Washington Update: Implications of the 2024 Elections on Higher Ed — Part 2:

Changing Higher Ed® podcast 238 with host Dr. Drumm McNaughton and guest Tom Netting

Transcript: Changing Higher Ed Podcast 238

[00:30:00] Introduction

Drumm McNaughton: Today we welcome back Tom Netting, president of TEN Government Strategies. Join us in progress for part two of the Washington update. Tom, welcome back to the show for part two

Tom Netting: It’s good to be back for part two. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to close some of the other, uh, loops that we were talking about.

Drumm McNaughton: Oh, and we were in a lot of loops. I felt like we were on a merry-go-round or Ferris wheel from time to time.

Tom Netting: Welcome to my world. That’s DC in a nutshell.

Drumm McNaughton: Oh, I don’t wanna go there with that.

[00:30:35] Tom Netting’s Background and Career

Drumm McNaughton: We wrapped up the NIST stuff, but the benefit for folks that weren’t able to join us for part one, little bit of background on yourself you’ve been doing this for thirty five years. What you start when you were ten?

Tom Netting: Yeah, 10. There you go. I’ll take that one, Drumm. We’ll take that as opposed to the 57 years young. My background is, it’d been higher ed policy all of my professional career. As I shared with you on the previous podcast, I started with accreditation. and what was at that time the National Association of Trade and Technical Schools, one of the national trade and tech, accrediting bodies.

Drumm McNaughton: Definitely dating yourself.

Tom Netting: Yeah, it’s considering that organization has gone through at least three or four name changes subsequent to that, but now part of the overall accreditation umbrella since we’ve taken regional and national out of the equation, but also worked for Senator Hollings for a brief time prior to that up on Capitol Hill, but I spent my entire professional career in higher ed policy. And accreditation, then working within school groups, and then advocating for students, schools, and the community, and leading to workforce education, for now well over 30 years.

Drumm McNaughton: Workforce education. Workforce versus labor. Republican democrat. You know, “mox nix”.

Tom Netting: There you go. Tomato, tomato. Potato, potato. The reality is that, , we’re all leading towards education that is viable for the career paths of individuals, and that’s what I’m all about.

Drumm McNaughton: Absolutely. We’ve known each other for quite a while now, and that really sums you up. It’s all about the student, it’s about good outcomes.

Tom Netting: Thank you. I, put that on my epitaph. I’d, I’d, I’d love for that to be the closing remark.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, we can make the closing remark on all of our podcasts when I finally retire, which, , who knows when that’s going to happen? , it’s interesting. I ask many guests the last question. What’s next for you? I’ve never had anybody announce their retirement on the show. I think they’re waiting for me to announce mine.

Tom Netting: Well, as a friend of yours, I hope that day never comes, but if you ever have the inkling and you want somebody to be, hopefully, a verbal sendoff to that is a becoming of all of what you’ve done, give me a shot.

Drumm McNaughton: I would be honored to do so, my friend.

Tom Netting: Likewise.

Drumm McNaughton: So let’s jump back in here.

[00:32:56] Current Political Landscape

Drumm McNaughton: We were talking about NIST. We were talking about a lot of the changes we’re anticipating in the Department with the new Secretary, et cetera. The other side of Capitol Hill or the, what is it, the Mall, is Congress. A lot of changes going on. You’ve got both houses, the Republicans own both, although they’re not going to have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, which may or may not be a good thing. What do you see as some of the big changes that we can anticipate?

Tom Netting: A lot of meat on that bone, kind of like what we talked about, when we departed the last time, lots of things yet to talk about. So I appreciate the opportunity to talk about these. Yeah, Drumm, you’re absolutely right. The other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, there are both chambers of Congress are now in the hands of the Republicans, or will become the 119th congress.

[00:33:45] Changes in Congress and Committees

Tom Netting: As a lobbyist for education policy, but also labor, that workforce initiative side of the world, there are a number of committees that I was watching throughout election night not so much necessarily just for the swing in the balance of power potentially in the Senate versus the maintenance of power or swing of power in the House, but also the makeup of a number of the committees that have jurisdiction over the issues important to students, schools, and employers of higher education individuals. So I spent a lot of time watching both the Senate and the House education committees. The Veterans Committees, because again, our nation’s veterans, in large form, use their education benefits, and then also the appropriations for where the dollars are.

