She Said That the Department

Hello WCET members –

On today’s phone call, we heard from Sophia McArdle of the U.S. Department of Education that she really could not provide us with any clarifications on the Department’s take on state authorization because the Court’s had remanded the ruling back to the Department. Sophia sent us the remand statement. It really does not say much except reporting back what they already knew…600.9(c) was vacated and the appeals process upheld that ruling.

She said that the Department: · Will review the remand order. · Determine what it means. · Develop options for next steps. · Choose which option(s) it will pursue. She could not guess at a timeline.

Lanna Dueck of Rio Salado College asked a good question about their current experience in going through the financial aid review process. They are being asked to provide their authorizations. Sophia wondered if this would only be for states in which Rio had a “physical presence” and encourage her to work with her institution’s case team. There was some hint that practice might be different than policy. Really?

This is all a bit odd and may fit in with suppositions that the Department is not ready to comment further at this point.

We also talked about trying to obtain clarification on Maryland’s recent changes in regulations. In a follow-up email to me, Sandy Snyder-Townsend of Michigan State University said “Longitudinal Data System is under development and does not yet exist.” I presume that she was able to get some clarification on this.

On both the federal and state regulations, please continue to share what you learn.

Russell Poulin Deputy Director, Research and Analysis WCET - WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies [email protected] wcet.wiche.edu 303-541-0305 WCET Twitter: wcet_info My Twitter: RussPoulin