DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION 

AFFORDABILITY AND STUDENT LOANS COMMITTEE 

 SESSION 2, DAY 5, MORNING 

November 5, 2021 

 

 

 

 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

On the 5th day of November, 2021, the 

following meeting was held virtually, from 10:00 a.m. 

to 12:00 p.m., before Jamie Young, Shorthand Reporter 

in the state of New Jersey. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

P R O C E E D I N G S 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, everyone, 

and welcome back to session two, day five of the 

Negotiated Rulemaking Affordability and Student Loans. I 

am Cindy Jeffries, I will be your facilitator this 

morning and to kick things off, we're going to do our 

roll call of attendees for this morning. So first I'd 

like I will call the constituency and then the primary 

and then the alternates name. So for the Department of 

Education federal negotiator Jennifer Hong. 

MS. HONG: Good morning, happy Friday, 

everyone. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, Jennifer. 

From Office of Attorney General, we have Brian Siegel 

this morning assisting Jennifer. 

MR. SIEGEL: Good morning. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. 

Accrediting agencies, Heather Perfetti. 

DR. PERFETTI: Good morning, everyone. 

MS. JEFFRIES: And her alternate 

Michale McComis. It's our understanding he's not able to 

join us. Dependent students, Dixie Samaniego. 

MS. SAMANIEGO: Good morning, 

everyone. Happy Friday. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, Dixie. 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

Greg Norwood. It doesn't appear as though Greg is with 

this right now. 

MR. NORWOOD: Oh, good morning. Good 

morning from the beautiful city of Houston, Texas. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, Greg. 

Federal Family Education Loan lenders and or guaranty 

agencies, Jaye O'Connell. 

MS. O'CONNELL: Good morning from 

frosty Vermont. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning and Will 

Shaffner. 

MR. SHAFFNER: Good morning. I'm on 

the road for a little bit today, but I am with you. Hi, 

everyone. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Perfect. Thank you. 

Financial aid administrators at postsecondary 

institutions, Daniel Barkowitz. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Hello, everyone from a 

still beautiful but yet very wet Orlando, Florida, today. 

So welcome everyone. Happy FriYay! 

MS. JEFFRIES: It is very wet down 

here today, Daniel. You are correct. Alyssa Dobson. 

MS. DOBSON: Hi, good morning. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Four-year 

public institutions, Marjorie Dorime-Williams. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

DR. DORIME-WILLIAMS: Good morning, 

everyone. Dr. Dorime-Williams here. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Rachelle 

Feldman. 

MS. FELDMAN: Good morning. Happy 

Friday, everyone. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. 

Independent students, Michaela Martin. 

MS. MARTIN: Good morning. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, Michaela. 

Stanley Andrisse. 

DR. ANDRISSE: Good morning, everyone. 

Happy Friday. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, Stanley. 

Individuals with disabilities or groups representing 

them, Bethany Lilly. 

MS. LILLY: Good morning, everybody. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. John 

Whitelaw. 

MR. WHITELAW: Morning, from the proud 

first state of Delaware. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, John. 

Legal assistance organizations that represent students 

and or borrowers. Persis Yu. 

MS. YU: Good morning from chilly 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

Boston, but I think we're still warmer than Vermont. 

MS. JEFFRIES: I would, I would, uh, I 

would take you up on that one, Persis. Joshua Rovenger. 

MR. ROVENGER: Morning, everyone. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Minority 

serving institutions Noelia Gonzalez. 

MS. GONZALEZ: Good morning. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Private 

nonprofit institutions Misty Sabouneh. 

MS. SABOUNEH: Good morning from sunny 

Arizona. Happy Friday, everyone. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, Misty. 

And Dr. Terrence McTier. 

DR. MCTIER: Good morning, everyone. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. 

Proprietary institutions, Jessica Barry. 

MS. BARRY: Good morning, everyone. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, Jessica and Carol 

Colvin. 

DR. COLVIN: Morning. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Morning. State 

attorneys general, Joseph Sanders. 

MR. SANDERS: Good morning from 

Chicago, everyone. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, Joe. Eric Apar. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

MR. APAR: Good morning, everyone. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, Eric. State higher 

education executive officers, state authorizing agencies 

and or state regulators, David Tandberg. 

MR. TANDBERG: Good morning. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, David. Suzanne 

Martindale. 

