Washington Update: Neg Reg, Clery Act, and Chevron Decision:

Changing Higher Ed podcast 223 with host Dr. Drumm McNaughton and guest Tom Netting

Transcript: Changing Higher Ed Podcast 

Changing Higher Ed podcast with host Dr. Drumm McNaughton and guest Tom Netting, President of TEN Government Strategies

Welcome Back, Tom Netting

Drumm McNaughton: Tom, welcome back to the show.

Tom Netting: Drumm, it’s good to be back with you.

Drumm McNaughton: Good to have you back as well. There’s been quite a lot going on in Washington.

Current Higher Education Issues

Drumm McNaughton: What’s going on in your world?

Tom Netting: what’s not going on in the higher education world these days? so much, Drumm, you know again as we talked about the last time there’s all forms of litigation, some of which we’ll cover at least, and touch on as it relates to higher ed policy in today’s conversation I’m sure. but a lot of new information, even over an August recess when Congress is quiet, certainly the Department of Education is not.

They’ve put out a lot of new information, leading into the rush towards November 1st and the master calendar deadline. We’ve got an open NPRM period for two to three sets of regulations. Again, one or two that we’ll talk about, I’m confident. We’ve got other issues with regards to new public dissemination of information that’s always been embedded with the Department, but is being brought to the fore for consumers and others much more “visibly” is the word I guess I should use, and we do have some, some lingering issues as well that are stuff that we’ve talked about before.

Drumm McNaughton: let’s just jump right in because that’s kind of the way we roll, isn’t it?

Tom Netting: That is the way we roll.

Open Notice of Proposed Rulemaking

Tom Netting: Let me start probably with, if you don’t mind, the current open notice of proposed rulemaking,

Drumm McNaughton: Okay.

Tom Netting: Which is based on the 2023, 2024 federal negotiated rulemaking process. As people will recall, there were two major facets of that. One was student loan debt flexibilities that the Department of Education and the Biden Harris administration were looking for.

That now has gone through the entire process, short of the publication of the final rule. So we’re all awaiting to see what that final rule will look like. We’ve talked in previous discussions about the devil of those details, so I won’t go back over that. The other half is very important.

Program Integrity and Institutional Quality

Tom Netting: It was the program integrity and institutional quality discussions, of which there were six major topics. Three of those topics are now in an open comment period that ends on August 23rd. Three of those issues have been tabled, at the department’s decision, for further review and evaluation. The interesting part is the three that were the most confrontational or the most problematic in terms of trying to reach consensus, are the three that have been tabled for further dialogue. Those included cash management, state authorization, and accreditation. We talked about the major areas under that before, and I’m sure we will be talking about them again in the future. But the three areas that we are looking to respond to potential final regulations include distance education, the TRIO programs, and also some changes to the return of Title IV Fund Program for modular institutions.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, the accreditation piece and the, for lack of a better word, the SARA portion of that, those being tabled are huge.

Tom Netting: They are huge. And again, to your point, state authorization was where the NC-SARA and online reciprocity agreement, determinations and participation, were a huge discussion. Major, major changes being sought by the Department of Education, up to and including the leadership of NC-SARA itself, mandating that only state officials could be the leadership, taking away a lot of the complexion of the individuals leading those entities at the state level and nationally.

Second, like you said, it was a complete and utter rewrite of accreditation, not only the role of the accreditors in their oversight of institutions, but also in NACIQI, the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrities, oversight of the accreditors themselves. NACIQI just had their most recent meeting last week. Everybody was paying attention to see how the entities, the agencies up for review would fare. You’ll recall that SACSs and HLC and others have undergone some pressure and some requests for additional information and the like in the past. So have a number of other accrediting bodies in different areas and groups. So this would be, kind of, taking some of that and moving it forward.

And last but not least, under cash management, one of the huge issues was the proposal to remove books, equipment and supplies from the tuition and fees charged to students in their actual packaging of financial aid and some of the requirements under that.