Let’s be honest, the increases in Pell Grants are coming through the Appropriations Committee as well as a lot of other funding, interest rates for student loans and the like. And so certainly we all now know that the outcome of the elections are that the Republicans did take control of the Senate. Out of the 34 seats that were up enough of them flipped, including the flip in the state of Pennsylvania with Bob Casey losing his bid for reelection to Dave McCormick, which has implications for the Senate health committee, I’ll talk about here in a second. But I tracked all 34 of those and then the number of the House races that had implications again for those committees. Both chambers will be controlled on the 119th by the Republican Party. Within those committees, the structures are important as well. As I said, on the Education Committee, Senate Health, Education, and Labor, and then the Education and the Workforce Committee in the House.

On the Senate side, Bob Casey, lost his bid, as I said a moment ago, and with the shift, you’re now going to see incoming Chairman Bill Cassidy from Louisiana and Bernie Sanders flip to the ranking member. You’re also likely to see one additional probably Republican member added to the list of the ranks of the Republicans on the committee, the balance of the committee is determined by the balance of the overall body. And even with the one loss that would bring them up to an equivalent number, to give the Republicans a majority, they’re probably going to add one new member to the list of individuals that are already on that committee. We’ll obviously all be paying attention to see who that new Republican addition is, and if there’s any changes in terms of individuals leaving the committee. I don’t think there will be, but , again, something to be watching for in January.

Drumm McNaughton: With Bernie Sanders stepping down from the chair to the leading position, what changes do you see are going to happen under Cassidy?

Tom Netting: Well, again, a lot of this is up to what the Republican overall platform is. Mr. Cassidy has been heavily laden with focus on health care issues. So, again, this committee covers such a wide berth and depth and breadth of issues, it remains to be seen where they’ll go within education.

[00:36:36] Higher Education Policy and Accreditation

Tom Netting: Candidly, Mr. Sanders, like Mr. Cassidy, spent a lot of time in the previous four years and in their previous, two years, as the chair and ranking member reversed, on healthcare policy and on workforce, with very little on HEA, meaning true higher education policy.You have to keep in mind, one of the things that all of us in higher education are waiting for is a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The last time it was reauthorized was in 2008.

Drumm McNaughton: I think we’re going to see a gravestone before that happens.

Tom Netting: I’m not so sure, Drumm. I do I do believe that we’ve gotten to the point where they, all of Congress recognize that they’ve got to bring some of this back up to current day. Especially, I’m going to say this out loud, with AI in particular, and all of the changes that are happening in the modalities and the choices in delivery of education, I think that they’re going to, yet again, need to try and play catch up like they did when they developed the Distance Education Demonstration Program.

Drumm McNaughton: And I think this, I’m guessing, speculating, , an outside looking in kind of person. I think if the HEA was reauthorized and brought up to date, we would see far less of the NPRM, the notice for public rulemaking being done. Is that a fair statement?

Tom Netting: I think so. Again, I think one of the things that Congress has learned from this hiatus is the fact that in the vacuum of space of a reauthorization and Congress taking its legislative action, the regulatory body fulfills the need as best they can by either administration. So we’ve had a lot of higher ed policy through fiat.

And what I mean by that is nothing disingenuous, it’s in the vacuum that was created because there wasn’t any new legislation, the regulators attempted to fill the void. And again, with different administrations came different aspects and different desires on how to fill that void.

Drumm McNaughton: Mm hmm. And this is when we start to get into the Chevron doctrine, et cetera.

Tom Netting: Right, and again, some of this is going to come back to the way in which the committees and what the Republicans, now in control of both, like you said, while not a, super majority, which prevents, overriding of vetoes and things of that nature, the fact that they control both bodies and the fact that there are a number of seats on the committees that are going to change. You have Elise Stefanik from the House Education Committee who has been appointed to potentially be the ambassador to the United Nations. You had two Republicans that lost their bids for re election in the House. And a third, Michelle Steele, who I think lost as well, so that would be three and two that ran for other offices. But you also have four individuals on the Democratic side of the committee, that either lost re election bids or went on to try and run for other offices. So, , committee structures are going to make a difference. Policy planks are going to make a difference. Directives from the President, as we, kind of, talked about briefly, and we’ll talk about, I think, a little bit more later in today’s podcast, will play into this. I think that, , there are some key topics, accreditation being one of those, something I know you and I talk and spend a lot of time offline talking about. Outcomes and the measurement and the assessment, similar to what we talked about in the previous podcast. If higher ed Institutions are being asked how to judge a return on investment in ROI, earnings is the clear way that both Congress and administrations on both sides, Trump, as well as Biden, Harris, have said that they want to be one of the metrics. But how that metric is assessed is important, and I think that’s one of the things that, yet again, both Congress as well as the regulatory body are going to be looking at moving forward.

