April 3, 2023

For most of us, we dread getting a "Dear John" letter. Live in the world of higher education, and you'll come to dread the "Dear Colleague" letter even more. A "Dear John" letter can only break your heart. A "Dear Colleague" letter will break your spirit.

"Dear Colleague" letters are communication pieces between the U.S. Department of Education and college/university administrators to "convey guidance" (words directly from the U.S. DoE website) regarding Title IV Federal Student Aid programs. "How much guidance do we need?" you ask.  Apparently a lot.

There have apparently been 221 "Dear Colleague" letters issued since July 1995. That's about 8 a year. Could you imagine every 6 weeks being afraid to go to your mailbox because you knew you were due the latest "Dear John" letter? 

However, that average is misleading, as 2022 had 24 "Dear Colleague" letters, twice a month!  Now granted a few of those are just announcements of live internet webinars, which seems akin to receiving a notice for public humiliation while the "Dear John" letter is read in front of a room of suitors.

Just in the first three months of 2023, we have been issued 5 "Dear Colleague" letters. Some, such as the one related to "Afghan Arrivals," SMC can pretty much ignore. I wish I didn't have to, as at 1678 words, it is almost readable.

What is un-readable is the latest "Dear Colleague" letter that has all of us wanting to go into hiding: "Requirements and Responsibilities for Third-Party Servicers and Institutions," issued on February 15, but updated, because if you can't explain it well the first time, just rewrite the damn thing, on February 28. I wish I could say it was only 2628 words, but that doesn't include the dozens of additional sections of information when you click on various links, such as when you click on "default prevention" to get a table that clarifies how a servicer providing such services to support default prevention could be a third party provider (not good in this new reality) or not a third party provider. Like many colleges and universities, SMC works with Inceptia to manage student financial aid default, so we want to make sure we don't have additional requirements to partner with them.

For those who are interested, this Community College Daily link provides a pretty good overview of what "colleagues" to the DoE are supposed to consider.  As is often the case, it might be easier for someone to summarize what colleagues don't have to consider. All of this stems from initial skepticism about "Online Program Managers," which are generally for-profit organizations that offer online "programs" (sometimes academic, but not exclusively) that allow institutions to outsource much of their virtual offerings. As you can imagine, these popped up, as almost all higher education cottage industries do, because of a crisis, the recent pandemic, where thousands of colleges and universities had to shift to a different model to survive.

Honestly, if the DoE could stick with that target, for-profit entities that want to provide alternative ways for students to achieve course credit or full program credentialing, then that could be acceptable. As usual, though, in going after for-profit entities that might be predatory in their approaches, the DoE's net is catching all the fish in the sea.

Beyond services like Inceptia, which truly helps smaller institutions, especially, to counsel students about the challenges with financial aid debt, the "Dear Colleague" letter is now telling us we may need to add regulations regarding academic partnerships between two non-profit institutions, which may be one of the few strategies left for college survival: share the burden of program costs by sharing the tuition across institutions. Our friends from the government are also now saying that publishers' online textbooks (and their corresponding homework platforms) could qualify under this regulation. Many of our courses use such products, McGraw Hill's CONNECT or ALEKS programs to name two prominent ones, as they provide a great service to colleges because of the ability to manage and support homework, tests, and assessments for classes, especially multi-section classes. ALEKS, especially, has capabilities for math instruction that allow for much deeper instruction and learning, especially at a time when the government is also telling us to do away with remedial math. At least at SMC, looking to reform our math curriculum, as dictated by state funding, and encouraged by state and national partners, the use of these kinds of platforms will be essential. Now, there is a good chance that they may be restricted, forbidden, or, minimally, heavily regulated by our "colleagues" in the DoE.

Even a fairly benign not-for-profit partner, the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), a research service that helps track students across multiple institutions, the very lifeblood for community college institutional research regarding students (past and current), might "fall within the scope of the Department's TPS [third party services] oversight authority." Of particular concern, even though the NSC is not directly involved with institutional retention efforts, is that the table for "Retention of Students" within the "Dear Colleague" letter has no applicable "not a third party provider" example or description, implying everything an institution might use from an external partner to support student retention is governed by the bureaucrats at the DoE. 

At the heart of all of this is the common perception that higher education is too expensive, unaffordable. With reduced funding, the way most institutions try to keep costs down is to outsource. Food service, custodial service, bookstores, even functions in human resources are often outsourced to keep the operating expenses down. We are damned if we do and damned if we don't. And, yeah, Inceptia and McGraw Hill, are for-profit companies. I thought that was the premise of the U.S. economic system. Did I fall asleep that day in my ECON201 class?

We all have come to joke about the "hi, I'm from the government and I am here to help," knowing that the help is more of a hindrance. Go ahead, DoE, keep doing it, but stop calling me "colleague." "Comrade" seems a much better moniker.