So yeah, taking those rather confrontational, or rather problematic, from several different viewpoints, while also supported by others, is a big step. the other three do have important things in their own right. I think that, candidly, the TRIO programs and the changes for disadvantaged and disabled individuals to have greater access to TRIO, including at the graduate level, is all good news.

I haven’t seen any of the 62 responses that have been submitted for that comment yet be negative and, in fact, certainly are being very positive. Similarly, the changes on return of Title IV funds, R2 T4 in our world of akronese, has also been widely just supported as favorable changes to the calculation methodology that are helpful.

Distance Education and Attendance Requirements

Tom Netting: Where there is some dispute, or where there is some anguish to be sure, is under the distance education proposals, and in particular, the requirements that would repeal the flexibility granted for clock hour institutions to provide asynchronous distance education as part of their delivery modalities. And also a requirement that states that all institutions participating in distance education and or correspondence schools are required to take attendance.

Drumm McNaughton: that’s interesting, to me anyway, because the whole purpose, and the benefit of distance education, online education, is the asynchronous component. It allows people to work and still be going to school at the same time. Whereas if you have to attend class, whether it be in person or online, that takes away that flexibility and it really hurts the working adult.

Tom Netting: it does, but again, I want to caution everybody, this is for programs that measure in clock hour, not institutional programs that measure in credit hour. So that basically exempts already, Drumm, a lot of the programs and a lot of the institutions offering those programs from potential risk associated with this.

You’re absolutely right. And that’s one of many arguments or concerns that are being expressed in those comments. The fact that there is institutional inequity in terms of delivery of the modality from clock hour versus credit hour, and also concerns about the fact that this negatively impacts students, like you said, that are looking for the delivery of education on their terms. And we know more and more that that is what many, many students are looking for as they look to pursue portions of, or all of their post secondary education. There also is an administrative side to this with the potential for having to see if you can take the courses that you have turned to be Asynchronous, as well as synchronous, and many of them are blended, and reconstruct the programs in order for them to continue.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, one of the things that most accreditors, not all, but most of them do is, with online, they require you to do a clock hour measurement. How much time do students put in reading the assignment? How much writing, how much they do in discussion and measuring all those. So whether it’s credit hours hours, it basically is boiling down, in large part, to clock hours.

How do you justify a course being three credit hours?

Tom Netting: Well, keep in mind, there’s clock to credit hour conversions for two separate and distinct reasons. There’s clock to credit hour conversion from an academic standpoint that looks at what that conversion rate is for academic purposes. Then you’ve got your own separate set of requirements for the delivery and administration of student financial aid and determining what a week of instructional time looks like and how that is delivered. It is that which the Department is looking to adjust or determine, and there are some institutions and some programs that are only measured in clock hours, and this is under the gainful employment rule, yet again. If you are a gainful employment institution, subject to the eligibility criterion, and you have programs that measure in clock hour, and here’s the specific things that makes this and again, you have to provide the education in the form of credit hour programs and only to be eligible for asynchronous.

Drumm McNaughton: Okay. Well, that makes more sense. Obviously showing my ignorance on

Tom Netting: again, Drumm, these are highly technical issues and it’s easy to sometimes get lost in those weeds. the devil of these details are important, and again, you’ve got institutions, certainly including community colleges, as well as the private for profit sector and others, that are saying, “hey, we moved to this modality as a portion of, or heavily involved because of the pandemic. We went to hybrid models in some instances and all fully online, delivery in others”. And they proved that they could do it, and now the Department for a subset of the community is asking them to reverse course and they’re not really showing any strong indication as to why, other than you didn’t have it prior to the pandemic and we’re concerned about the delivery and the quality of educational delivery as a result

Drumm McNaughton: And I think this is probably a good place to segue into the Chevron decision because,

Tom Netting: Well, hold on. Let’s talk a little bit about the attendance taking before we go. Let’s stick to the other half and then i’ll let you go to Chevron and all of the discussion there. Again, Drumm, it’s important because the taking of attendance requirement for online educational programs, all of them, is something that I’m seeing in the responses to that NPRM that are being queried, and certainly expressed concerns, by all sectors of the higher education community, the American Council on Education, throughout the negotiated rulemaking. Many, many, many of the community colleges have weighed in, both from an instructor level, as well as from broader organizational institutional levels, expressing concern about how they’re going to have to adapt to do that based on their current educational delivery.