Drumm McNaughton: That makes a lot of sense. What about the house side?

Tom Netting: That’s what I was alluding to. On the House side, again, you’ve got, four individuals on the Democratic side of the aisle that, are, are leaving Ms. Weill from Pennsylvania, Mr. Sablan from the Northern Marietta Islands. Interestingly enough, this is, one of those small, idyllic facts that wonks like me track. But all of the, islands individuals are now Republican for the first time in recorded history. Normally, It splits Democratic and Republican, but over on the Republican side, you’ve got on the committee itself, you have a total of six individuals that are moving off of the committee. That literally brings the ranks and the numbers back up to even.

As will always be the case, we’ll see new freshman numbers added to that committee, and we’ll see what objectives and what personalities they bring to the committee. Most importantly, and I stave this to last because it’s the most important and I hope that people stick around for it, is the reality that Chairwoman Fox is retiring and turned out as being the chair of the committee.

There is now a race, a true internal Republican committee caucus race, To see who will succeed her as the next chair. And according to the pundants, it’s a three horse race between Joe Wilson from South Carolina as well as Tim Wahlberg from Michigan and also, Burgess Owens from Utah. And I gave those names in order of seniority within the committee right now.

Many people believe it’s a two horse race though between Tim Wahlberg and Burgess Owens. We will wait to see what the caucus comes up with when they get together in January, and who comes out being the new chair.

Drumm McNaughton: That will be very interesting. Here’s a piece of trivia for you. When you said Northern Marianas Islands, I spent four years out on Guam.

Tom Netting: Well, there you go.

Drumm McNaughton: I understand it.

Tom Netting: Wow. Well, Mr. Sablan was there for quite a while. And then unfortunately, he was, unseated from his opportunity to return. I say unfortunately, only because again, , he was another individual that spent a lot of time on the committee and voiced a lot of concern for the constituencies that he had. I’m sure the new elect will, will do the same. Mr. Gonzalez, as I believe.

Drumm McNaughton: I’m sure. The Guam politics is some of the most interesting that I have ever seen, but in fact, the mainland politics have definitely got caught up to it. So regulations, anything else in Congress we need to think about.

Tom Netting: Just , a couple of just real quick hitters for you because I was tracking them. Think of the fact that on the Democratic side of the aisle for the Veterans Affairs Committee, four members did not return. Joe Manson, Kyrsten Sinema, Sherrod Brown, along with John Tester, as the chair of the committee, none of them are returning. So as the Republicans take control, you’ll probably see, basically, the remaining members on the Senate side stay. Nothing really changes on the house committee for veterans affairs. But the other key thing to watch is on appropriations once again. In the Senate, you have four individuals from the Senate appropriations committee leaving, three Democrats and one Republican. You have, once again, John Tester, who was defeated, Manchin, who retired, and Sinema, who retired from the Democratic side, and Marco Rubio, who served on the Appropriations Committee, has been tapped by the President elect to be Secretary of State, which means, again, now a Republican on the committee is leaving as well.

Over on the House side, one last set of tracking. As you look at the changes to a Republican held House Appropriations Committee, you have no less than, seven individuals on the Democratic side of the aisle that are departing for one reason or another, and four on the Republican side. So while the Republicans still retain control, there’ll probably be a number of additions for the most plum committee, the most esteemed A-list committee, which is appropriations. The golden rule, he has the gold sets the rule, by some people’s estimation. So we’ll be watching very carefully on who is added to the appropriations committees as well. This all in turn, Drumm, goes back to your original question with Congress. These are the individuals and these are the committees that are going to be looking at major policy decisions. Everything from the reconciliation bills that will be forthcoming before we even potentially get done with this Congress, which is ways to find savings, normally through cuts and protecting whether those cuts do or don’t come from all committees, including education and things that we care about or are concerned about. And then obviously the policy concerns protecting our veterans access to higher education, protecting all of higher education and policy through the education committees, and then financing those through the appropriations committees.

Drumm McNaughton: So if there were three takeaways about all the changes in Congress, what would they be?

Tom Netting: The three quick takeaways are; stay tuned for the leadership because that will set the tone and the tenor. But we do know that a lot of this will come from the new President Elect. There will be considerable discussions around accreditation and around outcomes. So that’s takeaway number two. So be prepared to start to have discussions regardless of what institution you’re a part of. In terms of outcomes measures and how the return on investment for all of education, not just portions of education, is assessed. And last but not least the one that I’ll touch on that I hadn’t touched on previously is all of Congress is aware that we are getting to the point where student loan repayments are going to become due, and how that whole process is undertaken by both Congress as well as by the new incoming administration is going to be something that I think you’re going to be hearing quite a bit about in 2025.

