the Code of Federal Regulations is
available via the Federal Digital System
at: www.gpo.gov/fdsys. 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 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: www.federalregister.gov.
Specifically, through the advanced
search feature at this site, you can limit
your search to documents published by
the Department.
Program Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1094a(b).
Dated: August 9, 2016.
Lynn Mahaffie,
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy,
Planning and Innovation, Delegated the
Duties of Assistant Secretary for
Postsecondary Education.
[FR Doc. 2016–19297 Filed 8–12–16; 8:45 am]
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Office of Career, Technical, and
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ACTION: Notice.
AGENCY:
sradovich on DSK3GMQ082PROD with NOTICES
Overview Information:
Performance Partnership Pilots
Notice inviting applications for new
awards for fiscal year (FY) 2016.
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance
(CFDA) Number: 84.420A.
Dates:
Applications Available: August 15,
2016.
Deadline for Notice of Intent to Apply:
September 29, 2016.
Note: Submission of a notice of intent to
apply is optional.
VerDate Sep<11>2014
19:23 Aug 12, 2016
Jkt 238001
Deadline for Transmittal of
Applications: October 31, 2016.
Deadline for Intergovernmental
Review: December 28, 2016.
Full Text of Announcement
I. Funding Opportunity Description
Purpose of Program: Performance
Partnership Pilots (P3), first authorized
by Congress for FY 2014 by the
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014
(2014 Appropriations Act) and
reauthorized for FY 2015 by the
Consolidated and Further Continuing
Appropriations Act, 2015 (2015
Appropriations Act) and for FY 2016 by
the Consolidated Appropriations Act,
2016 (2016 Appropriations Act)
(together, the Acts), enable pilot sites to
test innovative, outcome-focused
strategies to achieve significant
improvements in educational,
employment, and other key outcomes
for disconnected youth using new
flexibility to blend existing Federal
funds and to seek waivers of associated
program requirements.
Background: The Acts authorize the
Departments of Education (ED or the
Department), Labor (DOL), Health and
Human Services (HHS), Housing and
Urban Development (HUD),1 and Justice
(DOJ),2 the Corporation for National and
Community Service (CNCS), and the
Institute of Museum and Library
Services (IMLS) (collectively, the
Agencies), to enter into Performance
Partnership Agreements (performance
agreements) with State, local, or tribal
governments to provide additional
flexibility in using certain of the
Agencies’ discretionary funds,3
including competitive and formula grant
funds, across multiple Federal
programs. Entities that seek to
participate in these pilots will be
required to commit to achieving
significant improvements in outcomes
for disconnected youth in exchange for
this new flexibility. The authorizing
statute states that ‘‘ ‘[t]o improve
outcomes for disconnected youth’
means to increase the rate at which
1 The 2016 Appropriations Act authorizes HUD to
enter into performance agreements with respect to
FY 2016 Homeless Assistance Grants.
2 DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs was first
authorized to enter into performance agreements by
the 2015 Appropriations Act.
3 Discretionary funds are funds that Congress
appropriates on an annual basis, rather than
through a standing authorization. They exclude
‘‘entitlement’’ (or mandatory) programs such as
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, most Foster
Care IV–E programs, Vocational Rehabilitation State
Grants, and Temporary Assistance to Needy
Families (TANF). Discretionary programs
administered by the Agencies support a broad set
of public services, including education, job training,
health and mental health, and other low-income
assistance programs.
PO 00000
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individuals between the ages of 14 and
24 (who are low-income and either
homeless, in foster care, involved in the
juvenile justice system, unemployed, or
not enrolled in or at risk of dropping out
of an educational institution) achieve
success in meeting educational,
employment, or other key goals.’’
Government and community partners
have invested considerable attention
and resources to meet the needs of
disconnected youth. However,
practitioners, youth advocates, and
others on the front lines of service
delivery have observed that flexibility
can be a key tool to address certain
programmatic and administrative
obstacles to achieving meaningful
improvements in education,
employment, health, and well-being for
these young people.