MS. MARTINDALE: Hi. Good morning. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Student 

loan borrowers, Jeri O'Bryan-Losee 

MS. O'BRYAN-LOSEE: Hello from the 

lovely Albany, New York at 36 degrees this morning. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Yikes! Welcome Jeri. 

Jennifer Cardenas. 

MS. CARDENAS: Cardenas, yes. Buenos 

dias, good morning, everyone. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Two-year 

public institutions, Robert Ayala. 

MR. AYALA: Good morning, ladies and 

gentlemen. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, Bobby. Christina 

Tangalakis. 

DR. TANGALAKIS: Good morning, from 

Los Angeles. I have no right to complain about the 

weather from here. 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, 

Christina. U.S. military, U.S. military service members, 

veterans or groups representing them Justin Hauschild. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Good morning. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, Emily 

DeVito. 

MS. DEVITO: Good morning. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Then we 

have our two esteemed advisers, Raj Darolia, on economic 

or higher education data. 

MR. DAROLIA: Hello from Lexington, 

Kentucky. Thirty eight degrees here. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, Raj. And 

Heather Jarvis qualifying employers on the topic of 

Public Service Loan Forgiveness. 

MS. JARVIS: Good morning from 

Wilmington, North Carolina. Forty-four degrees. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Did I 

miss anyone this morning? Okay, perfect. So with that, I 

think we'll jump right into our agenda today and pick up 

where we left off yesterday on the Income Driven 

Repayment issue paper. And I believe, Jennifer, you were 

going through A through D. Sit tight, I see Heather has 

her hand up. 

MS. JARVIS: Thank you, Cindy. I just 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

wanted to ask a couple of questions of the Department so 

that I could be more expeditious in providing regulatory 

text between sessions. Two specific questions. First, 

whether the Department has evaluated establishing a 

both/and approach to qualifying public service, such as 

working for a qualifying public service employer as we 

currently have and adding a well-defined limited number 

of qualifying public service jobs. So, my first question 

is whether the Department has evaluated the idea of 

establishing a both/and approach? If I can receive an 

answer to that at some point before the next session, 

I'll be able to better compile materials in an 

expeditious manner and get them to the Department very 

quickly. And the second question I have is whether the 

department has evaluated, including full time public 

service employment in specifically defined and limited 

for-profit settings? So, the question being whether the 

Department has considered including some for-profit 

employment as qualified? And that's those are my two 

questions. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. You got that, 

Jennifer? 

MS. HONG: Yes, thank you, Heather. 

You know, we talked a lot about this, we talked about 

this even in crafting the proposal, I alluded to the 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

original rulemaking that we did in 2009. We've stewed on 

it. We've put a lot of thought into this whole concept of 

of just starting with the employer. And so we we have not 

found a way to operationalize that by job description or 

by type of employment. So we are staying with this 

concept. So if we could keep our discussions regarding, 

you know, first accessing the program through employer to 

your concept. So first entities, we are still taking that 

into consideration. But again, our challenge with that 

piece is knowing where to draw the lines and we haven't 

found, nor nor did our discussion yield a clean way to do 

that. So we're open to ideas, we realize we are going 

into the third session. So, to your first point, we are 

staying with eligibility by the employer and to your 

second point, we haven't closed the door, but we we just 

at this point in time, we don't have any good answers for 

that piece and it's very slippery as we conceive of it 

right now. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jennifer. 

Daniel and Dixie, let me just make one point of 

clarification. There may be some confusion on the 

introduction of Mr. Brian Siegel, he is from the Office 

of General Counsel, and is here to assist. Daniel? 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Thank you. Jennifer, 

can I ask, is the concern one of compensation or is the 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

concern one of role? Because I think either either 

concern, I'm speaking specifically about someone working 

in the private sector, either either a concern has a 

solution or maybe it's a combination of both. I'm just 

trying to get a better sense of the Department's concern. 

MS. HONG: Well, I think it's twofold. 

I mean, that it's qualifying employer employees by the 

type of work that it is public service, but it's also the 

real challenge of finding a way to operationalize that. 