Drumm McNaughton: Absolutely. One question.

Tom Netting: Only one?

Drumm McNaughton: Only one. Given the recent attention, and especially workforce development, things along those lines, is liberal education dead?

Tom Netting: No, I don’t think liberal education will ever be dead. Will it have to go through maybe some transformation or maybe even some growing pains in some of its delivery or some of what all is included in liberal arts education? Yeah, probably. But no, I don’t think that there will ever be the, the death of liberal arts education.

I do think that some of the benefits of that have been afforded individuals in liberal arts education are going to be more directly addressed. That includes, on the good side, Drumm, things like the recognition that there is still a place for public service loan forgiveness for specific types of professions and vocations that we know are never going to necessarily provide the most robust of incomes, but serve a purpose for our communities.

But some of the ways in which those are delivered, some of the manners in which they are reviewed, I do think are going to be subject to additional review, as will all of higher education.You and I have had this discussion before and I’ll say it to your, your listenership, education’s changing and the reality is it’s hard pressed to walk away from the comfort that bricks and mortar, and the way in which education delivery has been done in the past. The pandemic showed us that hybrid education can work. There have certainly been longstanding areas where distance education and true virtual education, be that synchronous or asynchronous, has been a part of changing the ways in which individuals seek an education, and I think you’re going to see more of that, and again, as I’ve said before, I am not certainly an expert by any means on AI, but artificial intelligence is going to play a role in that moving forward from everything I’m seeing moving forward as well.

Drumm McNaughton: Absolutely. So, thank you. That’s, that was very important and very good. Shifting horses again.

[00:48:32] Regulations and Executive Orders

Drumm McNaughton: Regulations, courts, and executive orders. With the courts, we really don’t know what’s going to happen, although we talked about having two branches of the government controlled by the conservatives. We talked about Congress, we talked about the Presidency.

Really, the Supreme Court is controlled by the conservatives as well.

Tom Netting: That’s correct. And I think you need to look at probably the regulations in several buckets or silos, if you will. you have the first silo, which are the regulations that have become final. That includes everything from borrower defense to repayment, to changes to the 90-10 rule for proprietary education, the broader issues of eligibility around the financial value, transparency, and gainful employment rules, that are all regulations. Those are promulgated regs.

Drumm McNaughton: Mm hmm.

Tom Netting: I think you’re going to see some attempts to revise those. I don’t think that, once again, they’re going away. Part of that is because the notion, coming back to outcomes again,the ability for all institutions and all programs to potentially show their ROI, through a look at assessment of, in part, not in total, but in part, on the earnings post graduation at some point in time has become so embedded in the culture of both Capitol Hill as well as the Department of Ed, I don’t see it being pulled out in its entirety. You look at the very nature of it, as we said in the previous podcast, that there was just the raising the bar initiative by the Biden Harris administration that attempted to put forward the opportunity for exemplary schools based on the return on investment between the debt and the earnings post graduation, 10 years post graduation with recognition and reflection on the type of students that those institutions served, i. e. a recognition of socioeconomic challenges based on Pell Grant eligibility and developed a whole set of metrics, using very much the same dynamics as the gainful employment rule, but with those changes , very key changes, in terms of time of assessment for three years versus ten, recognition for population served in one, but not in the other, and the inclusion of all sectors in the eligibility, but not in the raising the bar program. So, long winded way of saying, and I’m sorry, thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a little bit verbose, but it’s to a meaning. I think that the record of, and the outcomes, and then the ability for creditors to assess that under those silos are going to be things that are going to be changed, but they’re not going to go away.

You have several areas that were the second silo, if you will, of the regulations that were proposed and went all the way through the process up to notices of proposed rulemaking, one step short of final rules, that I don’t think are going to make it across the proverbial finish line. Those included the changes that the Biden Harris administration were looking at in terms of assessment and student borrower relief. Direct relief based on assessments by the Department of Education, through either complaints or other assessments, and the six areas of regulatory reform that were part of the Program Integrity and Institutional Quality NEGREG, three of which had NPRMs, those included TRIO programs and additional financing for TRIO, as well as distance education and some issues there, and R2 T4, those were the three that made it through the NPRM process but never were posted as a final rule, but yet could be even before the end of this administration.

