[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 222 (Wednesday, November 18, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 72052-72055]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-29437]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Notice Expanding an Experiment 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.
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ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: The Secretary is expanding the Competency-Based Education
experiment, which was announced in a previous Federal Register notice,
to provide additional flexibility in how institutions provide Federal
student aid to students who are enrolled in competency-based education
programs, including providing waivers and modifications to statutory
and regulatory requirements designed to support competency-based
education programs that charge a flat fee for a period of time rather
than charging by course or by competency. The expansion of the
Competency-Based Education experiment provides two additional sets of
waivers that are available to both institutions currently approved for
the experiment and institutions that may be approved based on their
submission of a letter of interest. These sets of waivers are described
in this notice below, under ``The Experiment.''
In a Federal Register notice published on July 31, 2014, the
Secretary invited postsecondary educational institutions (institutions)
that participate in the student financial assistance programs
authorized under title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as
amended (HEA), to apply to participate in institutionally-based
experiments, including the Competency-Based Education experiment, under
the Experimental Sites Initiative (ESI).
DATES: Institutions that have not already received approval to
participate in the Competency-Based Education experiment must submit a
letter of interest following the instructions included in this notice.
Letters of interest must be received by the Department no later than
January 19, 2016 in order for an institution to receive priority to be
considered for participation in the experiment. Letters received after
January 19, 2016 may still, at the discretion of the Secretary, be
considered for participation.
The Department will contact those institutions that have already
received approval to participate in the Competency-Based Education
experiment to determine which of the three sets of waivers, discussed
below in the ``The Experiment'' section of this notice, the institution
wishes to apply to their competency-based education programs. Based
upon each institution's response, the Department will amend the
institution's Program Participation Agreement (PPA) to reflect the
specific waivers and modifications to statutory or regulatory
provisions included in the set of waivers chosen by the institution.
ADDRESSES: Letters of interest must be submitted by electronic mail to
the following email address: [email protected]. The subject line
of the email should read ``ESI 2015--Competency-Based Education.'' For
formats 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: [email protected].
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 for the Competency-Based Education experiment
should take the form of a PDF attachment to an email message as
described in the ADDRESSES section of this notice. The letter of
interest should be on institutional letterhead and be signed by at
least two officials of the institution--one of these officials should
be the institution's financial aid administrator, and the other should
be an academic official of the institution who is familiar with the
institution's competency-based educational programs. The letter of
interest must include the institution's official name and Department of
Education Office of Postsecondary Education Identification (OPEID), as
well as a mailing address, email address, FAX number, and telephone
number of a contact person at the institution. The letter should
indicate which of the three sets of waivers, discussed below in the
``The Experiment'' section of this notice, the institution wishes to
apply to their competency-based education programs.
Background
The Secretary, under the Experimental Sites Initiative (ESI)
authority of section 487A(b) of the HEA, published a Federal Register
notice (79 FR 44429) dated July 31, 2014 (July 31, 2014, notice),
inviting institutions to participate in four experiments that would
waive certain statutory and regulatory requirements related to the
title IV, HEA programs. One of those experiments was the Competency-
Based Education experiment.
Under the Competency-Based Education experiment, the Secretary
provided limited waivers of certain statutory and regulatory
requirements to remove some of the time-based restrictions to the
disbursement of student assistance under title IV of the HEA (title IV
aid) so that funds are available to a student to pay institutional
charges as the student progresses through a program at the student's
own pace. Specifically, the Secretary allowed for the disbursement of
title IV aid for direct costs as soon as the student completed a
required number of competencies, regardless of how many weeks of
instructional time have elapsed, and for disbursement of title IV aid
for indirect costs at regular calendar intervals, regardless of how
many competencies the student had completed, all within award maximums.
The Secretary also modified the requirements for monitoring
satisfactory academic progress to permit institutions to evaluate a
student's pace in a competency-based education program by calculating
competencies completed over calendar time, rather than by dividing the
hours the student completed by the hours the student attempted.
Detailed information regarding these requirements is provided in the
Competency-Based Education Experiment Reference Guide, which is
available at: https://experimentalsites.ed.gov/exp/guidance.html.
In the July 31, 2014, notice, the Secretary described the
application, selection, reporting, and evaluation requirements for the
Competency-Based Education experiment. All of those requirements remain
in effect regardless of which set of waivers, as described in this
notice, is chosen by an institution.
Since the publication of the July 31, 2014, notice, the Department
has learned that there are challenges associated with the waivers
discussed in that notice for institutions that charge students who are
enrolled in competency-based programs a set amount for a defined period
of time, as opposed to charging an amount for each competency. This is
often referred to as a ``subscription period model.'' Some institutions
have suggested that financial aid for programs that charge using
subscription periods rather than by competency can be administered more
effectively by using term-based disbursements, with flexibilities to
allow students to begin and complete their competencies outside of the
start and end dates of terms, rather than using a nonterm model as
described in the July 31, 2014, notice.