P3 tests the hypothesis that additional
flexibility for States, local governments,
and tribes, in the form of blending funds
and waivers of certain programmatic
requirements, can help overcome some
of the significant hurdles that States,
local governments, and tribes face in
providing intensive, comprehensive,
and sustained service pathways and
improving outcomes for disconnected
youth. For example, P3 can be used to
better coordinate and align the multiple
systems that serve youth. P3 may help
address the ‘‘wrong pockets’’ problem,
where entities that observe improved
outcomes or other benefits due to an
intervention are unable to use Federal
funds to support that intervention due
to program restrictions. P3 flexibility
may also allow the testing of an
innovative approach to help build
additional evidence about what works.
If this hypothesis proves true, providing
necessary and targeted flexibility to
remove or overcome these hurdles will
help to achieve significant benefits for
disconnected youth, the communities
that serve them, and the involved
agencies and partners.
The statutory definition of
‘‘disconnected youth’’ specifically
identifies several high-need
subpopulations of low-income youth,
including youth who are homeless,
youth in foster care, youth involved in
the juvenile justice system, and youth
who are unemployed or not in school or
at risk of dropping out. We wish to note
that there are a number of other highneed subpopulations of disconnected
youth who are not specifically
enumerated in statute but are also at risk
of dropping out. For example, English
learners (ELs) are at great risk of
dropping out; the average cohort
graduation rate for ELs during the 2013–
14 school year was only 62.6 percent,
while the national average cohort
E:\FR\FM\15AUN1.SGM
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]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 157 (Monday, August 15, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 54052-54056]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-19297]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Notice Inviting Postsecondary Educational Institutions To
Participate in Experiments Under the Experimental Sites Initiative;
Federal Student Financial Assistance Programs Under Title IV of the
Higher Education Act of 1965, as Amended
AGENCY: Office of Postsecondary Education, Department of Education.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: The Secretary invites institutions of higher education
(institutions) that participate in the Federal student financial
assistance programs authorized under title IV of the Higher Education
Act of 1965, as amended (HEA), to apply to participate in a new
institutional experiment under the Experimental Sites Initiative (ESI).
Under the ESI, the Secretary has authority to grant waivers of
certain title IV, HEA statutory or regulatory requirements to allow a
limited number of institutions to participate in experiments to test
alternative methods of administering the title IV, HEA programs. The
alternative methods of title IV, HEA administration that the Secretary
is permitting under this ESI experiment are designed to facilitate
efforts by institutions to evaluate certain innovative loan counseling
practices that can prepare students to manage their college finances,
inform them about their student loan repayment options, and ensure
students are well-prepared to repay their loans on time.
Under this experiment, participating institutions will have the
flexibility to require additional loan counseling for student borrowers
beyond the statutorily required one-time entrance and one-time exit
counseling as a condition for the students to receive Direct Loan
funds, and to customize counseling based on students' needs.
DATES: Letters of Interest to participate in the experiment described
in this notice must be received by the Department no later than
September 29, 2016 to ensure that the Department considers the
institution for participation in the experiment. Letters received after
September 29, 2016 may, at the discretion of the Secretary, be
considered for participation.
ADDRESSES: Letters of Interest must be submitted by electronic mail to
the following email address: experimentalsites@ed.gov. For format and
other required information, see ``Instructions for Submitting Letters
of Interest'' under SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Warren Farr, U.S. Department of
Education, Federal Student Aid, 830 First Street NE., Washington, DC
20002. Telephone: (202) 377-4380 or by email at: Warren.Farr@ed.gov.
If you use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) or a text
telephone (TTY), call the Federal Relay Service (FRS), toll free, at 1-
800-877-8339.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Instructions for Submitting Letters of
Interest: Letters of Interest should be in an Adobe Portable Document
Format (PDF) attachment to an email message sent to the email address
provided in the ADDRESSES section of this notice. The subject line of
the email should read ``ESI 2016--Additional Loan Counseling.'' The
text of the email should include the name and address of the
institution. The Letter of Interest should be on institutional
letterhead and be signed by the institution's financial aid
administrator. The Letter of Interest must include the institution's
official name and its Office of Postsecondary Education Identification
(OPEID) number, and the name of a contact person at the institution,
along with a mailing address, email address, FAX number, and telephone
number of a person at the institution. The letter should also include
the information described in the ``Application and Selection'' section
in this notice. Upon receipt of a Letter of Interest, the Department
will notify the institution by email that its Letter of Interest was
received. This notification should be kept in the institution's
records.