And so and to either ensure that we capture those 

individuals that are performing a public service, I think 

that's a priority. It's just are they performing a public 

service? So the way that we would, we've been able to 

operationalize that an employee level. It's just not not 

feasible for our for the Department to be looking through 

individual job descriptions. Or it's just so then if we 

start drawing lines about types of jobs that can be very 

slippery as well in terms of inadvertently including 

individuals that aren't performing a public service, for 

example. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: So my alternate has 

mentioned. 

MS. HONG: And inadvertently excluding 

those that are. Sorry, go ahead. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Oh, no problem. So, so 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

my my alternate has mentioned several times SOC codes is 

a way to get to that as a practical method. And you know, 

I understand the concern, but I know my alternate has 

mentioned it a few times. And actually, it's a it's a SOC 

codes are a federal designation for occupations, and 

we've used them in the past in other ways with federal 

student aid. So again, I would highly encourage us, and 

maybe I can ask Heather if that's something that she'd be 

willing to look at. Is is is (inaudible) as a way to get 

to your concern or the Department's concern? 

MS. HONG: So we have used that, I 

know that was raised, and we've there still some it 

doesn't fill in all the gaps for us going by CIP codes. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. Dixie? 

MS. SAMANIEGO: I think Heather might 

have something to say, the PSLF advisor, I'm not sure if 

it's on that. Some of the stuff that I'm talking about is 

not on PSLF, so if, Heather wants to jump in right now 

before I ask my questions? 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you, Dixie. 

Heather. 

MS. JARVIS: Thank you, and I don't 

want to take time away from the conversation about Income 

Driven Repayment, I fully recognize that that is 

absolutely vital that we get to immediately. But in 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

response to Daniel and Jennifer, I do have some very 

clear ideas and would be happy to continue to work with 

this committee and representatives of the Department to 

hash that out. I want to acknowledge what Jennifer has 

said that I agree completely that that we must have the 

system that the department has put in place of qualifying 

the overwhelming majority of borrowers for Public Service 

Loan Forgiveness based on their employment with 

government or 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations that is 

necessary to administer the program in a way that is 

possible. But it is also possible to have a very, very 

narrow and specifically defined additional category that 

borrowers can apply for consideration and meet the 

requirements of the Department so it would not be 

administratively burdensome. I have some suggestions that 

would make it. In fact, I think much less difficult to 

administer than the current system because what the 

Department presently has to do is look at organizations 

and bend over backwards to try to determine which 

organizations are providing public services that are not 

(c)(3)s or governments. And the reality is that virtually 

all public service workers and public service work is 

done in government and 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. 

The difficult question is what other public service is 

happening outside those contacts and the Department 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

presently has to try to look at nonprofit organizations 

and figure out how much public service they do or whether 

they get any public funding or or what their primary 

function is and that is very difficult and has resulted 

in litigation and issues for the Department and 

administration. It would be much easier to continue the 

current system and say we have for qualifying. Everybody 

works for the government and everybody who works for 

a(c)(3) based on their organization of employment. And 

that process is in place. Then you don't want to miss 

other people and you don't want to include folks you 

shouldn't include. So then you look to your definitions 

that the Department has offered and potentially 

additional ones from SOC codes, and I have very clear 

ideas about how that can work in the current regulatory 

structure. Statutorily approved, the Department does not 

have to only qualify people based on employment in a 

specific type of organization. They could continue to do 

that and add a little other something, and I have very 

specific ideas, happy to go back and forth on that. But I 

don't want to spend a whole lot of time and write a lot 

of things if the Department has completely rejected the 

notion of ever allowing someone to qualify, who does not 

work for an organization that the Department has already 

approved through a process that is difficult. So I'd love 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

to provide some additional text to the Department, and I 

can do that very quickly, next week, but I don't want to 

spend a lot of time doing it if you're not going to 

consider it. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Heather. 

MS. HONG: Yeah, we we'd be happy to 

take that, Heather again, given the given our very real 

reservations. That being said, that was how we broached 

this discussion for session two, but we didn't. I don't 

know about you all, but we left that discussion, feeling 

that we had more questions rather than answers. So we did 

try to propose new definitions. We solicited other 

definitions. If you had more that you could offer us, 

Heather and certainly will take a look. But I just want 

to emphasize what we're trying to balance here in terms 

of having some rails around the program. Also, it was, 

oh, I, I realize Daniel and I were saying CIP codes SOC 

codes, and we wouldn't be able to rely exclusively on SOC 

codes unless I know you've broached that several times. 

