4000-01-U
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
[Docket ID ED-2024-OPE-0072]
Request for Information on Identifying and Tracking Data
Related to Early Childhood Education Providers
AGENCY:

Office of Postsecondary Education, Department of

Education.
ACTION:

Request for information.

SUMMARY:

This notice is a request for information in the

form of written comments that include information,
research, and suggestions regarding operational aspects of
the possible inclusion of for-profit early childhood
education providers as eligible employers for the purpose
of Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
DATES:

We must receive your comments by [INSERT 30 DAYS

AFTER DATE OF PUBLICATION IN THE FEDERAL REGISTER].
ADDRESSES:

Comments must be submitted via the Federal

eRulemaking Portal at regulations.gov.

However, if you

require an accommodation or cannot otherwise submit your
comments via regulations.gov, please contact the program
contact person listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
CONTACT.
or by fax.

The Department will not accept comments by email
To ensure that the Department does not receive

duplicate copies, please submit your comments only once.
Additionally, please include the Docket ID at the top of
your comments.

Federal eRulemaking Portal:

Go to www.regulations.gov to

submit your comments electronically.

Information on using

Regulations.gov, including instructions for accessing
agency documents, submitting comments, and viewing the
docket, is available on the site under the “FAQ” tab.
Privacy Note:

The Department's policy for comments

received from members of the public is to make these
submissions available for public viewing in their entirety
on the Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov.
Therefore, commenters should be careful to include in their
comments only information that they wish to make publicly
available.

We encourage, but do not require, that each

respondent include their name, title, institution or
affiliation, and the name, title, mailing and email
addresses, and telephone number of a contact person for the
institution or affiliation, if any.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
(202) 401-6250.

Greg Marak.

Telephone:

You may also email your questions to

greg.marak@ed.gov, but as described above, comments must be
submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at
regulations.gov.
If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech
disability and wish to access telecommunications relay
services, please dial 7-1-1.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background:

Congress created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness
(PSLF) Program in 2007 as part of the College Cost
Reduction and Access Act, Pub. L. 110-84, to encourage
individuals to enter into and remain employed in public
service professions.

The program alleviates financial

burdens associated with Federal Direct Loans for borrowers
working for certain public service providers by forgiving
all remaining loan balances following 10 years of public
service while the borrower makes qualifying student loan
payments.

Since its creation in 2007, PSLF has been

available to borrowers working for government at all
levels, non-profit organizations that are tax-exempt under
section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and other
non-profits that provide at least one of the specific
services listed in the statute.

This includes early care

educators who work in the public sector or for non-profit
organizations.
A significant share of early care educators, however,
are not considered public sector or non-profit employees
and current regulations do not provide a pathway for their
eligibility for PSLF.

Data from the National Survey of

Early Care and Education, conducted by the Department of
Health and Human Service’s Office of Planning, Research,
and Evaluation, estimates that extending PSLF eligibility
to early childhood education (ECE) workers regardless of
the tax status of their employer would allow more than

450,000 additional ECE workers to earn credit toward PSLF—
about 68,000 who work in home-based settings and 390,000
who work in center-based settings—if they have student
loans.1

This reflects roughly one-third of the overall

ECE workforce.
On July 13, 2022, the Department published a notice of
proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register (87 FR
41878).2

In the NPRM, the Department proposed improvements

to PSLF that reduce regulatory and administrative barriers
that have historically made it more difficult for borrowers
to make progress toward forgiveness under PSLF.

This

included simplifying criteria to help borrowers certify
employment, helping borrowers earn progress toward PSLF for
months that did not count before, and providing borrowers
with more opportunities to correct problems with PSLF.
Additionally, in the NPRM, the Department asked
directed questions about the possibility of allowing ECE
providers who are private for-profit businesses to be
considered eligible employers for the purposes of PSLF.

In

response, the Department received many detailed comments
about early childhood education as well as a range of
comments in support of making other for-profit employers

These estimates are from the Administration for Children and Families’
National Survey of Early Care and Education, both the 2019 Home-Based
NSECE chartbook and the 2019 Center-Based NSECE chartbook. These data
show that approximately three-fourths of home-based providers had at
least some college, and 72 percent of for-profit ECE workers had some
college or higher.
2 https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/07/13/202214631/student-assistance-general-provisions-federal-perkins-loanprogram-federal-family-education-loan.

eligible to serve as qualifying employers for PSLF for
individuals in certain occupations.
On November 1, 2022, the Secretary published final
regulations3 in the Federal Register.