The concerns about the administrative cost and fiscal cost associated with making those transitions to adapt and seeking a real justification as to why. I can tell you the why from a Department standpoint is based on return a Title IV, and once again if individuals unfortunately withdraw, determining how much federal student financial aid the institution is allowed to keep from the student and how much goes back to the federal government. And also what the impact is still on quality of education.

Some people still haven’t quite gotten to the comfort level of all of these modalities, whether it be bricks and mortar, whether it be hybrid, or whether it be fully online, having very comparable delivery systems and values as it goes through.

Drumm McNaughton: My head’s spinning.

Tom Netting: And you’re involved in distance ed all the time, you know the quality that it provides. Some people are leery and want some more safeguards and some more protections. I’m not saying whether that’s right or wrong, but it does, once again, create a disparity and confusion, if not outright chaos in some respects, and when we talk about Title IX later, we’ll definitely get to chaos.

But these are things that institutions are striving very hard to try and implement, but do it correctly and in compliance with major holes still in the way in which to go about it, or concerns about it being implemented, vis a vis the NPRMs that are open right now.

Drumm McNaughton: So again, my head is still spinning.

Tom Netting: Sorry,

Chevron Decision and Its Implications

Drumm McNaughton: So let’s get to the Chevron decision because the Chevron decision talks about how there is departmental overreach, that they are interpreting the regulations that are passed by Congress and people don’t like this,

Tom Netting: Hold on. Statute developed by Congress. Regulations interpreting that statute developed by the agencies. And that’s where it comes to two quick defining tests for the purposes of the Chevron doctrine that was in place for over 40 plus years. The first part about it was giving any agency where there is ambiguity in the statute, the ability to interpret that. The second part is whether or not, as part of the latitude or the flexibility of those ambiguities, the Department’s expertise, whatever agency that is, is right and appropriate to make changes or to make modifications. Under the Chevron document, there was a pretty long runway for agencies to do interpretations and to make decisions of taking a couple of lines or one or two lines in statute and turning them into, quite honestly, pages and pages and pages of regulation.

A lot of people have always said that that seems a little bit of an overreach. Well, with the Chevron case now being overturned, there is a change in the process of what the agencies are able to do. One of the things that I want to point out to all of your listeners is that this doesn’t simply negate or eliminate all of the past 40 years of regulatory development. There is the right, now, to review all of those and potentially challenge them in the courts of law to see whether or not there is or isn’t ambiguity and whether or not expertise provides the ability for interpretation or not. But one of the things I think a lot of people are missing here, Drumm, is the fact that you still are going to have to take the existing regulations, take them to court and challenge them on the new interpretation in order to potentially bring about change. It’s not just an overnight flip of the switch, pardon those, two sets of unlike but, melded comments on my part. But it is an important issue, further confusing it, again because nothing can be simple. There is other doctrine out there called the Skidmore Decision and that plays into other aspects of these assessments and the flexibilities that are given or not.

There are some people that are questioning, one is more for the courts and one is more for the agencies, so how do those interact and interplay? Many questions new to everybody, so a lot of the outcome of this the chapters are not yet written

Drumm McNaughton: I’m not familiar with the Skidmore Doctrine. What is that?

Tom Netting: Like I said, and again I’m no attorney and I don’t have all of the devil of the details. I have had a cursory review and had some people explain it to me. Again the dividing line is between the court’s eligibility to interpret on its own, which is Skidmore and the ability for challenges to be brought forward which is now the Loper decision taking over Chevron.