We have used that in the past to kind of as a guide when 

we receive certain applications, but there are some gaps 

with SOC codes, so we wouldn't be able to be able to rely 

exclusively on them. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jennifer. 

Dixie. 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

MS. SAMANIEGO: I have a couple of 

questions, and I'll ask them one by one so that Jennifer 

is able to give an answer to each and every single one of 

them before we move on to today's topic. So, basically, 

some of these questions are in preparation for next 

week's prison education subcommittee and ensuring that 

the department is prepared for that. And so I have a 

question about whether or not materials will be 

distributed to the subcommittee folks before the actual 

start of the week so that they actually have a time to 

come or they have the time to come prepared. Or if 

there's like a timeline when the Department of Education 

is going to release those materials for the subcommittee? 

MS. HONG: So you're asking, Dixie, 

specifically about materials or whatever that may be 

distributed for the prison education subcommittee? 

MS. SAMANIEGO: Yeah. I'm not asking 

for them myself, but rather is the Department allowed to 

give them out before the actual start of the week for 

them? 

MS. HONG: Yes. And I see my I see my 

colleague on the on the line here. 

MS. SAMANIEGO: Yeah, I was going to 

ask if it might be a better question for Aaron since he's 

the one leading that. 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

MS. MACK: Aaron, has his hand raised, 

Aaron, you can come on screen if you'd like to share. 

MR. WASHINGTON: Yeah, so we are 

working right now to finalize the language, and we fully 

expect to send it out before the beginning of the 

subcommittee before we start on Monday. 

MS. SAMANIEGO: So like ten minutes 

before or like time before? Just so that were clear. 

MR. WASHINGTON: We hope to send it 

out as soon as possible. And that's our intent is to get 

out as soon as possible, but it will go out before 

Monday. 

MS. SAMANIEGO: Okay. And the two 

other questions I have are probably best answered by 

Aaron. So I'll just keep you a little while longer, 

Aaron. So will the Department have proper FMCS or 

Department staffing for next week for the next session 

Prison Education Subcommittee. Since that was like that 

was kind of answered when we were talking about it 

earlier when Stan, Professor Andrisse and Dr. McTier had 

presented earlier about the first session of the 

subcommittee. So just wondering. 

MR. WASHINGTON: I think Emil 

explained it a little bit last week because the 

subcommittee or yesterday and maybe today, because the 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

subcommittee is organized differently than the main 

committee, you all have the rights, the power to vote on 

the issues and you all will be making the ultimate 

decision on what happens. Whether you vote for consensus 

on a prison education language we won't be having full 

facilitation from FMCS for the next for the 18th, 19th, 

and 20th. However, we do have, Dixie did you get a chance 

to view some of the subcommittee? I'm just I'm just 

wondering. 

MS. SAMANIEGO: I did not. I've talked 

to some of the subcommittee members, that's why I'm 

asking the questions. 

MR. WASHINGTON: Okay, so we did have 

a member from the Department of Education from my my 

specific team noting hand, who was raising their hands, 

calling on individuals, and I did take on a little bit of 

the facilitation role in some of the temperature checks, 

but we generally we did we do have a note taker. We have 

Vanessa Gomez, who projects and projects the red lines. 

Our facilitator was Sophia McArdle from the Department of 

Education for the second two days and Brian Schelling the 

first day. So there are multiple, we had David Musser, 

who served as a technical adviser, providing FSAs, the 

office of Federal Student Aid addressing the operational 

perspective. We also had three lawyers, we had a Soren 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

Lagaard, Steve Finley, and Ronald Sann. So we did have a 

lot of collaboration and a lot of support from the 

Department staff during the committee. I hope, I hope 

that answers your question. 

MS. SAMANIEGO: I have one more 

Cynthia. I'm so sorry. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Dixie, let me just 

weigh in on that FMCS facilitation. According to your 

protocols that everyone accepted it says that the 

Department would be the facilitator, and that is the best 

practice of these rulemaking (inaudible) that they have 

facilitated the subcommittees. Okay, thank you. 

MS. SAMANIEGO: I've asked because 

subcommittee members have been a little bit confused 

about it, so yeah. And then my last question, I'm so 

sorry, Aaron, since we voted earlier in this week to have 

a new negotiator to the full committee, is there going to 

be any actual proper onboarding for that person? And then 

also so that they can participate in the subcommittee 

next week? 

MS. MACK: There's we've reached out, 

I'm sorry, I don't want to speak over you, Aaron, but 

FMCS reached out to that individual on behalf of the 

committee, and I know that the Department has reached out 

to that individual on behalf of the subcommittee. There 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

has been no response to either one of our groups from 

that individual, Dixie. So yeah, the outreach was there 

to do the onboarding, but thus far we haven't heard back. 

MS. SAMANIEGO: Alrighty, that's 

helpful. Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Okay, David. 

MR. TANDBERG: I wonder if in our 

outreach to that individual, if we offered them the 

option of just serving on the subcommittee. I've always 

felt all along that asking them to serve on the main 

committee was probably a shot too far, given the topics 

and the time commitment, the short-term notice. But maybe 

the subcommittee would be more attractive to them given 

their expertise and the much smaller time commitment. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, David. I'm 

going to let Kayla answer that because she did do the 

outreach to her. 

MS. MACK: Yes, so this individual 

could in fact accept the role on the subcommittee and not 

the committee or both or the committee, not the 

subcommittee, since you all reach consensus on both. And 

that can be explained to her if and when we do do connect 

but agree, David, she's got to accept and be available 

for those. I hope that answers your question, David. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Stan. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

DR. ANDRISSE: Hi. Good morning, 

everyone. So just to weigh in on that, I've reached out 

to Director Anne Precythe's assistant and have a meeting 

with her today to talk and give a little bit more 

information so I can hopefully provide some information 

to the committee later today on that. And I also, you 

know, communicated to Director Precythe via email and 

will inform her assistant when I talk to her of the 

option of choosing one or the other. And, you know, kind 

of explaining what you've just said, David, and that you 

know where her expertise can best be suited. So I will 

look to update on that. Regarding the piece I stayed 

after and just asked a quick question to the FMCS team a 

couple of days ago about the facilitation in the 

subcommittee. And, you know, was the response was exactly 

what was just mentioned and as was also mentioned, you 

know, our concern was that, you know, Aaron, although 

amazing, is kind of doing two roles and serving as also 

the expert, you know, part of one of the part of the 

expert team on the Department and facilitating, whereas 

here the facilitators are, you know, just facilitating 

and not having to also be an expert on the topic 

necessarily and provide their thoughts on the topic. So 

there's a little bit of a conflict there that the 

facilitator is also one of the experts discussing the, 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

you know, in the discussion. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Stan. An 

additional point on this is that these subcommittees are 

working groups, they don't have the option to vote or do 

anything or do consensus checks. They're working groups 

in the sense that the people that have been selected have 

the expertise and knowledge to try to come together to 

bring a recommendation to the full committee for, you 

know, for your. So voting abilities, this subcommittee is 

the only one that has that, or this committee is the only 

one that has. That voting authority, so know if that's 

helpful or not, but let's keep in mind they are working 

group. Ok. So with that, I I would like to move ahead and 

continue the discussion on Income Driven Repayment plans. 

Jennifer, you started to walk us through yesterday 

Section A through D think we only got through A and B, 

but I don't know if your preference is to start fresh and 

go through those four subjects. We will be breaking this 

down into five different sections for the temperature 

check for ease of understanding. 

MS. HONG: Thank you, Cynthia. So 

again, if we could cue the Income Driven Repayment plan 

proposed text. You may recall we had out of all the 

issues when we came to session one. This was the most 

open ended. We're coming back with the proposed text 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

again with a lot of questions for you all. So this we are 

soliciting your feedback, your targeted feedback, your 

priorities in the context of Raj's presentations on IDR 

in terms of which levers to pull, in terms of income 

protection and payments. So we have a lot of questions 

here. Just to reframe this discussion, there was a 

question about amendatory text again, we are introducing 

we've taken this opportunity to revise everything in 

section 209, even the existing plans. Not so much 

substantive issues on the current, the other four plans, 

other current four plans, IDR plans, however, technical 

tweaks here and there, and we've flagged those issues for 

you. We we stopped, I think, rather abruptly yesterday 

when we're really getting into this discussion. Daniel 

had a question on let's just ax everything and have one 

plan, and our substitute for that was to revise this to 

make it streamlined and less confusing. We can't get rid 

of existing plans because borrowers are currently on 

them, so we need some governing regulations while 

borrowers and students are still on those repayment 

plans. So that's what I wanted to respond to Daniel. The 

second one, we were soliciting definitions, so we've 

gotten through, I touched upon how this is framed under 

other definitions. Under one, we've basically pulled the 

relevant definitions and existing texts and just kind of 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