Other institutions stated that they were primarily interested in
the satisfactory academic progress waivers
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noted in the July 31, 2014, notice and did not need the full set of
waivers included in that notice.
Selection
For institutions that, in response to this notice, submit letters
of interest for the Competency-Based Education experiment, the
Secretary's process for selecting participating institutions will
remain the same as was described in the July 31, 2014, notice.
The Experiment
Background
The Department's regulations at 34 CFR 668.4(a) and (b) describe
requirements for payment periods for eligible programs that measure
progress in credit hours and use standard or nonstandard terms. A term
is a period during which all classes are scheduled to begin and end
within a set timeframe.
The Department's regulations for satisfactory academic progress at
34 CFR 668.34 require institutions to measure a student's progress at
least once annually, though an institution is permitted to check more
often. Those regulations also require an institution to determine a
student's academic progress pace by dividing the cumulative number of
hours the student has successfully completed by the cumulative number
of hours the student has attempted.
Some institutions offering competency-based programs charge
students using ``subscription periods,'' in which the institution
charges the student a single fee for all of the student's competency-
based instruction during each subscription period. In some instances,
students begin and complete a subscription period within the dates of
the term. However, because competency-based programs are generally
self-paced, the requirement under a term-based program that coursework
must begin and end within the timeframe of the term is often a
significant impediment to the students enrolled in such programs.
Description
In response to the above, the Secretary is expanding the current
Competency-Based Education experiment to provide two additional sets of
statutory and regulatory waivers. Institutions must choose a single set
of waivers from among the three sets available that will apply to all
of the competency-based education programs that it includes under the
experiment. The sets of waivers are as follows:
(1) Split Disbursement: This set of waivers includes all of the
disbursement, satisfactory academic progress, and Return of Title IV
Funds waivers described in the July 31, 2014, notice and explained in
the Competency-Based Education Experiment Reference Guide.
(2) Satisfactory Academic Progress Only: A second set of waivers
will include only the waivers to the satisfactory academic progress
requirements described in the July 31, 2014, notice and explained in
the Competency-Based Education Experiment Reference Guide.
(3) Subscription Period Disbursement: The third set of waivers is
intended for institutions offering competency-based programs using
subscription periods and is described below.
Under the Subscription Period Disbursement set of waivers, the
institution may include in its determination of a student's enrollment
status competencies that begin prior to the start of the subscription
period, as long as it does not include those competencies in enrollment
status for two different payment periods. Institutions will disburse
title IV aid based on the student's anticipated enrollment for a
subscription period (which is equivalent to a payment period) rather
than requiring completion of a specific number of competencies prior to
making subsequent disbursements of title IV aid. While an institution
will determine a student's title IV aid amounts based on the student's
anticipated enrollment status, the institution will be required to
perform a satisfactory academic progress evaluation for the student at
the end of each subscription period (payment period) to ensure that the
student has completed the appropriate number of competencies in that
payment period, given the student's enrollment status.
Program Eligibility: An institution participating in the
Competency-Based Education experiment could choose to use the
Subscription Period Disbursement set of waivers only if it charges
students in a competency-based education program using subscription
periods, as described above.
Payment Periods: Subscription periods under this set of waivers
will be considered to be term-based payment periods, as payment periods
are defined under 34 CFR 668.4(a) and (b). Institutions disbursing
under this set of waivers will generally follow existing rules for
standard and nonstandard terms, as appropriate, except that nonstandard
terms that are not substantially equal will have the same payment
periods for Direct Loans as they do for Pell Grants, with similar
proration based on the length of the payment period.
Enrollment Status: For each payment period, students will be
assigned by the institution an enrollment status (full-time, half-time,
three-quarter time, less than half-time) based on the student's
expected enrollment in and completion of competencies for the payment
period. After consulting with the student, the institution will
determine the student's enrollment status based on a realistic
assessment by the institution of the number of competencies that the
student will complete during the payment period. However, unlike under
existing regulations for standard and nonstandard term programs, an
institution will not be permitted to count a unique competency or
course toward a student's enrollment status for more than one payment
period.
In addition, under this set of waivers, a student's enrollment
status may not be changed for title IV purposes once it has been
established for the payment period, except that an institution must
increase a student's enrollment status to reflect any competencies
completed by the student during the payment period that were not
originally assigned to that payment period or to a previous payment
period. If the additional competencies that were completed in the
payment period were expected to be completed in a subsequent payment
period(s), an adjustment to the student's enrollment status for that
subsequent payment period(s) is required.
For Pell Grant purposes, students will still be required to begin
working on at least the number of competencies used in the
determination of the student's enrollment status for each payment
period. Therefore, to use this set of waivers, an institution must have
a mechanism for determining that a student has been participating in a
competency during a payment period.