Background
Accurate and timely loan information is crucial for students to
make informed decisions about borrowing and to understand their
repayment obligations
[[Page 54053]]
and options. However, there is limited research on the effectiveness of
loan counseling, including which types of content and modes of delivery
of loan counseling are most effective in helping students to understand
and manage their debt, as well as when and how often counseling should
occur to be most effective.
Since the start of his Administration, President Obama has outlined
an ambitious agenda to make college more affordable for American
families and promote student success. In his June 9, 2014, Presidential
Memorandum for the Secretary of Treasury and the Secretary of
Education, the President directed the agencies to focus their efforts
on providing initiatives that help Federal student loan borrowers
manage their debt.
In support of the President's agenda, the Secretary, under the
Experimental Sites authority in section 487A(b) of the HEA, is offering
institutions the opportunity to participate in the experiment described
in this notice. The experiment will provide institutions the
flexibility to require, as a condition for a student to receive Direct
Loan funds, loan counseling that is in addition to the entrance and
exit counseling currently required under statute.
Section 485(l)(1)(A) of the HEA requires that each institution
ensure that first-time borrowers receive comprehensive information on
the terms and conditions of the loan and of the responsibilities the
borrower has with respect to the loan. This information must be
provided in a simple and understandable format.
The Department's regulations at 34 CFR 685.304(a) require
institutions to ensure that entrance counseling is conducted with each
Direct Subsidized Loan or Direct Unsubsidized Loan student borrower
prior to making the first disbursement of the proceeds of a loan to the
borrower, unless the borrower has previously completed entrance
counseling at that institution or at another institution, regardless of
when that counseling occurred. These regulations do not allow
institutions to require counseling as a condition of disbursement
beyond the required first-time entrance counseling and required exit
counseling, though the institution may offer such counseling to
students on a voluntary basis.
The purpose of this experiment is to test the effectiveness of
requiring additional loan counseling beyond the counseling that is
statutorily required. The additional loan counseling is expected to
help borrowers better understand their repayment options and
obligations and make more informed decisions about their debt. The
experiment may also identify the types of borrowers who have benefitted
most from additional loan counseling. The Department hopes to learn if
the additional loan counseling:
Positively influences students' decision-making about
borrowing;
Promotes successful repayment of student loans, including
reducing delinquencies and defaults; and
Has an impact on students' academic performance (e.g.,
grades and time-to-completion).
We also seek to learn whether different types of content and modes
of delivery of loan counseling are more or less effective in promoting
the above outcomes. This experiment can inform any future policy
changes around loan counseling and efforts to inform borrowers about
repayment plans and progress.
Details of this experiment are provided in the section titled ``The
Experiment'' below.
The Experiment
Description
Under the experiment, an institution will require all of its
eligible Direct Loan borrowers who have previously completed first-time
entrance counseling to participate in the experiment (or for some large
institutions, a subset of those borrowers), with approximately half of
those borrowers randomly assigned by the Department to complete
additional required counseling beyond the entrance counseling normally
provided to first-time borrowers as a condition of receiving their
Direct Loan funds.
Institutions with particularly large numbers of borrowers who would
be eligible for the experiment may request to include in the experiment
a subset of those borrowers each year. The size of the subset will be
determined by the Department in consultation with the institution and
will take into consideration the overall number of students needed to
estimate impacts for groups of institutions using similar counseling
models. Once the size of the subset is determined, students will be
randomly selected by the Department from the larger group of borrowers
to be included in the subset and to participate in the experiment,
either in the treatment group or in the control group.
The Department will assign all borrowers who have been determined
to be participants in the experiment to either the treatment group or
to the control group. Borrowers assigned to the treatment group will be
required to participate in additional loan counseling beyond the
entrance counseling they completed as first-time borrowers, as a
condition of receiving a Direct Loan. Borrowers assigned to the control
group cannot be required to complete, but may do so voluntarily, any
additional loan counseling beyond the already-completed entrance
counseling and the statutorily required exit counseling.