And then the other three that were tabled for 2025 that included cash management, accreditation, and state authorization. Major, major issues, which we’ve talked about in your prior podcast, that had significant proposed changes in them that now I think will certainly not be pursued by the incoming administration, meaning that they’re very likely.

The third silo are those that are also outside of title four, but that are also things that people will be looking at. That includes Title IX, which although outside of Title IV is a huge issue embroiled in both litigation, but also a hell of a lot of regulatory confusion right now, because of the litigation and also the student loan issues regarding repayment and the ways in which repayment are done. So I put it in those three different silos in my thought process.

Drumm McNaughton: And that makes perfect sense because the Title IV and the Title IX are huge issues right now, that Title IX is before the courts in many different jurisdictions. One of the things that I have read is that, as far as the accreditation goes, and this came out in a, newsletter from Politico today, that they’re talking about barring accreditors from requiring colleges, it’s here to DEI standards, and it’s five of the six, quote, former regional accreditors have this, the only one that does not have a DEI implication standards is SACCOC. That’s going to be a major change if that comes out. The other thing that people are really concerned about is academic freedom. Faculty look at this as this is just the Republican, the conservative’s way of stemming what we can say, rightly, wrongly, I’m not making any judgments here about it, but these DEI standards and academic freedom are two big things that people in higher ed are concerned about.

Tom Netting: Yeah. And, and I think that those stem from a number of things. The culture wars, as some people call it, in both elementary and secondary, as well as higher education. I certainly think that the unfortunate war in the West Banks plays into this, and the questions of how schools deal with anti Semitism, and the issues around, politically and political environment, on issues such as that.

And again, these are all things that I query whether or not accreditation is the place where a lot of this should necessarily fall in terms of oversight, because quite honestly, last time I checked, accreditation was supposed to be about the academics delivered by institutions. The triad has certainly gone far afield from that in the role of accreditors, in my opinion. And again, I’ll say that, just in my opinion, but I think there are a lot of people that share that opinion with me, including a lot of those accreditors that are overseen. You look at the role of Niseki as the oversight body of the accreditors themselves. Certainly that body has changed a lot of their standards and their process of review and what they look at in their reviews.

So accreditation is going through a great deal of upheaval as well, and I do believe that will certainly continue asthe President Elect has talked about accreditation. You’ve seen on both sides of the aisle in Congress, legislation being proposed that looks at changing of the roles and responsibilities of accreditors.

So yeah, Drumm, long winded way of saying, as I’m somewhat wanting to do, that accreditation is yet again going to be something that I think we’re all going to have to be monitoring to see how the external entities view accreditation, how they expect it to operate into the future. And then the trickle down, not a small trickle, but a flood of what then could happen from the accreditors in the oversight of institutions,

Drumm McNaughton: I think the only way that this one’s going to get solved is by a reauthorization of the HEA. Wrapping up, executive orders, immigration is one that is on everyone’s mind because higher ed uses immigration to be able to bridge shortfalls in tuition.

Tom Netting: Yes. And I think that’s going to be something that moves forward as part of this process, and I think that there are going to be several executive orders that may be forthcoming. You certainly, I think, could see one on this issue. Going back to the aforementioned Title IX because of the chaos around Title IX, on both the issues of 26 states having a blockade, 24 states having the new regulations in place.

And what I didn’t touch on, as much, but I’ll touch on here, is it’s either going to be executive orders or action or a lack of action on several of the other regulatory packages that are still sitting out there. I talked about the gainful employment rules, that’s going through litigation. The 150 percent rule as it’s called is going through that process as well. That is a separate area of the regulations that states that if an institution provides certificates or diplomas that are directly a length of program established by state law the number of clock hours is the only amount of education that can be provided with no additional time for any reason. That is being challenged in the courts. As I said before the lending communities and the actual entities involved in the administration of student aid, including Mojillo, but a large group beyond Mojillo. Mojillo is just seems to be the target of a lot of that because of their references to the state legislative body, with regard to student lending.

All of those are additional things that are yet to be determined on how the President Elect is going to either use executive orders or use the Department of Justice to either move ahead or pull back from those issues.

Again, he could very well tell the Department of Justice to stand down on some of these various types of borrower defense, gainful employment, 150 percent rule litigation and step away from the prior administration’s regs and thereby letting them go asunder, or you could put out executive orders. I do think that you were, correct that immigration is going to be one of the areas where an executive order may very well be forthcoming early on in the administration.

