Program Integrity and Institutional Quality: Distance Education and Return of Title IV, HEA Funds

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION <CFR>34 CFR Parts 600, 643, 644, 645, 647, and 668</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ED-2024-OPE-0050]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1840-AD85 and 1840-AD92</RIN> <SUBJECT>Program Integrity and Institutional Quality: Distance Education and Return of Title IV, HEA Funds</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Postsecondary Education, Department of Education. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final regulations. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Secretary amends the Student Assistance General Provisions regulations governing participation in the student financial assistance programs authorized under title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA), to promote program integrity and institutional quality. These regulations clarify, update, and consolidate certain provisions that apply to distance education and the return of title IV, HEA funds. They also make technical changes to the TRIO program regulations to reflect the current status of the Republic of Palau as a member of the Freely Associated States. This document provides notice that the Department fully closes out the Program Integrity and Institutional Quality: Distance Education and Return of Title IV, HEA Funds notice of proposed rulemaking. That is, we will not be finalizing the remainder of the Federal TRIO program provisions but may promulgate through future rulemaking efforts. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The regulations are effective July 1, 2026. For the implementation dates of the regulatory provisions, see the Implementation Date of These Regulations in <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> . </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For distance education: Brian Schelling. Telephone: (202) 987-0443. Email: <E T="03">Brian.Schelling@ed.gov.</E> For return of title IV funds: Aaron Washington. Telephone: (202) 987-0911. Email: <E T="03">Aaron.Washington@ed.gov.</E> If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability and wish to access telecommunications relay services, please dial 7-1-1. A brief summary of these final regulations are available at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov/docket/ED-2024-OPE-0050.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Abbreviations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Purpose of Regulatory Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Authority for the Regulatory Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Summary of Major Provisions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Summary of Costs and Benefits</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Implementation Date of These Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. The NPRM and Public Comment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Analysis of Public Comment and Changes</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Process for Out of Scope Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Public Comment Period</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Distance Education</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">4. Return of Title IV Funds</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">5. Federal TRIO Programs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Regulatory Impact Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Congressional Review Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Need for Regulatory Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Summary of Comments and Changes From the NPRM</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">4. Discussion of Costs, Benefits, and Transfers</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">5. Accounting Statement</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">6. Alternatives Considered</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">7. Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IX. Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Abbreviations</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CFR: Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CIP Code: Classification of Instructional Programs Code</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DEOA: Department of Education Organization Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">EOC: Educational Opportunity Centers</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FFEL: Federal Family Education Loan program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FSA: Federal Student Aid</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Freely Associated States: the Republic of Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">HEA: Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">McNair: Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">PEP: Eligible prison education program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">PRWORA: Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">R2T4: Return of title IV funds</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">RIA: Regulatory Impact Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SSS: Student Support Services Program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Title IV, HEA Programs: Student financial assistance programs authorized under title IV of the HEA</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TRIO: Federal outreach and student services programs designed to identify and provide services for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TS: Talent Search</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">UB: Upward Bound </FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">1. Purpose of This Regulatory Action</HD> These final regulations address two substantive areas: distance education and return of title IV funds (R2T4). Additionally, this document makes technical changes to the TRIO program regulations to reflect the current status of the Republic of Palau as a member of the Freely Associated States and removes references to the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. As noted above, we will not be finalizing the remainder Federal TRIO provisions but may consider them in a future rulemaking efforts. The Department is addressing these areas to help ensure students are well served by the eligible institutions they attend and ensure that Federal Student Aid (FSA) programs work in the best interests of students. As the two distinct topics are structured and addressed independently in this final rule, the Department generally intends the rule's provisions to be severable from each other. If any provision of a particular subpart or its application to any person, act, or practice is held invalid, the remainder of the subpart or the application of its provisions to any other person, act, or practice will not be affected thereby. The distance education final regulations help the Department improve its oversight of distance education and correspondence programs. To accomplish this, the distance education regulations improve the information available about students in such programs who receive title IV, HEA funds by adding a definition of <E T="03">distance education course,</E> and requiring institutions to report their students' distance education status. The R2T4 final regulations increase the accuracy and simplicity of performing R2T4 calculations; address unique circumstances for what constitutes a withdrawal; and codify longstanding policies into regulation. The July 24, 2024, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), 89 FR 60256, for the Federal TRIO programs proposed to expand student eligibility under certain TRIO programs for students who have enrolled in or who seek to enroll in a high school in the United States, territories, or Freely Associated States. After reviewing comments received on the proposed rulemaking for TRIO, the Department has decided not to finalize the Federal TRIO provisions other than the technical change mentioned above, to reconsider how best to ensure that the TRIO programs are able to reach all populations of disadvantaged students. The Department may consider the remaining Federal TRIO provisions in a future rulemaking effort. <HD SOURCE="HD2">2. Authority for This Regulatory Action</HD> The legal basis for these final regulations is title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA), which authorizes the Federal government's major student financial aid programs that are the primary source of direct Federal support to students pursuing postsecondary education. 20 U.S.C. 1070-1099d (sections 400-499 of the HEA). Institutions participating in the title IV, HEA programs must satisfy certain threshold and ongoing requirements, <E T="03">see id.,</E> and the Secretary is given broad authority to carry out program requirements. 20 U.S.C. 1070(b) (section 400(b) of the HEA). As part of its oversight responsibilities under title IV, the Department seeks to promote program integrity and institutional quality. <E T="03">See generally</E> 20 U.S.C. 1099c, 1099c-1, 1099c-2 (sections 498, 498A, and 498B of the HEA). To this end, the Department's Student Assistance General Provisions regulations establish threshold requirements for institutions to participate and to continue participation in student financial assistance programs. <E T="03">See generally</E> 34 CFR parts 600-603, 642-647, 668, 673-676, 682-694. These final regulations update, consolidate, and revise requirements in two distinct title IV areas: distance education and the return of title IV, HEA funds, impacting 34 CFR parts 600 and 668. The Department's specific legal authority in these areas is set forth below. <E T="03">Distance Education.</E> Section 103(7) of the HEA defines “distance education,” and section 484(l) sets forth rules relating to courses offered through distance education. <E T="03">Return of Title IV, HEA Funds.</E> Section 484B of the HEA outlines the process that an institution must follow if a title IV, HEA aid recipient withdraws from the institution during a payment period or period of enrollment (also known as R2T4). The Department's various changes to the R2T4 regulations benefit both institutions and students. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Summary of the Major Provisions of This Regulatory Action</HD> These final regulations make the following changes. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Distance Education (§§ 600.2 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 255k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━