Office of Postsecondary Education - U.S. Department of Education

66842 Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 209 / Friday, October 29, 2010 / Rules and RegulationsWReier-Aviles on DSKGBLS3C1PROD with RULES2the school is associated to the degreeprogram and included in the medianloan debt calculation for the degreeprogram. None of the student’s debt isincluded in calculating the median loandebt of the certificate program.Student 5. Student is in an in-schoolstatus while attending the degreeprogram, but does not complete thatprogram. Only the $3,000 debt incurredby the student for completing thecertificate program would be includedin the median loan debt calculation forthat program. None of the student’s debtwould be included in the median loandebt calculation for the degree programbecause the student did not completethat program.Student 6. Student is in an in-schoolstatus while attending the degreeprogram, but the degree program is notsubject to the gainful employmentprovisions. When the student completesthe degree program, none of thestudent’s debt would be included in themedian loan debt calculation for thecertificate program and no calculationwould be performed for the degreeprogram because it is not subject to thegainful employment provisions.The Department disagrees with thesuggestions that an institution shouldnot be required to disclose loan debtincurred by students for living expensesbecause many students cannot afford toenroll in a program without borrowingto pay for living expenses and othereducation-related costs. Identifying onlya portion of the loan debt that a studentis likely to incur not only defeats thepurpose of the disclosure but also maybe misleading. With respect to thecomments that loan debt related toliving expenses should be disclosedseparately from loan debt tied directlyto institutional charges, we areconcerned about how institutions wouldmake or portray these disclosures andbelieve that separating the debt amountswould be confusing to prospectivestudents.We find little merit in the argumentthat using median loan debt, instead ofmean loan debt, would provide acompetitive advantage to institutionswith fewer student loan borrowers.Assuming that an institution with fewerborrowers has the same enrollment asan institution with a large number ofborrowers, then regardless of whetherthe mean or the median is used, the loandebt will be lower for an institutionwith fewer borrowers because all of thestudents who do not borrow wouldreduce its mean or median loan debt.When these regulations take effect onJuly 1, 2011, the Department willrequire institutions to report no laterthan October 1, 2011 the informationdescribed in § 668.6(a) for the 2006–07,2007–08, and 2008–09 award years. Inaccordance with the record retentionrequirements under § 668.24(e), mostinstitutions should have the requiredinformation. We note that manyinstitutions may have an existingpractice of keeping student records forlonger periods, or do so for State oraccrediting purposes. If an institutionhas the records for the earlier periods,it must report the information describedin § 668.6(a). Institutions that are nototherwise required to maintain theinformation for the 2006–07 award yeardescribed in § 668.6(a) at the time thisregulation goes into effect on July 1,2011, should consider doing so for theirown purposes. In any case, if aninstitution is unable to report all orsome the required information, it mustprovide an explanation of why themissing information is not available.Changes: Section 668.6(a) has beenrevised to provide that in accordancewith procedures established by theSecretary, an institution must provide(1) information for the award yearbeginning on July 1, 2006 andsubsequent award years, (2) informationabout whether a student matriculated toa higher credentialed program at theinstitution, (3) if it has evidence,information that a student transferred toa higher credentialed program atanother institution, and (4) if theinstitution is unable to report requiredinformation, an explanation of why themissing information is not available.Student Information DatabaseComment: Several commentersquestioned the Department’s ability tocollect data under section 134 of theHEA which prohibits the Departmentfrom developing, implementing, ormaintaining a Federal database ofpersonally identifiable information. Thecommenters claimed that obtainingidentifying information on programcompleters by CIP code and programcompletion date would constitute aviolation of section 134 of the HEA.Some of the commenters suggested thatinstitutions provide only aggregateinformation for individuals by CIP codeand opined that the completion datewas not necessary and should beremoved. These commenters reasonedthat the Department should use existinginformation, such as enrollment andloan repayment data in NSLDS and inany other systems, to determine whenstudents are enrolled or have completedtheir program. Another commenter citedsection 134 of the HEA as a reason whyan institution should not be required toprovide information on private orinstitutional loans.VerDate Mar2010 14:10 Oct 28, 2010 Jkt 223001 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 4701 Sfmt 4700 E:\FR\FM\29OCR2.SGM 29OCR2Because section 134 of the HEAexempts existing systems that areneeded to operate the student aidprograms, some commenters asked theDepartment to clarify which currentsystems would be used to gather theinformation requested under proposed§ 668.6(a). Several of the commentersdid not believe that institutions shouldhave to collect and report informationfor students who completed theirprograms in the past three years andrequested that the information beprospective (students who beginattending a program after July 1, 2011).Discussion: Section 134 of the HEAplaces restrictions on the Department’sability to develop, implement, ormaintain a new database of personallyidentifiable information aboutindividuals attending institutions andreceiving title IV, HEA program funds,including systems that track individualstudents over time. It does not prohibitthe Department from including suchinformation in an existing system that isnecessary for the operation of theFederal student aid programs. In thiscase, the information being reported isalready a part of the information that ismaintained by institutions in theirstudent financial aid and academicrecords, and is subject to complianceand program reviews. Institutionsreporting that students have started orcompleted a program for which thosestudents received title IV, HEA programfunds will augment the existinginformation in the Department’s systemsthat are used to monitor and maintainthe operations for the title IV, HEAprograms. The information is also beingcompiled to create aggregateinformation to evaluate whether aprogram demonstrates that it leads togainful employment for its students,rather than to monitor the individualstudents attending those programs overtime. For those reasons, the reportingand use of this information is notprohibited under the law.Changes: None.Links to O*NetComment: Several commenters agreedit was important to inform students andthe public about possible jobopportunities that could result fromenrolling in a program, but wereconcerned that the proposedrequirement would not serve toaccurately inform students. Some of thecommenters believed that the proposedrequirements might work for someprograms like teaching and nursing.However, for graduate-level programs,like MBAs and PhDs in Psychology,institutions would be required toprovide an unwieldy amount of data.