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

66838 Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 209 / Friday, October 29, 2010 / Rules and RegulationsWReier-Aviles on DSKGBLS3C1PROD with RULES2examined by the IPEDS TechnicalReview Panel (TRP), which is a peerreview panel that includes individualsrepresenting institutions, educationassociations, data users, Stategovernments, the Federal government,and other groups. The TRP meets todiscuss and review IPEDS-related plansand looks at the feasibility and timingof the collection of proposed new items,added institutional burden, and possibleimplementation strategies. After eachmeeting, a meeting report andsuggestions summary is posted to theIPEDS Web site. The postsecondaryeducation community then has 30 daysto submit comments on the meetingreport and summary. After thosecomments are considered, theDepartment requests the Office ofManagement and Budget (OMB) toinclude the changes in the next IPEDSdata collection. This request for formsclearance is required by the PaperworkReduction Act of 1995, as amended. Adescription of the changes and theassociated institutional reportingburden is included in the request whichis then published by OMB as a notice inthe Federal Register, initiating a 60-daypublic comment period. After that, asecond notice is published in theFederal Register, initiating a 30-daypublic comment period. Issues raised bycommenters are resolved, and thenOMB determines whether to grant formsclearance. Only OMB cleared items areadded to the IPEDS data collection.Although we agree with thecommenters that the data maintained orprocesses used by workforce datasystems may vary State by State, andthat the data systems are not availableto all institutions or in all States, wecontinue to believe that these datasystems afford participating institutionsan efficient and accurate way ofobtaining employment outcomeinformation. However, because of Stateto-Statevariances and in response tocomments about how employmentoutcome data translate to a placementrate, NCES will develop the methodsneeded to use State employment data tocalculate placement rates under itsdeliberative process for IPEDS.Until the IPEDS-developed placementrate methodology is implemented, aninstitution that is required by itsaccrediting agency or State to calculatea placement rate, or that otherwisecalculates a placement rate, mustdisclose that rate under the currentprovisions in § 668.41(d)(5). However,under new § 668.6(b), the institutionmust disclose on its Web site andpromotional materials the placementrate for each program that is subject tothe gainful employment provisions ifthat information is available or can bedetermined from institutionalplacement rate calculations.Consequently, to satisfy the newdisclosure requirements, an institutionthat calculates a placement rate for oneor more programs would disclose thatrate under § 668.6(b) by identifying theaccrediting agency or State agencyunder whose requirements the rate wascalculated. Otherwise, if an accreditingagency or State requires an institution tocalculate a placement rate only at theinstitutional level, the institution mustuse the agency or State methodology tocalculate the placement rate for each ofits programs from information it alreadycollects and must disclose the programspecificplacement rates in accordancewith § 668.6(b).Changes: Section 668.6(b) has beenrevised to specify that an institutionmust disclose for each program theplacement rate calculated under amethodology developed by itsaccrediting agency, State, or theNational Center for Education Statistics(NCES). The institution must disclosethe accrediting agency or State-requiredplacement rate beginning on July 1,2011 and must identify the accreditingagency or State agency under whoserequirements the rate was calculated.The NCES-developed placement ratewould have to be disclosed when therates become available.On-Time Completion RateComment: Many commenters askedthe Department to clarify the meaning of‘‘on-time’’ completion rate. Othercommenters assumed that ‘‘on-time’’completion referred to the graduationrate currently calculated under theStudent Right to Know requirements in§ 668.45, or encouraged the Departmentto either (1) adopt the currentrequirements in § 668.45 for gainfulemployment purposes, or (2) use acompletion rate methodology from anaccrediting agency or State, to minimizeconfusion among students and burdenon institutions. One of the commenterssuggested that if the Departmentintended ‘‘on-time’’ to mean 100 percentof normal time for completion, then theproposed rate should be calculated inthe same manner as the completion ratein § 668.45 for normal time andincorporate the exclusions for studentstransferring out of programs and otherexceptions identified in § 668.45(c) and(d). Another commenter opined thatabsent significant enforcement to ensurethat all institutions consistently use thesame definition of ‘‘on-time’’ completionrate, students will be unfairly led tobelieve that institutions who reportconservatively have less favorableVerDate Mar2010 14:10 Oct 28, 2010 Jkt 223001 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 4701 Sfmt 4700 E:\FR\FM\29OCR2.SGM 29OCR2outcomes than institutions who reportaggressively. One commenter cautionedthat it may be misleading to focusheavily on graduation and placementrates, particularly for institutions whosestudents are employed while seeking adegree.A number of commenters supportedthe ‘‘on-time’’ completion requirement,and in general all of the proposeddisclosures, stating that providingoutcome data would allow prospectivestudents to make more informeddecisions. The commenters believedthat better outcome data will help toensure that the taxpayer investment iswell spent, and that students areprotected from programs that overchargeand under-deliver.A commenter stated that under Statelicensing requirements for cosmetologyschools a student must be present,typically for 1,500 hours, to qualify forgraduation and to complete theprogram. Taking attendance andensuring that a student is present forthese hours is typically required. Thecommenter reasoned that for a studentto complete the program ‘‘on-time’’ thestudent could not miss a single day oreven be late for classes as opposed to acredit hour program where a studentdoes not have to attend classes 100percent of the time but will still beconsidered to satisfy the on-timerequirement. To mitigate the differencebetween clock and credit hour programsand account for legitimatecircumstances where a student wouldmiss classes, the commenter suggestedthat the standard for ‘‘on-time’’incorporate the concept of a maximumtimeframe under the satisfactoryacademic progress provisions that allowa student to complete a program at aspecified rate.Discussion: In proposing the on-timecompletion rate requirement, theDepartment intended to include allstudents who started a program todetermine the portion of those studentswho completed the program no laterthan its published length. This approachdiffered significantly in two ways fromthe completion rate under the StudentRight to Know (SRK) provisions in§ 668.45. First, in calculating thecompletion rate the SRK methodologyincludes in the cohort only full-time,first-time undergraduate students, notall students. Second, the SRK rate isbased on 150 percent of normal time,not the actual length of the program.However, in view of the commentssuggesting that we use the SRKmethodology, or a modified version, weexamined whether the cohort ofstudents under SRK could be expandedto include all students and from that,