Request for Information Regarding Public Transparency for Low-Financial-Value Postsecondary Programs, 1567-1569 [2022-28606]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 7 (Wednesday, January 11, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 1567-1569]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-28606]


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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

[Docket ID ED-2022-OUS-0140]


Request for Information Regarding Public Transparency for Low-
Financial-Value Postsecondary Programs

AGENCY: Office of the Under Secretary, U.S. Department of Education.

ACTION: Request for information.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Education (Department) is requesting 
information in the form of written comments that may include 
information, research, and suggestions regarding how best to identify 
low-value postsecondary programs. The Office of the Under Secretary 
solicits these comments to identify the best ways to calculate the 
metrics that may be used to identify low-financial-value programs and 
inform technical considerations.

DATES: We must receive your comments on or before February 10, 2023.

ADDRESSES: Comments must be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking 
Portal at regulations.gov. However, if you require an accommodation or 
cannot otherwise submit your comments via regulations.gov, please 
contact the program contact person listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION 
CONTACT. The Department will not accept comments 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.
    The Department strongly encourages you to submit any comments or 
attachments in Microsoft Word format. If you must submit a comment in 
Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), the Department strongly 
encourages you to convert the PDF to ``print-to-PDF'' format, or to use 
some other commonly used searchable text format. Please do not submit 
the PDF in a scanned format. Using a print-to-PDF format allows the 
Department to electronically search and copy certain portions of your 
submissions to assist in the rulemaking process.
    Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to www.regulations.gov 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 
``FAQ.''
    Privacy Note: The Department's policy is to make all comments 
received from members of the public available for public viewing in 
their entirety on the Federal eRulemaking Portal at 
www.regulations.gov. Therefore, commenters should be careful to include 
in their comments only information that they wish to make publicly 
available.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Jean-Didier Gaina, U.S. Department 
of Education, 400 Maryland Ave. SW, Room 2C172, Washington, DC 20202. 
Telephone: (202) 987-1333. Email: [email protected].
    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:

I. Background

    For most students, attending a postsecondary education program is a 
path to upward economic mobility and financial security. On average, 
completing a postsecondary education credential substantially increases 
lifetime earnings and reduces the risk of unemployment. In many cases, 
a college credential leads to a career, such as teaching, that benefits 
society as a whole.
    In an environment where the rise in tuition levels has outpaced the 
availability of scholarships, student loans have been an integral tool 
for delivering these benefits. Millions of students likely would not 
have been able to cover the upfront price of postsecondary education 
without Federal student loans.
    However, there are many low-financial-value postsecondary 
programs--those for which total costs exceed the financial benefits 
provided to students. Some higher education programs promote goals 
other than financial returns for students. However, a misalignment of 
prices charged to financial benefits received may cause particularly 
acute harm for student loan borrowers who may struggle to repay their 
debts after discovering too late that their postsecondary programs did 
not adequately prepare them for the workforce. Taxpayers also shoulder 
the costs when a substantial number and share of borrowers are unable 
to successfully repay their loans. The number of borrowers facing 
challenges related to the repayment of their student loans is 
significant. Prior to the pause on repayment, interest, and debt 
collection as part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 
1 million borrowers defaulted on their student loans each year, and 
millions more borrowers were behind on their

[[Page 1568]]

student loan payments. Low-income students, Black students, and other 
students of color are more likely to borrow, borrow more, and are more 
likely to struggle to repay their loans.
    Income-driven repayment (IDR) plans have been an important option 
in recent years to help borrowers manage their monthly payment 
obligations. These repayment plans cap borrowers' payments at a set 
share of their income and allow lower-income borrowers a $0 payment. 
These plans forgive remaining balances after the equivalent of 20 or 25 
years of payments.
    Although the affordable monthly payments on IDR plans provide a 
critical safety net to borrowers, they do not address the underlying 
problems stemming from the high prices charged by some institutions and 
low graduation rates across postsecondary education over the last few 
decades. This includes the presence of too many postsecondary programs 
that saddle students with levels of debt far out of proportion to the 
income they earn after leaving their program. Data from the College 
Scorecard show these problems are especially concentrated among 
undergraduate certificate programs and graduate programs.
    Programs that result in students taking on excessive amounts of 
debt can make it challenging for students to reach significant life 
milestones like purchasing a home, starting a family, or saving enough 
for retirement, ultimately undermining their ability to climb the 
economic mobility ladder. Especially for borrowers who attended 
graduate programs, debt-to-income ratios often rise well above 
sustainable levels. IDR plans also cannot fully protect borrowers from 
the consequences of low financial-value programs. For instance, IDR 
plans cannot give students back the time they invested in such 
programs. For many programs, the cost of students' time may be at least 
as significant as direct program costs such as tuition, fees, and 
supplies. Loans will also still show up on borrowers' credit reports, 
including any periods of delinquency or default prior to enrollment in 
IDR.
    Moreover, IDR plans can transfer some of the cost of financing a 
low-financial-value postsecondary program to taxpayers through debt 
forgiveness. The goal of the IDR program is to reduce the burden of 
loans for low- and middle-income borrowers, not to subsidize programs 
that fail to help many of their students graduate and achieve their 
goals.
    The Administration is taking significant steps to hold institutions 
of higher education accountable. This fall, the Department finalized 
regulations that close long-standing loopholes in requirements for 
private for-profit institutions to derive at least 10 percent of their 
revenue from private sources. We subsequently issued final rules that 
provide a path to discharge student loans if institutions misled or 
otherwise took advantage of students and for the Department to recoup 
the costs of these discharges. The Department has also reestablished 
the Office of Enforcement within Federal Student Aid to conduct in-
depth investigations into problematic institutions. In the future, we 
intend to prepare and issue regulations to hold career training 
programs accountable for providing sufficient value for students, among 
other topics.
    This is a request for information (RFI) only. This RFI is not a 
request for proposals (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP or a notice 
inviting applications. This RFI does not commit the Department to 
contract for any supply or service whatsoever. Further, we are not 
seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals. The 
Department will not pay for any information or administrative costs 
that you may incur in responding to this RFI. The documents and 
information submitted in response to this RFI become the property of 
the U.S. Government and will not be returned.