Those final

regulations did not include regulations regarding whether,
and under what circumstances, private for-profit ECE
providers employing borrowers working as early childhood
educators, should be treated as qualifying employers for
PSLF.4
Solicitation of Comments:
Early care educators are among the lowest-paid workers
in the country; and the Administration has committed
through Executive Order 14095, to better supporting the
care workforce.5

The EO states that investments in the care

workforce are foundational to helping to retain care
workers and improving health and educational outcomes for
those in their care.

The purpose of this Request for

Information (RFI) is to gather information about ECE
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/11/01/202223447/institutional-eligibility-under-the-higher-education-act-of-1965as-amended-student-assistance.
4 Section 103(8) of the Higher Education Act contains a definition of
”early childhood education program” that includes public preschool,
Head Start, and State licensed and regulated child care programs. It
does not speak to the tax-status of providers. Unlike the public
Kindergarten through 12th grade system, which provides free access to
education for all age-eligible children and youth, there is no parallel
system for our country’s youngest children. As a result, ECE is
delivered through a system of mixed delivery that includes public
programs, non-profit settings, and for-profit settings.
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ecd/policy-guidance/dear-colleague-lettermixed-delivery. The vast majority of ECE settings are home-based, and
do not carry non-profit tax designations. Compensation across settings
is low generally, regardless of the tax-status of the ECE provider.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_va.htm.
5Federal Register :: Increasing Access to High-Quality Care and
Supporting Caregivers

providers. This RFI and the comments received in response
to this RFI will not be considered as part the
Affordability and Student Loans proposed rule (87 FR 41878)
and any subsequent related final rules.

The comments

received in response to this RFI will not be used as part
of the rulemaking related to the treatment of for-profit
employers, including ECE providers, and eligibility for
PSLF.

Instead, the feedback from this RFI will help inform

the Department’s understanding of different approaches that
might be considered when implementing non-rulemaking
solutions related to this issue.
Given the operational and implementation hurdles
associated with PSLF, the Department is interested in
understanding whether there are ways that eligibility could
be streamlined if all ECEs became eligible.

The Department

is soliciting information and data from the public on how
the Department could determine employer eligibility and
related considerations if for-profit ECE employers were to
be considered eligible employers if they provided one of
the services listed in the statute.

The Department

encourages comments from researchers, academics, policy
experts, and other individuals familiar with ECE employer
data; organizations that work directly with ECE workers;
State and Tribal government officials who oversee and
administer ECE programs; ECE practitioners; and other
members of the public. The Department will review all

comments received, but does not intend to respond to
comments.
The Department seeks feedback on the following questions:
(1)

The Department has always relied upon employer

identification numbers (EINs) to identify whether an
employer is a non-profit under IRC 501(c)(3). This approach
has allowed the Department to create a comprehensive list
of eligible employers and use a consistent identifier
system.

However, some for-profit businesses may be sole

proprietors or other providers that do not have an EIN.
Are there other uniform sources that the Department might
consider using for determinations of qualifying employers?
(2)

If there are not other uniform sources, how

should the Department address eligibility determinations of
a for-profit ECE employer?
(3)

If in consultation with the Department, the U.S.

Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), issued a
voluntary Public Records Act request from the States to
create a nationwide registry of EINs of ECE providers, are
State and Tribal agencies that oversee and administer ECE
programs in a position to collect this information?

Do

commenters believe that all States would provide this
information?

Are there any additional considerations the

Department should be aware of should HHS issue this
request?

(4)

What feedback can be provided concerning the time

it would take a State or Tribe to undertake the collection
of EINs for licensed and regulated providers, including the
process, privacy, administrative, or other considerations
that the Department should take into account?
(5)

Should the Department consider a process that

relies on unique identifiers associated with licensure as
opposed to EINs to identify eligible employers?
This is a request for information only.

This RFI is

not a request for proposals and does not commit the
Department to take any future administrative, contractual,
regulatory, or other action.

The Department will not pay

for any information or costs that you may incur in
responding to this RFI. Any documents and information
submitted in response to this RFI become the property of
the U.S. Government and will not be returned.
Accessible Format:

By request to the program contact

person listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT,
individuals with disabilities can obtain this document in
an accessible format.

The Department will provide the

requestor with an accessible format that may include Rich
Text Format (RTF) or text format (txt), a thumb drive, an
MP3 file, braille, large print, audiotape, or compact disc,
or other accessible format.
Electronic Access to this Document:

The official version

of this document is the document published in the Federal

Register.

You may access the official edition of the

Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations at
www.govinfo.gov.

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 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.

Nasser Paydar,
Assistant Secretary,
Office of Postsecondary Education.

[FR Doc. 2024-13446 Filed: 6/18/2024 8:45 am; Publication Date: 6/20/2024]