So again, one is the court’s ability to potentially do it. The other is the more traditional way, which is to challenge it through a plaintiff, against the agency and trying to see if there are issues with regard to the regulations, whether that be arbitrary and capricious, whether that be a number of other different challenges, but one of the major litmus test always is whether or not it’s arbitrary and capricious and causes harm beyond that which should be intended.

Drumm McNaughton: It sounds like the two of those will work hand in glove.

Tom Netting: Well again, that’s one of the questions, is how well will they? Or to what degree do they? Or are they at risk, or opposition to one another? I think you’re going to, again, see a lot of interpretive papers and other things written as we continue to go through this. One thing to keep in mind is while all this is going on, people are still inquiring. Republicans in both the House and the Senate have asked, as well as Democrats, what portions of the regulations could be subject to review, at the very least if not changes, under this change in philosophy? And agencies are probably not going to be quick to respond to those lest they’re basically showing potential, quote unquote, weaknesses or differentiations that they then could be challenged on and have vulnerability to. But, you’re going to see a lot of things starting to be questioned again or reviewed that in many cases , no matter what agency you’re talking about, could go through a review and see whether or not it withstands the new doctrine.

The Latest in Title IX Regulations and Legal Challenges

Drumm McNaughton: And speaking of reviews, there is Title IX.

Tom Netting: Yes, there is.

Drumm McNaughton: Do we even want to go there?

Tom Netting: I think it’s important to go there.

Drumm McNaughton: I agree.

Tom Netting: We’ve got a split country yet again. 26 states have a blockade or a preliminary injunction on implementing the new Title IX regulations. We have the other half of those states that are, and should have had, institutions implementing those changes by August 1st, the beginning of this month. But you have a number of, what I call, ripple effects. You have in some of these litigations, other named groups of student bodies that, number one, you’re hard pressed to find who is part of those entities or groups. And then, where are they located? Because even if they’re located in a state that says that the new regs should have been implemented August 1st, they are exempt. Or they are a protected class. I don’t know how institutions are going to be able to find all of that information within their institutions. And we’re talking the major universities here.

In the state of Michigan, a state that is not having the block or the injunction. But there’s a lot of these groups for individuals that are going to Michigan State, University of Michigan, Ohio State, and many other schools in those implementable, sorry, it’s not even really a word, those states that are required or would have been required to do this, have to then do a deeper dive without a lot of support to try and make sure they’re complying

Drumm McNaughton: And then you’ve got the states, schools in Texas and Florida and others that have basically blocked the implementation.

Tom Netting: Well, and that’s part that’s because of the litigation and we now stand at a point where The Department of Justice, on the path of the Department of Education, is carrying this all the way up to the Supreme Court. Similar with the SAVE program, which is the Income Driven Repayment Loan program. So you’re seeing a lot of different higher ed policy working its way all the way up to the largest and the most authoritative court in the land.

Drumm McNaughton: Who knows? Who knows where it’s all going to go?

Tom Netting: Now here’s the deal, Drumm, and here’s where we empathize with all institutions. One would have hoped, or would have thought, that based on some of these decisions by the courts to accept the preliminary injunctions for either classes of students or the state in general, that maybe the department would have put the brakes on the entire implementation.

They’ve done it for other regulations. When the courts issue a preliminary injunction, they come out and say, like with the 150 percent rule for institutions required to do licensure and certification at the level of the state mandates, four o’clock hour programs yet again. When courts determined that was going to be placed on hold, the Department said, we’ll do it across the country, not just in the state of Texas. There was hope that to alleviate some of this conflict that the department may do the same thing. They have not done that for Title IX. And I think, again, a lot of this comes to political positioning and belief structures. They don’t want to stop the revisions from the Trump administration to the Biden administration, and you see them fighting it all the way up to the Supreme Court, based on the, despair, to the two sets of decisions to make a determination. So, this one is nothing short of chaos, is the word that I hear interestingly enough, the attorneys using. They don’t know how to guide the institutions on complying any more than anybody else does.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah, it’s, it is a mess.

Tom Netting: It is, and in all seriousness, and again, this is not a tongue in cheek statement, this one is a huge administrative issue, but it’s also a student issue as well. They’re coming back to school in a week or two. What policies are you gonna be under if, heaven forbid, something starts to happen early in the upcoming fall semester? Do you have to use two different policies, and do you even know how to apply those policies to which students? No

Drumm McNaughton: I don’t think they know. It’s going to depend very much on the state that you’re in as well as your previous experience with Title IX.

Tom Netting: Correct. And one of the other things that I hope, you haven’t heard this term in a while with regard to the regulations, but there was a time in the early 2000s probably into the middle of the second decade, where the term “a good faith effort” was a part of a number of the regulations. And it was, look, if you’re trying, and you’re trying to do your dead level best, and it can be shown that you’re trying to do that, it doesn’t absolve you of noncompliance or your sins as it were, but it does play into the determination of the level of potential action and course of action by the Department.

I have to believe or certainly I have to hope that maybe with something this chaotic this confusing and problematic for a number of different reasons that some latitude and some relief might be given as this is starting to be reviewed and evaluated.

FAFSA Rollout for Fall 2024 and Enrollment Impact

Drumm McNaughton: I certainly hope so.

Drumm McNaughton: Moving right along, I am hearing from a number of clients that the FAFSA rollout has really impacted their enrollment for Fall 2024. And given the recent statements coming out of the Department, it might do the same thing for 2025.

Tom Netting: Unfortunately, it is assured that it’s going to do the same for 2024/ 2025. On August 7th the Department made an announcement, Secretary Cardona made it and shared with all the communities, that there is going to be a phased rollout of the 2025 2026 FAFSA form. Normally, and in a regular year, October 1st, if not before, everybody had the FAFSA. The form was, basically baked and cooked. Everybody had it, including the borrowers, to fill it out, to then submit it to the institutions. The institutions had it to then make determinations of packaging and awarding, in order to give the students and their families the ability to determine what their acceptance is, where they were choosing to go based on the information available. And so on the process went.

Well, last year or this year that didn’t work so well. We didn’t get FAFSA forms until the middle of, depending on how you are talking to her, arguing January/February, or March/April. So again, I won’t get into all of those frustrations, but know that they are certainly out there and they were certainly real across all sectors of the higher education community. Well, on the 7th, Mr. Cardona and the department put out a notice to all institutions expressing the fact that they are going to do this rollout, as I alluded to, where what they’re hoping to do is take and do a beta test with an undefined group of volunteer students, and I’m hoping institutions as well, across the spectrum to bring hundreds of students, in their words, through the process, review and evaluate, seek information, and then open it up to, in their words, to quote thousands of students. And then by on or before December 1st, they state, open it up to all institutions and all borrowers by December 1st. Keep in mind, that’s going from hundreds to thousands to 17 million in the course of two months.

Drumm McNaughton: Good luck.

Tom Netting: It is already being questioned, but look, everybody is hoping that we can make it happen. Because again, this impacts the students, it impacts the institutions, it impacts the entire process.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah, it’s very difficult. Like I say, I know of a number of institutions whose enrollment has dropped by 20 percent because of FAFSA for this year.

Tom Netting: again, I agree. the decision-making process was held hostage. Because the students and the families, on behalf of the borrower, on behalf of the student, didn’t have the information to make an informed decision. So, everything from, early acceptance or early submissions, To the regular process and then, Drew, think about it.

when individuals chose to go to another institution, you had people on hold for the standby list that were strung out into a long time in the process. And let’s be honest, there were a lot of individuals that threw up their hands and said, I may go a different direction. And again, by no fault of the institution here.

And I’m also going to say, to be very clear, not necessarily by any sole, meaning individual only, part of the department. There were a lot of, there has been and continues to be a lot of work around, around the development and implementation of this. The FASFA Simplification Act was, A major change in the interpretations of both Pell eligibility and the definitions, as well as other information.