Under the experiment, institutions cannot require additional
counseling more than once for each of the student's Direct Loan loan
periods (generally once for each academic year). Therefore, students
who are already required to participate in entrance counseling in any
year (i.e., a first-time borrower at any institution) will not be
included in the experiment for that year. Only students who completed
their loan counseling during a prior year (whether for enrollment at
the participating institution or at a different institution) will be
included in the experiment for subsequent years.
If an institution participating in the experiment currently offers
voluntary additional loan counseling to students, it may continue to do
so during its participation in the experiment. If an institution does
not provide voluntary additional loan counseling, it may not begin to
do so during its participation in the experiment. To the extent
possible, the Department will require institutions to provide
information regarding the students in the control group who utilize the
institution's voluntary additional loan counseling.
Institutional Flexibilities
An institution participating in the experiment will have
flexibility in the content and modes of delivery of its additional loan
counseling (e.g., online, individual in-person, group in-person,
student-to-student). The institution will be allowed to choose the
counseling approach it will use for the required additional counseling
by choosing one of the following: The Department's Financial Awareness
Counseling Tool (FACT); a third-party counseling product or third-party
servicer; or institutionally developed alternative counseling.
The additional required counseling provided to borrowers by
participating institutions may vary based on the students' expected
remaining time to complete their program. That counseling may also vary
for different groups of students depending on their prior borrowing.
The institution may include, as part of its additional counseling,
a test or other evaluation to assess the student's knowledge of the
information presented
[[Page 54054]]
as long as the test or evaluation is presented in a format accessible
to students with disabilities, including students with visual or
hearing impairments, and is in a language understandable by students
with limited English proficiency. This may require the use of
interpreters for oral or written communications with such students, as
well as translations of written materials provided to such students.
However, any such evaluation may not impede a student's ability to
borrow, for example, by establishing a passing score for the test or
evaluation before the student can receive Direct Loan funds.
Institutional Requirements
Institutions participating in this experiment will be required to:
Work with the Department to establish the number of its
Direct Loan borrowers who will be included as participants in the
experiment.
Track and provide data to the Department for its borrowers
who were assigned by the Department to the treatment group and its
borrowers who were assigned to the control group.
Ensure that the additional counseling required of the
borrowers in the treatment group is reasonable as to time and effort,
and is relevant to the student's borrowing decisions; and that the
additional counseling is not biased or restricted based on students'
religion, national origin, race, color, sex, socioeconomic status
(including income), disability, place of residence, physical location
where the student will be enrolled, or educational program.
Ensure that the additional loan counseling does not
discourage students from taking on debt needed to successfully complete
their studies, while not over-borrowing taking into account anticipated
earnings.
Make loan counseling reasonable and not so burdensome that
it becomes a barrier to receiving Direct Loan funds.
Ensure that for each particular year, Direct Loan
borrowers already required to receive loan entrance counseling at that
institution (i.e., first-time borrowers) are not subject to required
additional counseling for that year. These students would be eligible
to participate in this experiment in subsequent years.
Disclose to all borrowers included in the experiment (both
those in the treatment group and those in the control group) that the
institution is participating in an experiment related to loan
counseling and that some of the students in the experiment may be
required to participate in additional loan counseling as a condition of
receiving Direct Loan funds.
Inform students who have been selected to receive
additional counseling that their Direct Loan disbursements are
conditional upon completion of that counseling.
Ensure that the institution's policy for providing
counseling under the experiment remains consistent throughout the
institution's participation in the experiment. A participating
institution is also expected to ensure that its delivery of counseling
does not change significantly during the institution's participation in
the experiment.
The Department will perform ongoing monitoring during the
experiment to ensure that participating institutions meet these
requirements throughout their participation in the experiment.
All counseling provided to borrowers must deliver information that,
at a minimum, includes the total amount of the borrowers' student loan
indebtedness. The institution may customize the counseling based on the
borrower's needs. However, the Department encourages participating
institutions to include in its additional counseling the following
information, where relevant, to assist students in making more informed
borrowing decisions:
Comprehensive information on the terms and conditions of
Federal student loans, including information about annual and aggregate
limits, interest rates, how interest accrues, loan fees for Federal
student loans, and the responsibilities the borrower has with respect
to such loans.
A reminder that students will be required to repay their
loans even if they do not complete the academic program.
Information that indicates that completing an academic
program will increase the students' ability to successfully repay their
loans.
