The Department Announced “Recodification of Title IX Rules” Established Under President Trump’s First Term Building Upon Last Week’s Promotion of the “Earliest FAFSA Launch in Program History” and the Approval of Additional Workforce Pell Grant Programs
Overview
The White House and the U.S. Department of Education announced the unpublished release (us.list-manage.com/1CiQXV24fAO?e=05bce952ad&c2id=828e2f13ae2569477ba2b7da4ef30812) of a final rule in the Federal Register entitled “Recodification of Title IX Rules (us.list-manage.com/Zr1IkghvQtH?e=05bce952ad&c2id=828e2f13ae2569477ba2b7da4ef30812) ” which “repeals the U.S. Department of Education’s (Department) 2024 final rule amending the Title IX regulations and restoring the regulatory text that existed prior to the 2024 rulemaking.”
The final rule essentially restores the regulations promulgated by the Trump Administration during his first term, revoking the changes to the regulations developed by the Biden-Harris Administration which were never implemented or enforced due to court actions which first enjoined and ultimately vacated the restructured regulations. CSPEN will provide a summary of the new final rule – including four “minor changes,” which will be officially published in the Federal Register tomorrow, on this Thursday’s CSPEN Federal Legislative & Regulatory Update webinar.
This announcement follows two major announcements the Department shared last week as part of a broader email notice posted last Friday. In the email announcement, the Department highlighted, among other updates, the earliest launch of the FAFSA in the program’s history for the second straight year and shared updates regarding the approval of Workforce Pell Grant programs in North Carolina and Texas. Below is a summary of both these announcements in case you might have missed them.
2027-2028 Free Application for Federal Student Aid Launch
Last Wednesday, the Department announced (us.list-manage.com/1SYEiWoxmmS?e=05bce952ad&c2id=828e2f13ae2569477ba2b7da4ef30812) that the 2027-2028 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) form was online and available to the public. The announcement highlighted “Improvements to the 2027-2028 Form” as well as “Modernized Features.” While noting the failures of the Biden Administration in the rolling out the changes to the FAFSA mandated by law, the press release emphasized that, “the Trump Administration has prioritized accessibility and technical expertise to deliver a streamlined form that American students and families can complete in as little as 15 minutes.”
Latest Federal Workforce Pell Grant Program Approvals
The Department announced the approval of twelve new Federal Workforce Pell Grant programs – six in Texas and six in North Carolina – noting that the approvals marked the fourth and fifth states respectively to receive approvals.
REMINDER: DEADLINE for Submission of Financial Value Transparency and Gainful Employment Data for the 2026 Cycle Is Thursday, October 1.
As shared with the higher education community last Friday, CSPEN has been requested to share with the higher education community their commitment to open a channel of communication with institutions to support responses to questions, problems, or other issues that you may have with not only the pending 2026 Reporting Cycle submissions due Thursday, but also any unreported data from the 2024 and/or 2025 Reporting Cycles as well.
As previously shared by CSPEN….
The deadline for submission of the Financial Value Transparency and Gainful Employment (FVT/GE) data for the 2026 Reporting Cycle is a week from yesterday – Thursday, October 1, 2026, as required under 34 CFR 668.408(a) (us.list-manage.com/8jtzecmbKiq?e=05bce952ad&c2id=828e2f13ae2569477ba2b7da4ef30812) . Additionally, any unreported FVT/GE data from the 2024 and 2025 Reporting Cycles is due by January 15, 2027.
As these deadlines approach, the Department of Education (the Department) is making efforts to answer institutions’ questions about how to submit the required data, with the objective of reducing the amount of headache and confusion about the data reporting requirements. The Department detailed in (GENERAL-26-49) Guidance on FVT/GE Data Reporting, STATS Early Implementation, and Next Steps for Publication (Updated Aug. 28, 2026) (us.list-manage.com/unTnGaKUPQt?e=05bce952ad&c2id=828e2f13ae2569477ba2b7da4ef30812) that more than 1,900 institutions have not reported or under-reported FVT/GE data from the 2024 and 2025 reporting cycles, which were originally due Sept. 30, 2025, and Oct. 1, 2025, respectively.
The Department would like to encourage and assist these 1,900 institutions to submit the data before the new deadline. Yesterday, the Department reached out to CSPEN, among others within the higher education community, seeking to open a communication channel through our network to notify the higher education community that they will work directly with CSPEN to proactively answer the questions/challenges institutions may be facing.
To that end, CSPEN is asking for any institution with questions/challenges about reporting FVT/GE data to share them directly with Tom Netting, who will be meeting with senior Department officials to share your case-studies and questions next week.
During yesterday’s conversations, the Under Secretary’s office stated, “the Trump Administration remains committed to this data collection and reporting, as articulated in the earnings accountability/STATS final rule. That said, our objective is to help minimize the amount of anxiety and confusion during the transition to the new data reporting regulations.” Noting further that they understand that there has been a long and (sometimes) complicated history with data reporting.
Share your information directly with Co-Executive Director Tom Netting at tom@tengovtstrategies.com by no later than COB Tuesday, September 29 in preparation for a meeting on Wednesday, September 30.
UPDATE: We have received a number of emails including questions, detailed information on problems and areas of confusion, all of which we are compiling and sharing with the Department and will be discussion in detail on Wednesday. If you have information you would like us to include, please let us know.
