Draft cohort default rates and your ability to challenge before official cohort default rates are issued.
34 C.F.R. § 668.185
in effectEffective: 2024-07-01(a) General. (1) We notify you of your draft cohort default rate before your official cohort default rate is calculated. Our notice includes the loan record detail report for the draft cohort default rate.
(2) Regardless of the number of borrowers included in your cohort, your draft cohort default rate is always calculated using data for that fiscal year alone, using the method described in § 668.183(d)(1).
(3) Your draft cohort default rate and the loan record detail report are not considered public information and may not be otherwise voluntarily released to the public by a data manager.
(4) Any challenge you submit under this section and any response provided by a data manager must be in a format acceptable to us. This acceptable format is described in the “Cohort Default Rate Guide” that we provide to you. If your challenge does not comply with the requirements in the “Cohort Default Rate Guide,” we may deny your challenge.
(b) Incorrect data challenges. (1) You may challenge the accuracy of the data included on the loan record detail report by sending a challenge to the relevant data manager, or data managers, within 45 days after you receive the data. Your challenge must include—
(i) A description of the information in the loan record detail report that you believe is incorrect; and
(ii) Documentation that supports your contention that the data are incorrect.
(2) Within 30 days after receiving your challenge, the data manager must send you and us a response that—
(i) Addresses each of your allegations of error; and
(ii) Includes the documentation that supports the data manager's position.
(3) If your data manager concludes that draft data in the loan record detail report are incorrect, and we agree, we use the corrected data to calculate your cohort default rate.
(4) If you fail to challenge the accuracy of data under this section, you cannot contest the accuracy of those data in an uncorrected data adjustment, under § 668.190, or in an erroneous data appeal, under § 668.192.
(c) Participation rate index challenges. (1)(i) You may challenge an anticipated loss of eligibility under § 668.187(a)(1), based on one cohort default rate over 40 percent, if your participation rate index for that cohort's fiscal year is equal to or less than 0.06015.
(ii) You may challenge an anticipated loss of eligibility under § 668.187(a)(2), based on three cohort default rates of 25 percent or greater, if your participation rate index is equal to or less than 0.0375 for any of those three cohorts' fiscal years.
(2) For a participation rate index challenge, your participation rate index is calculated as described in § 668.195(b), except that—
(i) The draft cohort default rate is considered to be your most recent cohort default rate; and
(ii) If the cohort used to calculate your draft cohort default rate included fewer than 30 borrowers, you may calculate your participation rate index for that fiscal year using either your most recent draft cohort default rate or the average rate that would be calculated for that fiscal year, using the method described in § 668.183(d)(2).
(3) You must send your participation rate index challenge, including all supporting documentation, to us within 45 days after you receive your draft cohort default rate.
(4) We notify you of our determination on your participation rate index challenge before your official cohort default rate is published.
(5) If we determine that you qualify for continued eligibility based on your participation rate index challenge, you will not lose eligibility under § 668.187 when your next official cohort default rate is published. A successful challenge that is based on your draft cohort default rate does not excuse you from any other loss of eligibility. However, if your successful challenge of a loss of eligibility under paragraph (c)(1)(ii) of this section is based on a prior, official cohort default rate, and not on your draft cohort default rate, we also excuse you from any subsequent loss of eligibility, under § 668.187(a)(2), that would be based on that official cohort default rate.
Source: eCFRURL: https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2024-07-01/title-34.xmlFetched: 7/26/2026