Information about the requirement to complete additional
counseling and to complete exit counseling upon leaving the
institution.
A statement that, when determining whether and how much to
borrow, students should consider how much they can reasonably expect to
earn after leaving their academic program of study. As part of this
statement, the institution may provide other relevant information, such
as earnings data, Gainful Employment disclosures required under 34 CFR
668.412(a), and cohort default rate, if available and/or applicable.
Comprehensive information about the different terms and
features of Direct Loan repayment options and forgiveness benefits,
including information about income-driven repayment plans, Public
Service Loan Forgiveness, and Teacher Loan Forgiveness, and information
about student loan deferments and forbearances.
A reminder that information and assistance with Federal
student loans, such as loan consolidation, rehabilitation, and
participation in income-driven repayment plans, are provided by the
Department at no charge and that the borrower does not need to pay
someone for help.
Information about establishing a relationship with a loan
servicer, including, among other things, keeping address and contact
information up-to-date and learning who to contact and how to ask
questions.
Information about the Department's Federal Student Aid
Ombudsman Group, including a description of the services it provides
and contact information.
Information about the Department's Federal Student Aid
Feedback System (see Electronic Announcement published July 1, 2016,
``Federal Student Aid Launches Online Feedback System,'' located on the
Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web site).
Waivers
Institutions selected for this experiment will be granted
flexibility in implementing their Direct Loan counseling program.
Section 485(l)(1)(A) of the HEA and 34 CFR 685.304(a)(1) and (a)(2)
provide that an institution must ensure that entrance counseling is
conducted with each Direct Loan student borrower prior to making the
first disbursement of the loan, unless the borrower has received a
prior Direct Loan or a Federal Family Education Loan.
However, institutions participating in this experiment will require
additional counseling for their Direct Loan borrowers included in the
treatment group. The additional counseling approaches to be used (i.e.,
the Department's FACT product; a third-party counseling product or
third-party servicer; or institutionally developed alternative
counseling) must be identified by the institution in its Letter of
Interest. If the institution enters into an agreement with a third
party to provide the additional counseling, that agreement is subject
to the third-party servicer requirements of the regulations in 34 CFR
668.25. As is required for all third-party servicers, such third
parties must protect all student information they receive from the
institution.
[[Page 54055]]
All other provisions and regulations of the title IV, HEA student
assistance programs will remain in effect.
Reporting and Evaluation
The Department is interested in assessing the impact of requiring
additional loan counseling for students attending different types of
institutions. The evaluation will allow the Department to examine the
effectiveness of requiring additional counseling across all of the
institutions and students participating in the experiment, as well as
for groups of institutions using similar types of content and modes of
delivery of loan counseling for groups of borrowers.
To support an evaluation of the impact of a policy change similar
to the one tested in this experiment, the design of the evaluation
requires data from both a treatment group of students required to
participate in additional loan counseling and a control group of
students who received their student aid under existing rules.
Participating institutions will, on a regular basis, provide to the
Department a list containing identifying information for each of the
institution's Direct Loan student borrowers who had previously received
entrance counseling from the institution or from a different
institution. Those borrowers will be considered for inclusion in the
experiment for the subsequent year.
The Department will assign each eligible borrower to either the
treatment group, which will receive the additional loan counseling, or
to the control group, for which the institution may not require any
additional loan counseling.
Once a borrower is placed into the treatment or control group, the
borrower must remain in that group throughout the borrower's enrollment
at the institution during the institution's participation in the
experiment.
To obtain some key outcome measures (e.g., receipt and amount of
loan funds, academic progression, completion or withdrawal), the
Department will draw on information contained in the Department's
systems.
In addition, each institution will be required to provide to the
Department existing school records for all students participating in
the experiment (whether assigned to the treatment or control group) for
the purpose of assessing the impacts of the additional loan counseling
intervention. The records will likely include the borrower's academic
information (e.g., credits taken, credits earned, grade point average,
completion information, and credentials earned) as well as financial
information (e.g., cost of attendance, State and institutional aid
received, non-Federal loans received, and other information relating to
financial aid received by the borrower).