You will recall, past being prologue, that the Department of Education stopped the gainful employment rules of old when he came in after the Obama administration. You’re in the same weird timing right now that the same thing could happen without a forementioned reporting deadline of January 15th For all schools, and every program, to submit the data to be used to calculate and determine financial value transparency or gainful employment rules metrics. So, , a lot on his plate to determine shortly after coming into office.

One thing that I will say, Drumm, I think is different from his second term, albeit, , not consecutive, is that they’ve learned from the first term, in the 45th to now the 47th, to be more prepared and more directed in what they bring forward. You’re seeing that both in their nominations and appointments much quicker than a year later, which was the case in the first four year term, and now, and I think that they are looking very seriously at what some of the guidance is that comes out.

I believe one of those will be Title IX.

Drumm McNaughton: I suspect you’re absolutely right. Well, Tom, this has been a thorough pleasure on my part. It’s always wonderful to get together with you.

Tom Netting: Likewise, and, and again, thank you for sharing. We probably should have done, or I should have at least done the caveat at the front end. Everybody, this is subject to change. That is the world of the dynamic we live in, but I’m pretty confident with a lot of what we’ve shared today being at least things that are not inaccurate. I can’t promise that they will become the crystal ball guarantee, but these are all the things that certainly are prevalent and being discussed literally today and certainly well beyond it to the end of this administration, and the start of the next.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, this has been fascinating and I really appreciate your taking the time out of your schedule. I know how busy you are.

Tom Netting: And I appreciate you and I’m going to come full circle back to the beginning of this podcast. Don’t you retire? We don’t want that. We don’t need that. But I but I stand ready to give you one hell of a send off my friend when you do

Drumm McNaughton: Well, I appreciate that, sir. Three takeaways.

[01:00:34] Final Thoughts and Takeaways

Drumm McNaughton: What do presidents and boards need to be thinking about besides just be ready for change?

Tom Netting: Three takeaways. The best ones I can give you. I’m on this stump and I will stay on this stump. Cybersecurity and IT. The National Institute of Science and Technology 800 171 regulations. If you have not talked about that with your IT team at your institution, do so immediately. And start to understand what that looks like, regardless of administrations. Because of your use of federal funds and the access of those federal funds by students, those much more stringent standards and the platforms, meaning computer system platforms, that you’re going to have to get integrate are going to be important, that’s one.

Number two. All institutions should be looking very, very carefully right now at their quote unquote completers list This is the information directly from the department of education that drives that reporting, by January 15th, of every program of every institution across this nation. Make sure that data is correct and accurate. There continues to be for the third or fourth time, in the Department’s submission of that data back to schools, errors in it. You do not want garbage in, garbage out.

And number three, some good news, talk to your financial aid individuals and make sure of what we all saw it. 10 days before December 1st. Make sure that everything is flowing directly and accurately with the FAFSA form and your students and their families have access to the information they need and then the ability for your institutions to help them choose the institution that’s best of their choice.

All of the rest of this will come over time. but those are three things that I think are takeaways for the present day.

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you, Tom.

Drumm McNaughton: What’s next for you?

Tom Netting: Continuing to look at these transitions. Continuing to look at what some of this policy will start to look like under a new administration. Taking some time out for the holidays as I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving as I did mine. Looking to the holidays ahead, but also looking to a very frenetic pace, as we get into the 2025 calendar year and the start of the 119th Congress in January, and a lot of, again, continued dialogue and discussion.

Drumm McNaughton: So when should we do this again? The end of January? Middle of February?

Tom Netting: I think just before January 15th, because I do think that it’s important, even if you need to put out just a real quick notice of what does or doesn’t happen with this reporting by January 15th, that all schools are currently still regulatory bound to do. And then certainly in mid February , as we start to see what the committee structures truly fully look like, and they start on the path to attempting to have dialogue and discussions around the policy issues.

Drumm McNaughton: Sounds like a plan. Mid February it is, my friend.

Tom Netting: And, an update for people, even if it’s you blasting it out, or me sending it to you to blast out to them, with regard to the January 15th deadline.

Drumm McNaughton: Perfect. Perfect. Tom, always a pleasure, my friend.

Tom Netting: Likewise, Drumm, I appreciate you more than you could ever know, and happy holidays to you and to all of our listeners.

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you. You too, my friend.

Thanks for listening. And a special thank you to this week’s special guest, Tom Netting, for his Washington Update. Tom, it’s always a pleasure having you on the show. I look forward to the next time we get a chance to catch up.

Thanks for listening. See you next time.