Hello and Happy November!

It's that time again! SARA RENEWAL SEASON! At the end of the month all three CU campuses will receive notification that it's time to submit our SARA renewal form and information to our SPE Heather DeLange at CDHE for review and approval for our institutions to continue to participate in SARA and offer education to students online and on‐ground outside of Colorado. We will have 30 days from receipt of the email to submit the information to Ms. Delange. Once, barring any issues of non‐compliance, your campus has been reapproved for participation, the person who submitted the form will receive an invoice. As with previous years, once your campus has paid your SARA invoice, you can contact Kelly Madden with a copy of your invoice and the speedtype it was paid from, and the System office will reimburse your campus. There have been no changes to the SARA renewal form from last year (thank goodness). The document attached to this email is a reminder of the sections and requirements. Additionally, as with previous years, Heather DeLange has asked that we PLEASE include the text from, or copies of, our direct disclosures, and links to our general disclosures as an appendix to the renewal form.

Now, to the new stuff: Admittedly when the most recent round of proposed regulations came out, I set them aside, thinking I'll read through them but they don't necessarily pertain to us in the CU System as it was mostly language around the 90/10 rule and Prison education programs and Pell eligibility. However, after a few conversations with some colleagues at other universities as we started to dig into some of the new language, there are a few sections that pertain to us and our work in state authorization‐land. Specifically, the sections regarding prison education programs and eligibility for Pell and language associated with Borrower Defense.

Erika that's crazy ‐ how in the world do either of those relate to state authorization? Hear me out ‐

Pell Grants for Prison Education Programs

Pell Grants for incarcerated individuals enrolled in qualifying programs was established by Congress through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, which included the end to a ban on providing Pell grants to incarcerated students. These regulations were developed by a negotiated rulemaking committee that reached consensus on the language in Fall 2021.

Part of this language addresses something that we should all be familiar with at this point ‐ education being provided outside of our state and/or in a field that leads to professional licensure. That is, for a program offered to incarcerated individuals and be eligible for Pell, these programs:

• Must satisfy the educational requirements for a license or certification. Such requirements allow students to sit for the licensure examination required to practice or obtain employment in the specific occupation in the state where the state correctional facility is located or, in the case of a federal correctional facility, the state where most of the incarcerated individuals will reside upon release (34 CFR 668.236.(a)(7)).
• Must not have prohibitions on the licensure or employment of formerly incarcerated individuals in the state where the state correctional facility is located or, in the case of the federal correctional facility, the state where most of the incarcerated individuals will reside upon release (34 CFR 668.236 (a)(8)).

Additionally, you're still required to send these individuals the required notifications pertaining to the professional licensure programs as well as notify the individual whether any state for which the institution has made a determination about any state or federal prohibitions on licensure or employment in an occupation for formerly incarcerated individuals (34 CFR 668.43(a)(5)(vi)). Aside from including the language about how you notify the incarcerated individuals per the regulation, should you be offering or are thinking about offering a licensure program that may be Pell eligible, you will need to update your process on determining a student's location to account for how you determine "the state where most of the incarcerated individuals will reside upon release" as required in the federal language.

Borrower Defense (BD) to Repayment

There is a lot (vast understatement) being written about this and the politics leading up to and around it. Generally speaking, BD is coming from the enormous number of instances that have come to light in the last decade surrounding students who began and didn't finish or finished a degree at a shady or now defunct institution and didn't get the bang for the buck they were promised, or the institution engaged in aggressive and/or deceptive recruiting practices, misrepresentation etc. etc. The feds feel that these new regulations strike a balance between creating a process for those that feel they were wronged or harmed and preventative measures to assure these things don't happen again. Most notably these changes and additions all fall under 34 CFR Subpart F  Misrepresentation. I want to highlight two things here.

The definition of a Prospective student and the new section on Omission of Fact.

So first some terrifying language. Under this definition a Prospective student is defined as:

Any individual who has contacted an eligible institution for the purpose of requesting information about enrolling at the institution or who has been contacted directly by the institution or indirectly through advertising about enrolling at the institution.

Yikes right? Maybe not. For BD, there'd be a review on “totality of circumstances” (fancy legal term for the decision being based on all the facts, not just the high level pieces) and since generally speaking BD wouldn't apply without there first being enrollment/distribution of financial aid at some point, and our disclosures are presented prior to admission/enrollment, we would still be in compliance. That is, as one of my friends put it, “...with licensure disclosures needing to occur ‘prior to enrollment’ and needing to be based on location ‘at the time of enrollment’ if a prospective student doesn't ever receive required disclosures but also never enrolls, can a violation have occurred? I'd say probably not since the institution would theoretically still have the opportunity to disclose up until the time of enrollment, which hasn't happened.”

What does this mean for us? Revisit your language around “location” as well as your process for notifying prospective students, make sure that they’re getting the required and accurate information.

Then there's the new section, 668.75 Omission of Fact. The ED defines "omission of fact” as ...a misrepresentation under § 668.71 if a reasonable person would have considered the omitted information in making a decision to enroll or continue attendance at the institution. An omission of fact includes, but is not limited to, the concealment, suppression, or absence of material information or statement concerning... our academic programs. Specifically, the ED calls out something very particular to our roles at our institutions. That is, 668.75 (d):

The factors that would prevent an applicant from meeting the legal or other requirements to be employed, licensed, or certified in the field for which the training is provided because the academic, professional, or occupational degree or credential that the institution will confer upon completion of the course of study has not been authorized by the appropriate State educational or licensure agency, or requires specialized accreditation that the institution does not have.

What does this mean ‐ In terms of BD, if we fail to alert the student that the education we're providing doesn't meet the requirements of the state where they are located while they are enrolled and the student can show proof of this, our institution would be liable for the cost of that education.

There are a few other sections in 668.74 (Employability of Graduates) that would be worth chatting with folks in the licensure programs and IR about (i.e. publishing actual licensure passage rates), and requiring an institution to have the “appropriate state authorization” to deliver programs is echoed in each sections (all the more reason to get a jump on that SARA renewal) but overall it really points back to making sure the language you are publishing about your licensure programs is accurate and up to date and that you have a documented process that details how and when this is done.

You can read the entire release and reasoning here: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR‐2022‐11‐01/pdf/2022‐ 23447.pdf

The effective date for these regulations is July 1, 2023.

Questions, concerns? Please feel free to give me a call or send an email if you need some assistance with this! Anddon't forget to turn it in before you run away for break/vacation!
Erika

Erika G. Swain
Associate Director for State Authorization
Office of Academic Affairs
University of Colorado System
e: swaine@cu.edu
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Assistant Director for Compliance and Authorization
Office of Data Analytics | Office of Institutional Research
University of Colorado Boulder
e: Erika.Swain@colorado.edu
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o: (303) 735‐8184
c: (518) 637‐9785

“Today I will be a Bulgarian Minister of Education,” Bokonon tells us. “Tomorrow I will be Helen of Troy.” – Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle