However, Congress requires the Department of Education to seek public comments before publishing final regulations. In general, the process works as follows. The Department publishes a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking inviting the public to comment within a specified time period—often 30 to 45 days in length. The Department is then required to analyze each written comment, summarize the comments, and respond to them either by changing the final regulation or justifying the reason for not making a change. The summaries of comments, together with the Department’s responses, are published with the final regulation. In order to meet the Master Calendar established by Congress, which requires that final regulations must be published by the December 1^st before the award year in which the regulations become effective, NPRMs are often published in September. Most financial aid administrators agree that a significant portion of their time is spent complying with federal regulations. With so little time left, many aid administrators are hard pressed to make time to respond to NPRMs, especially if they feel that their comments won’t have any effect.

However, it is essential that aid administrators MAKE the time to respond because, often, responses can have an enormous impact on the nature and scope of final regulations. For example, in August 1994, the Department proposed that schools be required to collect students’ high school diplomas or transcripts as documentation that the student is a high school graduate. However, the Department was persuaded to drop this provision, based on comments from the community that the requirement would impose onerous and undue paperwork requirements.

1. Address your response to the person specified in the NPRM. The Department will accept responses by e-mail, by U.S. mail, or by fax. Please send NASFAA a copy of your comments. They will help us develop our response.
2. For each section you are commenting on, cite the specific Section Number [e.g., Section 668.22(a)] if at all possible. For clarity, you might consider using the section number as a heading to introduce the accompanying text.
3. Be as specific as you can in your comments and, where possible, provide arguments for WHY you agree or disagree with a particular provision.
4. Try to offer your opinions constructively. If you disagree with a proposed regulation and have a suggestion for a less burdensome, or more effective alternative, don’t hesitate to suggest it!
5. If you support a particular regulation, respond with a favorable comment. This helps to protect a proposed provision from undesirable changes.