There was a lot there to undertake, but the timing and, candidly, the lack of communication, Or the, I dare say, misinformation that they kept promising it was coming and then to have it fall flat a couple of times has not invoked a great deal of confidence leading into the next year. And I hope that doesn’t Have me, no longer able to talk to my friends and colleagues over the department because I do have a great deal of faith and confidence in all the efforts they put in.

But look, this has been a problem and the fact that it’s potentially delayed and going to be a problem for a second year is Not a happy thing.

Drumm McNaughton: Not a bit. Last thing.

Consumer Information and Administrative Enforcement

Drumm McNaughton: major announcement for consumer information on web pages of the department.

Tom Netting: yeah, there and I’ll add one other thing after this as well the new GOA study on borrowers and where things stand with regard to repayment, looking all looking to January 1 of 2024 And a lot of the details on that but to your point and to the issue that you brought up Yes, the department of education actually this week Put out notice to all institutions that they were enhancing facets of the FSA website to include a great deal more information with regard to, Program Participation Agreements, those are the PPAs in our world of acronyms, and Provisional PPAs, PP, PPP.

that are the major focal point of the accreditors, the states, and let’s be honest, the institutions, because that’s your paper that shows that you are Title IV eligible, and if any, what restrictions you have. I’m oversimplifying it, but for your audience, that gives more than enough. in the past, when that information was sought by individuals, you really had to dig in mind for it.

the department has brought it front and center. Not only do you have very easy access and eligibility to the PPA status for all Title IV eligible institutions at your fingertips, but you also have access to the PPA, the provisionally Certify, approved programs, institutions. And that can be based on a number of things.

Program from administrative capability and financial responsibility. Changes of ownership are a major trigger that puts institutions on provisional program participation. Think in terms of a number of the for profit institutions. That’s have sought in the past decade or so for transition from for profit to nonprofit status.

Those institutions are now put on a slow roll. It’s not a quick switch. They’re still required to meet the proprietary requirements for a period of 2 to 3 years or longer. under provisional certification. So it’s greater scrutiny and an eye is placed on it, but it’s also on a number of other institutions and other types of institutions.

Well, once again, you can go to the department’s website and not find by school name broken down into subcategories of A through E, F through N, O through S and T through Z of the institutions that are on provisional certification or provisional participation. That’s a lot of, interesting information, both for the good and potentially, I can see other individuals, scrutinizing that in a way that could be a scarlet letter for schools, whether warranted or not. I hope that there isn’t much of the latter, but, we love our list and we love our calculations and computations. Going one step further, And this is where I think that some of that scarlet letter may occur is they also at the department now have administrative enforcement actions by year for all institutions.

And again, with a quick touch of a button from 2021, 2022, 2023, or 2024, you can click a drop down and see all of the institutions that were fined and had actions taken against them by the department. Across all sectors of higher education, across all types of institutions of higher education, and see the settlement documents, the level of fines, and other information that’s out there.

What is interesting is part of the release of this information, the department highlighted, going from 2010 all the way to 2023, three categories of fines. They actually broke out one going back to Title IX, but a different, different varying aspects. Of Title IX and Clery, one major category was Clery Part 86 fines.

That’s the alcohol and drug compliance requirements for all institutions of higher education to do. And you will see in the breakdowns by year, by types of institutions, that one area is a bigger hot button for institutions of higher education than one might think. The very nature of the fact that they put it as a separate line item in this chart of the fines is worth noting.

IPEDS fines. Again, that’s the reporting by the institutions back to the department, and then other fines. And again, the other fines can be a number of different things where you get into misrepresentation and a lot of other concerns. As you look at this information, what is intriguing to me, Drumm, because again, you know how I like to look at data.

If you look at the total imposed fines for all of these, we go from high water marks in 2016 of 79 million. To thresholds at the low point in the year of 2014 of 556, 000.

Drumm McNaughton: Wow. That’s a big delta.

Tom Netting: Yeah, that’s what, one hell of a bell shaped curve going back to my statistics of class. and the, those are the outer ends of that bell shaped curve. Interestingly enough, this year, 2023, the most recent year where, for which all data is available is sitting at around 1 million and of note.