Finally, on an annual basis, institutions participating in the
experiment will be required to provide information about the method and
content of the loan counseling and of their experiences with the
experiment. The Department will collect from each participating
institution the details and components of the additional counseling
that the institution requires, including the content and method of
delivery (e.g., individual in-person counseling, group counseling, Web-
based counseling) for each cohort of students. Institutions will
receive more specific information about evaluation and reporting
requirements prior to the start of the experiment.
Institutions participating in this experiment will be required to
submit a narrative description and self-assessment of their
implementation of the experiment. At a minimum, the narrative should
include any unforeseen challenges and unexpected benefits.
Application and Selection
Institutions are invited to apply to participate in the experiment
described in this notice. The Department is interested in information
such as: (1) An estimate of the number of the institution's Direct Loan
borrowers who, for an award year, have previously completed entrance
counseling and, if the institution believes it does not have the
capacity to include all of those borrowers in the experiment, an
estimate of the number of borrowers it wishes to include in the
experiment (both in the control and treatment groups) for each award
year; (2) how the additional counseling will be provided, e.g., through
the Department's FACT product, a third-party counseling product or a
third-party servicer, or an institutionally developed alternative; (3)
a brief description of the additional counseling that the institution
proposes to use in the experiment, including its content and mode of
delivery; and (4) how the institution's proposed approach to additional
loan counseling is supported by relevant and available research or
evidence (if applicable) and the source of such research or evidence.
We understand that the actual number of students who will be
included in the experiment may be different than the estimate provided
in the Letter of Interest, as may the proposed counseling method.
From the institutions that apply, the Secretary will select a
limited number that represent a diverse cross-section of title IV
participating institutions to participate in this experiment. In
choosing participants, the Secretary will consider, among other
institutional characteristics, the institution's history of compliance
with the Department's regulatory and statutory requirements for
participation in the title IV, HEA programs; the institution's
administrative capability and financial responsibility; and whether the
institution has adequately described in its Letter of Interest how it
will comply with the requirements of the experiment outlined in this
notice.
In addition to the above items, when selecting institutions to
participate in the experiment, the Secretary will consider all
available information, including, but not limited to: Institutional
type and control, the institution's geographic location, the
institution's cohort default rate, the median amount of Direct Loan
funds borrowed by the institution's students, student outcomes (e.g.,
retention and completion rates and loan repayment rates), and the type
of counseling the institution intends to offer (i.e., FACT, third-party
product or third-party servicer, or institutionally developed
counseling).
The Secretary's selection of institutions will be guided by the
purpose of the experiment, which is to evaluate alternative delivery
modes, content, and timing to current counseling requirements, and to
inform policymakers about any recommended changes to those
requirements. The ESI does not provide broad regulatory relief or
general exceptions to the Department's statutory and regulatory
requirements.
If a selected institution consists of more than one location (e.g.,
campus), the Secretary may limit the experiment to a single location,
unless the institution provides the Secretary with a rationale for
expanding the experiment to one or more of the institution's other
locations.
The Secretary will consult with those institutions that have been
invited to participate in the experiment on the final design of the
experiment through Webinars or other outreach activities.
Institutions selected for participation in an experiment will have
their Program Participation Agreement (PPA) with the Secretary amended
to reflect the specific statutory or regulatory provisions that the
Secretary has waived for participants in the experiment at the
institution. The institution must acknowledge its commitment to
adequately establish the procedures necessary to successfully
administer the experiment. The amended PPA will also
[[Page 54056]]
document the agreement between the Secretary and the institution about
how the experiment will be conducted and will specify the evaluation
and reporting requirements for the experiment.
Accessible Format: Individuals with disabilities can obtain this
document in an accessible format (e.g., braille, large print,
audiotape, or compact disc) on request to the contact person listed
under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.
Electronic Access to This Document: The official version of this
document is the document published in the Federal Register. Free
Internet access to the official edition of the Federal Register and the
Code of Federal Regulations is available via the Federal Digital System
at: www.gpo.gov/fdsys. 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 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:
www.federalregister.gov. Specifically, through the advanced search
feature at this site, you can limit your search to documents published
by the Department.
Program Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1094a(b).
Dated: August 9, 2016.
Lynn Mahaffie,
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, Planning and Innovation,
Delegated the Duties of Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary
Education.
[FR Doc. 2016-19297 Filed 8-12-16; 8:45 am]
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