Affected Public Statement - Private Institutions

1845-0122 – Affected Public – Private Institutions 8/28/2017

The Student Assistance General Provisions regulation was amended by adding Subpart Q to Part 668. This subpart applies to postsecondary educational programs that lead to gainful employment (GE) in recognized occupations. 1845-0122 pertains to §668.406 – Appeals for Debt to Earnings (D/E) rates. The regulations allow an institution to submit alternate earnings appeals to challenge the Secretary’s determination of a GE program that is failing or in the zone based on the D/E rates calculated for a specific GE program.

On June 16, 2017, the Department of Education (the Department) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the intention to establish a negotiated rulemaking committee to revise the gainful employment regulations published on October 31, 2014. The Department anticipates scheduling the negotiated rulemaking sessions beginning in November or December 2017.

The Department is requesting an extension without change of burden to the currently approved information collection as any new regulations will not be available before the expiration of this current package. There have been no changes to the regulations since the initial approval of the information collection on November 3, 2014.

Section 668.406(c) –Survey requirements for appeals.

We continue to estimate that private-non-profit institutions will have 20 gainful employment programs in the zone and that 8 programs will be failing for a total of 28 programs. We expect that most institutions will determine that SSA data reflect accurately the earnings of students and will therefore not elect to conduct the survey. Accordingly, we estimate that private-non-profit institutions will submit alternate earnings appeals under the survey appeal option for 10 percent of those programs, which will equal 3 appeals annually. We estimate that conducting the survey, providing the institutional certification, and obtaining the examination-level attestation engagement report will total, on average, 100 hours of burden, therefore burden will remain 300 hours (3 appeals times 100 hours of burden per appeal) under OMB Control Number 1845-0122.

Section 668.406(d) –State-sponsored data system requirements for appeals.

We estimate that there will be 8 failing GE programs at private non-profit institutions and 20 programs in the zone, for a total of 28 programs. We expect that most institutions will determine that SSA data reflect accurately the earnings of students who completed a program and will therefore not elect to submit earnings data from a State-sponsored system. Accordingly, we estimate that in 10 percent of those cases, institutions will obtain earnings data from a State-sponsored system, resulting in 3 appeals. We estimate that, on average each appeal will take 20 hours, including execution of an agreement for data sharing and privacy protection under FERPA between the institution and a State agency (when the State agency is located other than in the State in which the institution resides), preparing the list(s), submitting the list(s) to the appropriate State agency, reviewing the results, calculating the revised D/E rates, and submitting those results to the Secretary. Therefore burden will remain 60 hours (3 State system appeals times 20 hours) under OMB Control Number 1845-0122.

Section 668.406(e) – Appeals procedure.

We estimated above that private non-profit institutions will have 3 alternative survey appeals annually plus 3 State-sponsored data system appeals for a total of 6 appeals. We estimate that for completing and submitting a notice of intent to use alternate earnings survey data or a State data appeal burden will remain 2 hours (6 times 0.25 hours per submission) under OMB Control 1845-0122.

TOTALS

Responses 12

Respondents 6

Burden Hours 362