II. Increasing Transparency Around Low-Financial-Value Programs

    The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to improving 
accountability for institutions of higher education. One component of 
that work is to increase transparency and public accountability by 
drawing attention to the postsecondary programs that are most likely to 
leave students with unaffordable loans and provide the lowest financial 
returns for students and taxpayers. The Department is referring to 
these as ``low-financial-value'' programs for the purposes of this RFI, 
while acknowledging some of these programs may provide non-economic 
value. The Department believes annually publishing a list of the 
programs with the lowest financial value will draw public attention to 
these programs. The Department also is committed to sending letters to 
institutions with the most concerning programs to ask for their plans 
to improve the value of their programs. These steps should reduce the 
extent to which students and taxpayers are exposed to the negative 
consequences resulting from low-financial-value programs.

III. Solicitation of Comments: Constructing a List of Low-Financial-
Value Postsecondary Programs

    To help inform the construction of the list of low-financial-value 
programs, the Department is seeking input from the public on which 
measures and metrics to use to determine ``financial-value'', what data 
could be leveraged to assist this effort, and other technical 
considerations. This effort is separate from any ongoing regulatory 
work. The deadline for these submissions is February 10, 2023.
    The Department encourages comments from researchers, academics, 
policy experts, and other individuals familiar with postsecondary 
education data; organizations that work directly with students to 
counsel them in selecting institutions of higher education or 
postsecondary programs; institutions of higher education; borrowers who 
have been through the process of selecting a postsecondary education 
program or institution; and other members of the public.
    The Department seeks responses to the specific questions below, as 
well as the general concepts and topics identified as they relate to 
the construction of the list of low-value programs. When responding to 
this RFI, please address one or more of the following questions:

Measures and Metrics

    1. What program-level data and metrics would be most helpful to 
students to understand the financial (and other) consequences of 
attending a program?
    2. What program-level data and metrics would be most helpful to 
understand whether public investments in the program are worthwhile? 
What data might be collected uniformly across all students who attend a 
program that would help assess the nonfinancial value created by the 
program?
    3. In addition to the measures or metrics used to determine whether 
a program is placed on the low-financial-value program list, what other 
measures and metrics should be disclosed to improve the information 
provided by the list?

List Structure

    4. The Department intends to use the 6-digit Classification of 
Instructional Program (CIP) code and the type of credential awarded to 
define programs at an institution. Should the Department publish 
information using the 4-digit CIP codes or some other type of 
aggregation in cases where we would not otherwise be able to report 
program data?

[[Page 1569]]

    5. Should the Department produce only a single low-financial-value 
program list, separate lists by credential level, or use some other 
breakdown, such as one for graduate and another for undergraduate 
programs?

Data Elements

    6. What additional data could the Department collect that would 
substantially improve our ability to provide accurate data for the 
public to help understand the value being created by the program? 
Please comment on the value of the new metrics relative to the burden 
institutions would face in reporting information to the Department.

Public Dissemination

    7. What are the best ways to make sure that institutions and 
students are aware of this information?
    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 www.govinfo.gov. 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 
www.federalregister.gov. Specifically, through the advanced search 
feature at this site, you can limit your search to documents published 
by the Department.

James Kvaal,
Under Secretary, Office of the Under Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2022-28606 Filed 1-10-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P