Satisfactory Academic Progress: As in the Split Disbursement set of
waivers, the Subscription Period Disbursement set of waivers will
modify the statutory and regulatory requirements for monitoring
satisfactory academic progress so that an institution will be required
to evaluate a student's pace by using competencies completed over
calendar time, rather than by dividing a student's completed credit
hours by attempted credit hours. However, two additional requirements
will be added for institutions using Subscription Period Disbursement.
First, the institution must evaluate a student's satisfactory
academic progress after every subscription period (payment period),
rather than at least once annually, even if the program is more than
one academic year in length.
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Second, the institution must evaluate a student's pace using two
separate measures:
(1) The student's progress for the payment period immediately prior
to the evaluation, calculated using the number of credit hours or
equivalents completed over the number of credit hours or equivalents
included in the student's enrollment status for that payment period;
and
(2) The student's cumulative rate of progress, calculated by
dividing the aggregate number of credit hours or equivalents completed
as of the end of the payment period by the total number of credit hours
or equivalents expected to be completed as of the end of that payment
period in order for the student to complete the program within the
maximum timeframe. The maximum timeframe is based on the published
length of the program, expressed in calendar time (i.e., weeks, months,
years).
To make satisfactory academic progress under the payment period
measure, a student must complete the minimum number of credit hours or
equivalents associated with the enrollment status that was assigned to
the student for the payment period under review. For example, if an
institution's definition of a ``full-time academic workload'' in a
competency-based education program is 12 semester hours and a student
enrolled in that program is assigned a full-time enrollment status in a
payment period, the student would need to complete competencies with an
equivalent of at least 12 semester hours in that payment period to make
satisfactory academic progress. Similarly, if a student in the same
program is assigned a half-time enrollment status in a payment period,
the student would need to complete at least 6 semester hours in that
payment period in order to make satisfactory academic progress.
For its evaluation of a student's cumulative rate of progress, the
institution could use different standards for students on different
enrollment tracks--for example, there could be a different maximum
timeframe for a student on a half-time enrollment track, for whom the
normal time for completion of the program is longer than for a student
on a full-time enrollment track.
If a student fails either of the two satisfactory academic progress
evaluations, the student will have failed to make satisfactory academic
progress and will, based on the institution's satisfactory academic
progress policies, either be assigned to a financial aid warning period
or immediately lose eligibility for title IV funds. Institutions will
have the same flexibility to establish options for appeals, probation
periods, and academic plans as they do under the current regulations.
Return of title IV Funds (R2T4): Under the Subscription Period
Disbursement set of waivers, R2T4 calculations will be required, and
will follow the normal requirements under 34 CFR 668.22 when a student
withdraws.
Waivers
For all of the competency-based education programs that it offers
under the experiment, the institution must select one of the following
sets of waivers.
(1) Split Disbursement:
This set of waivers was described in the July 31, 2014,
notice and explained in the Competency-Based Education Experiment
Reference Guide.
(2) Satisfactory Academic Progress Only:
This set of waivers includes only the waivers to the
satisfactory academic progress requirements described in the July 31,
2014, notice and explained in the Competency-Based Education Experiment
Reference Guide.
(3) Subscription Period Disbursement:
34 CFR 668.4(a), to the extent that the regulation
requires the coursework undertaken within a standard term or a
nonstandard term to begin within the term start and end dates.
34 CFR 668.4(b), to the extent that the regulation
requires the coursework undertaken within a nonstandard term to begin
within the term start and end dates.
HEA section 484(c) and 34 CFR 668.34(a)(3)(ii),
(a)(5)(ii), and (b), related to the timeframe when the institution must
determine whether a student is making satisfactory academic progress
and the method by which an institution must calculate the pace of a
student's academic progression.
34 CFR 685.303(d)(5), to the extent that the regulations
provide that Direct Loan proceeds must be disbursed in substantially
equal installments. The modification will require the institution to
make disbursements of Direct Loan funds in accordance with the
provisions of the Pell Grant program under the same rules used in the
calculation of disbursement amounts in the Pell Grant program under 34
CFR 690.63.
34 CFR 690.80(b)(2)(i), which permits an institution to
recalculate a student's enrollment status during a payment period after
the student has begun all of the coursework for the payment period.
All other provisions and regulations of the title IV student
assistance programs will remain in effect.
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 Adobe 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.
Delegation of Authority: The Secretary of Education has delegated
authority to Jamienne S. Studley, Deputy Under Secretary, to perform
the functions and duties of the Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary
Education.
Program Authority: HEA, section 487A(b); 20 U.S.C. 1094a(b).
Dated: November 13, 2015.
Jamienne S. Studley,
Deputy Under Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2015-29437 Filed 11-17-15; 8:45 am]
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