Education Dept. Borrower-Defense Negotiators

The list of negotiators includes a broad mix of student and consumer advocates, veterans’ representatives, accreditors, financial aid administrators, business officers, and representatives from multiple types of higher ed institutions. The first negotiating session for the committee will run from Nov. 13-15, followed by two four-day sessions in January and February. The department has set out an ambitious schedule for crafting a new borrower-defense regulation. Officials plan on publishing a new rule by next fall, to go into effect in 2019.

The department also released a separate list of seven panelists and alternates for a subcommittee that will consider the financial responsibility provisions of the borrower-defense rule. Groups representing private nonprofit institutions in particular have criticized those provisions of the rule — designed to add protection for taxpayer dollars — as being onerous for their colleges and universities.