The U.S. Education Department (ED) on Friday posted its proposed rules for the new Workforce Grant Program.
The public will have 30 days to comment on the rules, starting March 9, when the official Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) is expected to be published in the Federal Register.
The proposed regulations are the product of a week-long negotiated-rulemaking session held in December. At the conclusion of the week, negotiators reached consensus on a draft regulatory package, despite remaining questions around how to calculate and verify placement rates, the timing and structure of calculating the “value-added earnings” measure, and the process for programs to regain eligibility. The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) released a detailed analysis of the agreed-upon regulatory text, including the negotiated changes to the initial ED issue paper.
Because the negotiated-rulemaking committee reached consensus, the department was bound to use the regulatory text agreed to by the negotiators in the NPRM, which, on first inspection, appears to be the case. For each affected regulatory provision, the NPRM lays out what the provision currently says, how ED is proposing to change it and the reasons for that change.
ED may change the proposed regulations based on comments submitted in response to the NPRM. In fact, ED has posed several “directed questions” seeking input on various aspects of the regulations and possible changes to them. Among the topics these questions address are:
- Written arrangements with non-accredited entities to provide a portion of the Workforce Pell program
- Agreements between governors regarding out-of-state students
- A possible interim value-added earnings calculation
- Modification to how cohorts are assembled for the value-added earnings metric
- Whether people who are enrolled in higher education should be included in the earnings calculation
AACC will analyze the NPRM and submit comments on behalf of the sector. The analysis linked to above identifies several topics on which AACC will likely comment. More information on the NPRM and AACC’s positions will be shared early next week.
