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(General) Subject: April 30 Deadline for Responding to Invitation to Participate in the Experimental Sites Initiative

Posted Date:April 22, 2013

Author: Jeff Baker, Director, Policy Liaison and Implementation, Federal Student Aid

Subject: April 30 Deadline for Responding to Invitation to Participate in the Experimental Sites Initiative

On January 17, 2013 we posted Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) GEN-13-03 that invited institutions to express interest in participating, beginning with the 2013-2014 award year, in one or more of the Experimental Sites Initiative (ESI) experiments. A summary of those experiments is provided below. Our subsequent DCL GEN-13-08 extended the deadline to April 30, 2013.

If your institution is interested in participating in any of the experiments, please let us know by sending a letter of application in the form of a PDF attachment to an email message to experimentalsites@ed.gov. Please follow the submission guidance provided in DCL GEN-13-03.

Submitting a letter of application does not commit the institution to participate in an experiment. Nor does it commit the Department to approving an institution's request to participate.

ESI Experiments

Experiment 1 – Federal Pell Grant Program – Eligibility of students with bachelor's degrees who enroll in vocational or career programs.

Experiment 2 – Federal Pell Grant Program – Eligibility of students who enroll in certain short-term training programs.

Experiment 3 – Direct Loan Program – Single disbursement of a one-term loan for study abroad students.

Experiment 4 – Direct Loan Program – Early disbursement for study abroad students and for students enrolled in foreign institutions.

Experiment 5 – Direct Loan Program – Unequal disbursements.

Experiment 6 – Direct Loan Program – Limiting unsubsidized loan amounts.

Experiment 7 – Direct Loan Program – PLUS Loans for parents of students with intellectual disabilities.

Experiment 8 – Student Eligibility – Eligibility of students with intellectual disabilities who are also enrolled in high school.

If you have any questions please send an email to: experimentalsites@ed.gov.