600, 600, 000 of that is once again that Cleary Part 86 violation. So if anybody is listening and paying attention at this point, review your Cleary Part 86 compliance, please, because this is certainly an area where the department is showing a considerable amount of weakness across all spectrums of higher education and in need of review.

They also have done what they’ve done in the past. Since time immemorial the top 10 audit findings and things of that nature. It’s one of the 10 sessions I always attend whether it be in prior years in person or now virtually at the FSA conference in December Again, just to see what the hot buttons are and see where obviously there are weaknesses that I can take back to clients or communities And say hey guys pay attention to this.

Repayment Challenges and SAVE Program

Tom Netting: So Yeah, that’s a lot of important information very briefly The other thing I wanted to stress and emphasize was At the request of the Republican leadership on the education committees, both Ranking Member Cassidy from Louisiana in the Health Committee in the Senate, and Dr. Fox, the Chairwoman of the House Education Committee, Education and Workforce Committee, they had requested of the department information on the transition back into repayment and the resumption of the repayment process post pandemic and the, the protection phase, there is a great deal of information that is contained in the report that the GOA has just recently released to the public.

They had a congressional briefing back in June. they’ve had subsequent conversations, since then, but the actual report and the publication date for the general public was July 29th of, just a couple of weeks ago, but now it’s open to the public. They even include the actual documents that they presented to the department, to the congressional offices and staff members.

and there’s a lot of information to be gleaned there. interestingly enough, breakdown of borrowers in repayment That is at 53% But if you look at the devil of those details of that 53%, 13 to 14 percent of them are in repayment programs where the actual payment is zero. So is that really protecting the federal fiscal interest?

There are people that are inquiring about that. There are a significant number of borrowers that are not in repayment and of that class of individuals, over 40%. Two thirds almost three quarters of them are more than 90 days delinquent in their repayment process This is showing and bringing to light some of the concerns that institutions and candidly Capitol Hill and even the department we’re concerned about which is This transition is not going to necessarily be easy and fluid.

Try, as we all might, to bring individuals back into repayment. Look, let’s be honest. For three years, this was off of everybody, every borrower’s radar.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah.

Tom Netting: And whether it’s budgeting, whether it’s just lack of focus, or any one of a number of other different challenges or issues, Not everybody is coming back to the process as quickly as certainly people had hoped.

Drumm McNaughton: it’s very challenging when you’ve had a three year hiatus. And then I have to come back, especially given the job situation and everything else. It just personally, I wish higher ed was free in this country, but it isn’t.

Tom Netting: And to that point, also a number of things that have been done to try and provide relief in the form of repayment have come in the form of the various income driven and income contingent repayment programs. The, Republicans asked for an update on the SAVE program, the primary, program that they have promoted for borrowers to consider and opt into.

they have not had the receptivity, even with IRS consent, so that the department could make that process much easier. From all of the borrowers are candidly, I think as many as the administration and the department and others had hoped there’s data on all of that as well Again, bringing forward litigation we’re questioning yet again all the way up to the Supreme Court whether the SAVE Program is in fact legal So while you’ve got all of these individuals enrolling and IRS consent being a way to provide easier access to the calculation and the ability to determine what the payment is from zero to whatever.

that’s being challenged once again, too, similar to the way the challenge took place over providing debt relief or cancellation, previously in this administration. So again, like you said, not a lot going on in DC at all.

Drumm McNaughton: No, not a bit.

Closing Remarks

Drumm McNaughton: So as always, Tom, it’s been fascinating having you on getting the update. We’ll do this again in the near future.

Tom Netting: I hope that I hope I’ve earned my keep with you and certainly enjoy doing these Drumm and happy to do them anytime. very much appreciate all that you’re doing to support and get the word out. I think you know that’s one of my compulsions as well. So thank you for providing me the, the opportunity to do that.

Drumm McNaughton: my pleasure. My brother, you take care. good seeing you again.

Tom Netting: You too.