Posted Date:October 23, 2015
| Author: | Lynn B. Mahaffie, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Postsecondary Education |
Subject: Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #65 - Release of the 2014-2015 Disclosure Template for Gainful Employment (GE) Programs
We are announcing the release of the Updated GE Disclosure Template. Institutions must, no later than January 31, 2016, update disclosures for each of their GE programs to reflect information from the 2014-2015 award year using this updated Disclosure Template to meet their disclosure requirements under 34 CFR 668.6(b).
In order to ensure compliance with the January 31, 2016 deadline, we encourage institutions to visit the template website and begin updating their GE Disclosure Templates with 2014-2015 award year information.
The updated GE Disclosure Template –
Automatically disables the median debt fields when an institution reports fewer than 10 completers to prevent institutions from disclosing this withheld information;
Provides an additional option on the Job Placement screen for institutions that report 0 completers. Using the new option, an institution can indicate that it is required to calculate placement rates, but had no graduates in the program for the applicable award year. This is in addition to the existing options for institutions that are not required to calculate a job placement rate and those that are required to calculate the information, but are unable to do so due to the small number of completers;
For institutions that use the bulk upload tool, adds a job placement rate screening question for institutions that report fewer than 10 completers to indicate whether the institution is not required to calculate a job placement rate, is required to calculate a job placement rate, is required to calculate a job placement rate but cannot do so due to the small number of completers, or is required to calculate a job placement rate but no students completed the program in the specified year;
Changes the “Who is included?” field to “Placement Rate Methodology,” when a state and/or accrediting agency job placement rate is required.
Formerly, institutions were asked to enter information about program completers included in the calculation of the job placement rate in this field. This revision requires that the field (Placement Rate Methodology) be populated with a website URL, which links to a page with information about the program completers included in the calculation of the job placement rate. The website page must contain a list of exclusions or any other information pertinent to a student’s understanding of this rate. Job placement rate methodologies required by accreditation agencies and/or states commonly allow certain categories of students, such as those who are incarcerated, serving in the military, experiencing debilitating health conditions or transferring to another institution, to be excluded from the placement rate calculation. The website page to which users are directed must clearly explain the job placement rate calculation under the applicable accreditation agency or state methodology, and provide details on which students, if any, were excluded from the calculation under that methodology.
The gainful employment disclosure template application is available as a link from the following website:
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2009/negreg-summerfall.html
Once the form is completed, the template application will generate a zip file containing the GE program’s disclosure page, which the institution will host on its own website.
Institutions must prominently provide a direct link from the home page of the GE Program website to the program’s disclosure page that was generated by the disclosure template application. Any other web page containing general, academic or admissions information about the GE program must contain a prominent and direct link to the program’s web home page or to the GE disclosure page generated by the application.
Also available on the above website and from the Help menu on the template website, is a comprehensive GE Disclosure Template Quick Start Guide (Guide) to assist institutions in using the GE Disclosure Template. If, after reviewing the Guide, your institution has any technical questions regarding the GE Disclosure Template, please contact our help desk toll-free at (855) 359-3697 or gedt@inovas.net.
If you have any policy questions about the gainful employment disclosure requirements that are not answered in the Guide or on the FAQ section of the GE Information Page at http://ifap.ed.gov/gainful-employment-information/06-22-2014-subject-gainful-employment-information-page, please submit them to the GE Questions mailbox at GE-Questions@ed.gov.