Department’s Initial Draft Proposal Discussions Now Complete, The Department Is Set to Review and Respond to Negotiators Alternatives
Overview
As noted yesterday, the AHEAD Committee is essentially a full day behind the tentative agenda that the Department put forward in advance of the second session. The Department and negotiators did complete initial review and commentary on the Topics Four and Five yesterday and concluded the day with updates on various data requests submitted by Non-Federal negotiators and the Department’s response to several of the negotiators proposals which were submitted prior to the beginning of session two.
As noted in the subject line, today is all about discussion on a response to proposals (“alternatives” as noted in the agenda) submitted by the negotiators to the Department. Yesterday a deadline of 7:30 AM ET was established for the submission of any proposals to the Department for discussion and consideration. Today will be a full day of presentation and discussion of these proposals. In addition, the Department and negotiators will begin to review revisions to the discussion draft based upon changes offered by the negotiators on behalf of their constituencies.
In brief summation of yesterday, key discussion focused upon a presentation by the Department of the calculation process, a review of the new institutional reporting process, and the appeals and re-application process. As has been the case throughout the first three days, negotiators made a number of inquiries in efforts to better comprehend the proposed draft and offered up key concerns which suggest that without potentially significant redrafting that one or more groups may be unable to approve, or not abstain from voting not to approve, the Department’s draft.
Additional Information To Be Posted To The Department’s Website
The Department had stated yesterday that they would be providing new data sets and other materials to the negotiators and posting it on the AHEAD Committee’s landing page on the Negotiated Rulemaking for Higher Education 2025 website. CSPEN withheld posting of this email until now in the hopes that we could provide more details, but as the negotiations are beginning right now, we don’t have more to share.