defined to which plan they're pertinent to. And we were 

soliciting, Hey did we captured it all, do we have all 

the definitions here? Jeri made a good point about 

buying, consolidate, consolidated loans, and I didn't get 

to look back with her. But we have, as you can imagine, 

we do have that defined elsewhere, and that is at the 

beginning of 685.102 under definitions. That's the 

general Direct Loan program regulations. So we do, we 

already have that elsewhere. So so where we left off was 

at the bottom. I think we did get to D. I think we did 

get through this first part. There were a lot of 

questions that we didn't get through. And again, the the 

flag at the bottom of Page two under D, eligible loans. 

We want to solicit feedback on types of loan types of 

loans here and considerations of how loan type 

eligibility interacts with cost and potentially other 

design parameters. And I do request that, as you, you 

know, as we touch upon these different levers and 

different priorities, if you could frame your suggestions 

in the context of those levers in terms of again, what 

we're what we're trying to get at here, we're trying to 

get at the affordability of these plans for lower income 

borrowers. Michaela had mentioned the 20 to 25 years 

again, we have the 10-year standard repayment. We realize 

that the 20 to 25 years may be too long for borrowers 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

with lower loan amounts or who have lower incomes for 

longer periods of time. So just kind of keep keeping 

these in the back of your mind if you could frame your 

suggestions in those in this context. We appreciate it. I 

see a lot of hands up and I will. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. 

Justin? 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Had my mute button on. 

So there are a lot of other people on this committee that 

are much smarter on IDR than I, but I'm just trying to 

get some clarification on the Department's intent with 

regard to the other plans. Certainly understand that 

there are people on these plans that will even maybe may 

even want to continue on these plans when when this new 

plan goes into effect. But I'm trying to better 

understand what the Department is seeing that as a 

permanent obstacle to consolidating and simplifying the 

options available or whether there is still some 

consideration here to potentially consolidate and make 

this easier for folks to understand, I understand the 

Department wants to improve these as well, but I think 

there really is confusion out there, partly because of so 

many different plans. So again, there are many folks that 

are smarter. But if I could just get some clarification 

on the Department's intended strategy around 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

consolidation of plans, that would be helpful. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Jennifer, you're on 

mute. 

MS. HONG: I can just quickly say that 

we know, that nothing is reflected here. We're just 

adding because we realize that at this point in time, we 

haven't, not that we haven't explored that option, but 

certainly some of these plans can be sunsetted. But right 

now we're just we're trying to gauge what is what is 

needed, what is missing, so that we can reorganize this 

and streamline this with with what we have currently. We 

certainly can't get rid of any plans right now in the 

regulations. But we are we are exploring how we can 

better organize these plans and see what is needed right 

now, and we're trying to address what is needed. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jennifer. 

Bethany. 

MS. LILLY: So I actually have a 

follow up on Justin's question, which is not why I raised 

my hands initially, but are there legislative solutions 

that would allow you to consolidate all of these plans 

and simplify the process for? Is that what the Department 

is effectively saying, that you guys need authorization 

from Congress to consolidate the plans? 

MS. HONG: I'm going to let our 
 

26 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

general counsel respond to that. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Brian. 

MR. SIEGEL: Yes, there are some 

statutory issues, for example, in IBR there in the Income 

Based Repayment plan, Congress has established two really 

two separate plans, depending upon where the borrowers 

are when they took out their loan. We can't abolish IBR. 

We can't stop new borrowers from signing up for IBR. 

That's statutory. In regard to ICR, those plans are 

created largely by regulation. However, for past 

borrowers their promissory notes give them the option of 

signing up for PAYE, REPAYE, and and ICR. So that's a 

term of the contract right now. Whether those programs 

continue in their current form, that's I think that, as 

Jennifer said, that's something that or continue to be 

available going forward, that's something that we're 

continuing to look at. 

MS. LILLY: And so the goal with the 

new plan. Sorry, I'm just trying to understand the big 

picture so we can move forward here would be everybody 

starts using the new plan then, but the older plans are 

just left over for the people who currently exist in 

them? 

MR. SIEGEL: I think the Department is 

still looking at that and whether there's other options. 
 

27 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

I think the Department is still open to to what the 

committee has to suggest. 

MS. LILLY: I would just say that, I 

mean, I think what you're hearing from Justin and from 

other folks in the chat is just that people are very 

confused right now. I mean, having four options or five 

options is just really messy. And so the more that you 

all can simplify that, I think just speaking on behalf of 

myself, that is something I would like to see in this. 

But my actual comment was related to B (6) the definition 

of discretionary income because I think we heard some 

comments yesterday during the comment period about child 

care expenses, about other expenses that weren't taken 

into account when it comes to discretionary income. And I 

went back last night because I was curious and I read 

subsection (E) in subsection (L), which are referenced 

there. And certainly one way to get at this is the 

Department to just increase the applicable poverty 

guideline percentage to two hundred and fifty or three 

hundred. But I think another way to think about it, and I 

know that that's more complicated administratively way 

but the costs like childcare should not be counted 

towards discretionary income. That's not really 

discretionary. And so I, has the Department thought about 

adding more specific costs that folks experience to that 
28 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

list? Such as rent, such as things like that. I mean, I 

think that's one way to do it if you don't want to 

increase the applicable poverty percentage guideline. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright. Not seeing a 

response for that right at this moment, Bethany, so 

they'll have to get back to you on that. Persis, you're 

up next. 

MS. YU: Thank you. I want to both 

address the simplification and also move into 

discretionary income. I mean, I think part of the issue, 

regardless of whether you think you have the authority 

to, is what we need to do is we need to make this plan 

better than all the other plans. And I think that's why 

the plans are so confusing is because one treats interest 

in one way, which is a little bit better than the other 

one, but the other one has a cap. And what you need to do 

is we need to make this plan so clearly better. You know, 

when we look at the FFEL program, for example, we have we 

did not actually get rid of income sensitive repayment, 

but Income Based Repayment is so clearly better that that 

basically very few people wind up in income sensitive 

repayment. And so I think we need to follow a similar 

approach. Looking at these new plans is that we need to 

make the plans so clearly better that it is always going, 

the servicers are not going to be confused and walking 
 

29 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

through 12 pages of different Income Driven Repayment 

plans that there's clearly one that is better for every 

single borrower. I think you could. I think you could 

probably sunset all the other provisions if you also did 

that as well to make it regulatory easier. But I think in 

either event, so long as our focus is ensuring that we 

have a more generous repayment plan, then then 

simplification just happens and we can let the other 

plans wither on the vine, so to speak. I think getting to 

the discretionary income definition is one of the most 

important ways of doing that, and that's why we proposed 

in the proposal that we sent you, we made the argument 

that you need to increase that to 400% of federal 

poverty. One of the biggest problems as Bethany just 

mentioned is that there are a lot of variations in the 

different ways that people have expenses. This is and not 

just expenses, but also what what resources do they 

bring? And this is very true in particular for 

communities of color that, you know, because of the 

racial wealth gap, borrowers of color have fewer 

resources. They have fewer resources to weather 

emergencies that come up, whether it's fixing your car or 

other type of expenses. But, you know, folks are 

supporting elderly parents, they're supporting community 

members, they are providing childcare, folks who have 
 

30 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

higher medical expenses. We just don't have a great way 

right now of capturing all of the different expenses that 

people have. I think 150% is probably not sufficient 

almost anywhere in the country. And I think if you look 

at the MIT Living Wage calculator, you can see that 

really in most places, you have to get to at least 250 to 

300% of federal poverty to really capture what's 

discretionary income. But then but then regardless, 

that's going to be your average right and we need to take 

care of the people with the extraordinaryMR. TOTONCHI: Thirty seconds. 

MS. YU: and the way to get that is to 

have a very generous discretionary income threshold 

unless you are willing to go through a more 

administratively burdensome process like Bethany 

suggested where we are taking into consideration very 

individualized expenses. But I think we can either do the 

very complicated method of taking into consideration all 

these expenses, or we can have a very generous 

discretionary income threshold and we suggest that we do 

the latter and that it be 400%. Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Persis. Joe? 

