[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 5 (Tuesday, January 8, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 1206-1209]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-00163]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Privacy Act of 1974; System of Records--Evaluation of the Pell
Grant Experiments Under the Experimental Sites Initiative--2012
AGENCY: Institute of Education Sciences, Department of Education.
ACTION: Notice of a new system of records.
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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended
(Privacy Act), the Department of Education (Department) publishes this
notice of a new system of records entitled ``Evaluation of the Pell
Grant Experiments Under the Experimental Sites Initiative--2012'' (18-
13-31).
DATES: Submit your comments on this proposed new system of records on
or before February 7, 2013.
The Department filed a report describing the new system of records
covered by this notice with the Chair of the Senate Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the Chair of the House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the Administrator of
the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs,
[[Page 1207]]
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on January 3, 2013. This system
of records will become effective at the later date of: (1) The
expiration of the 40-day period for OMB review on February 12, 2013,
unless OMB waives 10 days of the 40-day review period for compelling
reasons shown by the Department, or (2) February 7, 2013, unless the
system of records needs to be changed as a result of public comment or
OMB review.
ADDRESSES: Address all comments about this new system of records to Dr.
Audrey Pendleton, Associate Commissioner, Evaluation Division, National
Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of
Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, 555 New Jersey Avenue
NW., room 502D, Washington, DC 20208-0001. Telephone: (202) 208-7078.
If you prefer to send comments through the Internet, use the following
address: comments@ed.gov.
You must include the term ``Pell Grant Experiments Under the
Experimental Sites Initiative--2012'' in the subject line of the
electronic message.
During and after the comment period, you may inspect all comments
about this notice at the U.S. Department of Education in room 502D, 555
New Jersey Avenue NW., Washington, DC, between the hours of 8:00 a.m.
and 4:30 p.m., Eastern time, Monday through Friday of each week except
Federal holidays.
Assistance to Individuals With Disabilities in Reviewing the Rulemaking
Record
On request we will provide an appropriate accommodation or
auxiliary aid to an individual with a disability who needs assistance
to review the comments or other documents in the public rulemaking
record for this notice. If you want to schedule an appointment for this
type of accommodation or auxiliary aid, please contact the person
listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Marsha Silverberg. Telephone:
(202)208-7178. If you use a telecommunications device for the deaf
(TDD) or text telephone (TTY), call the Federal Relay Service (FRS),
toll free, at 1-800-877-8339.
Individuals with disabilities can obtain this document in an
accessible format (e.g., braille, large print, audiotape, or compact
disc) on request to the contact person listed in this section.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Introduction
The Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. 552a) requires the Department to publish
in the Federal Register this notice of a new system of records
maintained by the Department. The Department's regulations implementing
the Privacy Act are contained in part 5b of Title 34 of the Code of
Federal Regulations (CFR).
The Privacy Act applies to any record about an individual that is
maintained in a system of records from which individually identifying
information is retrieved by a unique identifier associated with each
individual, such as a name or Social Security Number. The information
about each individual is called a ``record,'' and the system, whether
manual or computer-based, is called a ``system of records.''
The Privacy Act requires each agency to publish a notice of a
system of records in the Federal Register and to prepare and send a
report to OMB whenever the agency publishes a new system of records or
makes a significant change to an established system of records. Each
agency is also required to send copies of the report to the Chair of
the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and
the Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
These reports are inc1uded to permit an evaluation of the probable
effect of the proposal on the privacy rights of individuals.
The National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional
Assistance at the Department's Institute of Education Sciences (IES)
commissioned a study to conduct an evaluation of the impacts of two
different experiments involving the Pell Grant eligibility criteria.
The first experiment expands eligibility for Pell Grants to income-
eligible students who already possess a bachelor's degree and who
enroll in occupational training. The second experiment expands
eligibility for Pell Grants to students who enroll in occupational
programs that have a shorter duration than allowable under current
rules. Both experiments are being implemented under the Experimental
Sites Initiative (ESI), authorized by section 487A(b) of the Higher
Education Act of 1965 (HEA) (20 U.S.C. 1094a(b)), which allows the
Secretary to grant waivers from specific title IV HEA statutory or
regulatory requirements to allow institutions to test alternative
methods for administering those Federal student aid programs. The study
will compare students with expanded access to Pell Grants to similar
students who will not have access, in order to assess the effects of
expanded Pell Grant access on educational attainment, employment, and
earnings. It will be conducted under a contract that IES awarded in
September 2012.
The study will provide credible and reliable information to help
guide future policy decisions in the area of Federal financial aid. The
central research questions that the study will address are: What is the
impact of expanding Pell Grant eligibility on employment and earnings?
Does it improve access to occupational training? How does it affect
financial aid receipt and student debt?
The system will contain records on approximately 10,800 students
from approximately 51 participating institutions of higher education.
Electronic Access to This Document: The official version of this
document is the document published in the Federal Register. Free
Internet access to the official edition of the Federal Register and the
Code of Federal Regulations is available via the Federal Digital System
at: www.gpo.gov/fdsys. At this site you can view this document, as well
as all other documents of this Department published in the Federal
Register, in text or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). To use PDF
you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free at the
site.
You may also access documents of the Department published in the
Federal Register by using the article search feature at:
www.federalregister.gov. Specifically, through the advanced search
feature at this site, you can limit your search to documents published
by the Department.
Dated: January 3, 2013.
John Q. Easton,
Director, Institute of Education Sciences.
For the reasons discussed in the preamble, the Director of the
Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education,
publishes a notice of a new system of records to read as follows:
SYSTEM NUMBER:
18-13-31.
SYSTEM NAME:
Evaluation of the Pell Grants Experiments Under the Experimental
Sites Initiative--2012.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION:
None.
SYSTEM LOCATIONS:
(1) Evaluation Division, National Center for Education Evaluation
and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S.
[[Page 1208]]
Department of Education, 555 New Jersey Avenue NW., room 502D,
Washington, DC 20208-0001.
(2) Social Policy Research Associates, 1330 Broadway, Suite 1426,
Oakland, CA 94612-2513 (contractor).
(3) Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., 600 Alexander Park,
Princeton, NJ 08540-6346 (subcontractor).
CATEGORIES OF INDIVIDUALS COVERED BY THE SYSTEM:
The system will contain records on approximately 10,800 students
from approximately 51 institutions of higher education.
CATEGORIES OF RECORDS IN THE SYSTEM:
The system of records includes individually identifying information
about the students who agree to participate in the study. This
information includes name, birth date, and contact information;
demographic information such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, and
educational background; the type of program in which the student is
enrolled, the student's progress through the program (credits earned)
including completion; methods used to pay for the education and
training, including financial aid received and amount of student debt
incurred; receipt of support services; and information on employment
and earnings.
It is also our intention to include students' Social Security
Numbers (SSNs) to obtain information on their financial aid and their
employment and earnings; we expect to obtain the students' employment
and earnings data from the administrative records of another Federal
agency. Other methods for obtaining the information (i.e., self-
reporting) have proven to be infeasible and unreliable. SSNs are
necessary to obtain the needed employment and earnings data, and this
method will place a low burden on students and will not be costly to
the Federal government.
AUTHORITY FOR MAINTENANCE OF THE SYSTEM:
The study is authorized by section 487A(b)(2) of the Higher
Education Act of 1965 (HEA), 20 U.S.C. 1094a(b)(2), which requires the
Secretary of Education to review and evaluate the experiences of
institutions that participate as experimental sites and to submit a
biennial report based on the review and evaluation to the Committee on
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions of the Senate and the Committee
on Education and Labor of the House of Representatives. The study is
also authorized by section 173(a)(1)(A) of the Education Sciences
Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA) (20 U.S.C. 9563(a)(1)(A)), which authorizes
the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance to
conduct evaluations of Federal education programs administered by the
Secretary and to determine the impact of such programs.
PURPOSE(S):
The information contained in the records maintained in this system
will support an evaluation of the impacts of two different experimental
expansions to the Pell Grant eligibility criteria. The first experiment
expands eligibility for Pell Grants to income-eligible students who
already possess a bachelor's degree and who enroll in occupational
training, while the second experiment expands eligibility for Pell
Grants to students who enroll in occupational programs that have a
shorter duration than allowable under current rules. Both experiments
are being implemented under the Experimental Sites Initiative (ESI),
authorized by section 487A(b) of the HEA. The study will compare
students with expanded access to Pell Grants to similar students who
will not have access in order to assess the effects of expanded Pell
Grant access on educational attainment, employment, and earnings. The
study will address the following research questions:
1. What is the impact of expanding Pell Grant eligibility on
employment and earnings? The ultimate goal of the study is to determine
if providing Pell Grants for those with a bachelor's degree and for
relatively short-term job training affects participants' job prospects
and income levels.
2. Does it improve access to occupational training? Understanding
whether the experiments made a difference in training enrollments will
help in interpreting the presence or lack of earnings impacts.
3. How does it affect financial aid receipt and student debt? With
student debt loads being an increasing public policy concern,
expansions in Pell Grant eligibility are intended to reduce reliance on
loans that may carry high interest levels. The study will examine the
impacts of the experiments on the types and amounts of financial aid
students receive and on their expenditures for education and training.
ROUTINE USES OF RECORDS MAINTAINED IN THE SYSTEM, INCLUDING CATEGORIES
OF USERS AND THE PURPOSES OF SUCH USES:
The Department of Education (Department) may disclose information
contained in a record in this system of records under the routine uses
listed in this system of records without the consent of the individual
if the disclosure is compatible with the purposes for which the record
was collected. These disclosures may be made on a case-by-case basis
or, if the Department has complied with the computer matching
requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (Privacy Act),
under a computer matching agreement. Any disclosure of individually
identifiable information from a record in this system must also comply
with the requirements of section 183 of the ESRA (20 U.S.C. 9573)
providing for confidentiality standards that apply to all collections,
reporting, and publication of data by IES.
(1) Contract Disclosure. If the Department contracts with an entity
for the purposes of performing any function that requires disclosure of
records in this system to employees of the contractor, the Department
may disclose the records to those employees. Before entering into such
a contract, the Department shall require the contractor to maintain
Privacy Act safeguards as required under 5 U.S.C. 552a(m) with respect
to the records in the system.
(2) Federal Agency Disclosure. The Department may disclose records
from this system of records to another Federal agency for the purposes
of allowing that agency to provide assistance to the Department with
the evaluation of a federally supported education program. Under the
requirements of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA),
20 U.S.C. 1232g and 34 CFR part 99, the Department will enter into an
interagency agreement with the other Federal agency designating that
agency as the Department's authorized representative before disclosing
any personally identifiable information from any students' education
records to that Federal agency. Under the terms of such an interagency
agreement, the Federal agency will not be permitted to redisclose any
personally identifiable information obtained from students' education
records, and will be required to destroy any personally identifiable
information from students' education records when no longer needed for
the purposes of the evaluation as well as to maintain safeguards to
protect the confidentiality of any personally identifiable information
disclosed.
(3) Research Disclosure. The Director of the Institute of Education
Sciences may disclose information from this system of records to
qualified researchers solely for the purpose of carrying out specific
research that is compatible with the purpose(s) of this system of
records. The researcher shall be required to maintain safeguards under
the Privacy Act of 1974 and section 183 of the ESRA (20 U.S.C.
[[Page 1209]]
9573(c)) with respect to such records. When personally identifiable
information from a student's education record will be disclosed to the
researcher under FERPA, the researcher also shall be required to comply
with the requirements in the applicable FERPA exception to consent.
DISCLOSURE TO CONSUMER REPORTING AGENCIES:
Not applicable to this system of records.
POLICIES AND PRACTICES FOR STORING, RETRIEVING, ACCESSING, RETAINING,
AND DISPOSING OF RECORDS IN THE SYSTEM:
STORAGE:
The Department maintains records on CD-ROM, and the contractor
(Social Policy Research Associates) and sub-contractor (Mathematica
Policy Research, Inc.) maintain data for this system on computers and
in hard copy.
RETRIEVABILITY:
Records in this system are indexed and retrieved by a number
assigned to each individual that is cross-referenced by the
individual's name on a separate list.
SAFEGUARDS:
All physical access to the Department's site and to the site of the
Department's contractor and subcontractor, where this system of records
is maintained, is controlled and monitored by security personnel. The
computer system employed by the Department offers a high degree of
resistance to tampering and circumvention. This security system limits
data access to Department and contract staff on a need-to-know basis,
and controls individual users' ability to access and alter records
within the system. The contractor and subcontractor will establish a
similar set of procedures at its site to ensure confidentiality of
data. The contractor's and subcontractor's systems are required to
ensure that information identifying individuals is in files physically
separated from other research data. The contractor and subcontractor
will maintain security of the complete set of all master data files and
documentation. Access to individually identifying data will be strictly
controlled. All data will be kept in locked file cabinets during
nonworking hours, and work on hardcopy data will take place in a single
room, except for data entry. Physical security of electronic data will
also be maintained. Security features that protect project data
include: Password-protected accounts that authorize users to use the
contractor's system but to access only specific network directories and
network software; user rights and directory and file attributes that
limit those who can use particular directories and files and determine
how they can use them; and additional security features that the
network administrators will establish for projects as needed. The
contractor's and subcontractor's employees who ``maintain'' (collect,
maintain, use, or disseminate) data in this system shall comply with
the requirements of the confidentiality standards in section 183 of the
ESRA (20 U.S.C. 9573).
RETENTION AND DISPOSAL:
Records are maintained and disposed of in accordance with the
Department's Records Disposition Schedule 068 (NARA Disposition
Authority N1-441-08-18).
SYSTEM MANAGER AND ADDRESS:
Associate Commissioner, Evaluation Division, National Center for
Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education
Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, 555 New Jersey Avenue NW., room
502D, Washington, DC 20208-0001.
NOTIFICATION PROCEDURE:
If you wish to determine whether a record exists regarding you in
the system of records, contact the systems manager. Your request must
meet the requirements of regulations at 34 CFR 5b.5, including proof of
identity.
RECORD ACCESS PROCEDURE:
If you wish to gain access to your record in the system of records,
contact the system manager. Your request must meet the requirements of
regulations at 34 CFR 5b.5, including proof of identity.
CONTESTING RECORD PROCEDURE:
If you wish to contest the content of a record regarding you in the
system of records, contact the system manager. Your request must meet
the requirements of the regulations at 34 CFR 5b.7, including proof of
identity.
RECORD SOURCE CATEGORIES:
This system contains records on students participating in the
Evaluation of the Pell Grant Experiments Under the Experimental Sites
Initiative. Data will be obtained through student records maintained by
participating institutions, a survey of students, data extracts from
Free Applications for Federal Student Aid, and from the administrative
records of another Federal agency with data on the students' earnings
and employment outcomes.
EXEMPTIONS CLAIMED FOR THE SYSTEM:
None.
[FR Doc. 2013-00163 Filed 1-7-13; 8:45 am]
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