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Greetings,
Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), published a Final Rule, Amendments to 85/15 Rule Calculations, Waiver Criteria, and Reports, through a Federal Register Notice. The Notice is available here: Federal Register: 85/15 Rule Calculations, Waiver Criteria, and Reports.
The rule announced today is simply a notice of final rulemaking. This rule is effective 30 days after date of publication in the FEDERAL REGISTER. However, VA believes it is in the best interest of the students, schools, and the Federal government to provide schools with an extended amount of time after publication of the rule to prepare for and mitigate any impacts these new rules may have. Therefore, VA will delay the applicability date to one year after the publication of this final regulation to ensure both that VA will have adequate time to train schools as much as needed about the regulatory provisions herein as well as allow schools enough time to implement any necessary changes in their policies to comply with these provisions.
Through this rulemaking, VA is amending its educational assistance regulations by eliminating the four 85/15 rule calculation exemptions for students in receipt of certain types of institutional aid.
Currently, VA regulations provide exceptions that allow certain categories of students to be considered “non-supported” for purposes of the 85/15 rule notwithstanding their receipt of institutional aid. The 85/15 rule 38 U.S.C. § 3680A(d); 38 C.F.R. § 21.4201(a) prohibits VA from paying educational assistance benefits to any new students once “more than 85% of the students enrolled in the [program of education] are having all or part of their tuition, fees, or other charges paid to or for them by the educational institution or by VA" (38 U.S.C. § 3680A(d)(1)).
VA is eliminating these exceptions, thus clarifying the types of scholarships that educational institutions must include in their calculations of “supported” students. Also, VA is revising the criteria that shall be considered by the Director of Education Service when granting an 85/15 rule compliance waiver and the timeline for certain educational institutions’ submission of 85/15 compliance reports.
VA provided a 60-day comment period, which ended on December 13, 2022, and received 56 comments total pertaining to the proposed rulemaking. This rule adopts as a final rule with changes, the proposed rule published in the Federal Register on October 12, 2022.
Respectfully,
Education Service
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