MR. SANDERS: Hi, thanks. So, very 

quickly agree with Persis on the need for this to be the 

best plan, and if we do that, then the concerns about 
 

31 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

there's a bunch of plans and we can't necessarily get rid 

of them, I think are lessened. So 100% agree with that. 

One of the concerns for state AGs is the recertification 

process and people falling out of IDR through the 

recertification process. Was, you know, encouraged to see 

some commentary about the FUTURE Act implementation in 

the procedure section on page six and wanted to ask the 

Department about in the procedure section, romanette 2, 

not sure if I'm using romanette properly there, but 

subsection 2, where the borrower has to consent to the 

disclosure of tax information in the master promissory 

note. Does that Department know whether that consent 

would be ongoing for the, you know, however long the 

program goes before forgiveness? We think that, you know, 

we've seen servicers do a very bad job on outreach to 

consumers to let them know about research. We have that 

allegation in our complaints and we think that, you know, 

the less touches that are needed by the consumer or by 

the Department or servicers have to reach out to them, 

the more successful people will be staying in the 

programs. Secondarily, on a broader question is for 

people who have who have signed a promissory note that 

doesn't have that provision in it, does the Department 

have implementation concepts that would lessen 

recertification burden for existing borrowers, whether 
 

 

32 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

through the FUTURE Act implementation or some other. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Joe. 

Marjorie? 

DR. DORIME-WILLIAMS: So I, plus like 

everything that was said before me, I think these are 

really strong and concrete suggestions. I did want to go 

back to some of the points that Bethany had made in our 

first session about automation, and it seems for a lot of 

these issues, simplification would come through 

automation. So I want to encourage the Department to 

think about things like you mentioned recertification, 

how students get placed into A plan. We've read both 

testimony and research that shows that these serve as 

unnecessary burdens to the borrowers. So in thinking 

about this process, I would encourage us to keep that at 

the forefront. In addition, when we're looking at this 

issue of discretionary income again agreeing with what 

Persis shared and really thinking specifically about this 

idea of discretionary income and the difference is in 

right borrower's needs, borrower's expenses, so in 

support of four hundred, if that's the goal. And I think 

really the department needs to think about. So right now, 

it just asks about dependents and family size. You know, 

we're still in a pandemic and we know that things like 

childcare and housing are essential. Those are not. 
 

 

33 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

That's not my discretionary income. My my kids have to be 

somewhere so I can work besides in the back of my Zoom 

meetings, right? And so I really want to think about how 

we can create policies that maybe don't enumerate 

individual cases, but think more broadly about what we 

mean when we say discretionary income and so that we're 

defining it beyond just this idea of what's the poverty 

line, because at that line is very low and hasn't been 

changed in an entirely too long, and so I don't think 

that's a good metric to even base this discussion on if 

thinking about regional differences might be helpful to 

Department. I can go on several different websites and 

compare my cost of living. And so I don't know if you 

think tax information, in addition to where individuals 

might be filing their taxes from, could be considered in 

this larger calculation. But I think that without making 

changes to that really anything else, we might suggest it 

doesn't help to alleviate the burden, which is that these 

are either loan payments that borrowers can't make or 

that they're so burdensome they're detrimental to 

literally the quality of life and defeat the purpose of 

why most borrowers go get an education in the first 

place, right? It's social advancement, it's economic 

mobilityMR. TOTONCHI: Thirty seconds. 
34 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

MS. DORIME-WILLIAMS: and we shouldn't 

be penalizing borrowers for doing what everyone tells 

them we should do. Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Marjorie. 

Brian, I see you have your hands up. 

MR. SIEGEL: Yes. Just a quick 

response to Joe's comments and Marjorie's initial 

comment. The Department is also interested in reducing 

the burden of on borrowers providing income information 

as much as possible. We hope to do that through 

implementation of the FUTURE Act. We're continuing 

discussions with the IRS on what they'll accept as 

consent because really it's up to them. They have to be 

comfortable. They're disclosing tax information, which 

they correctly like to limit. But you know, we're we're 

working with them to to satisfy their concerns as to 

where we get consent, ideally it would apply to both 

borrowers in the past whose promissory note and IDR form 

don't include the consent as well as future borrowers, 

but it has to be something that satisfies their concerns 

about disclosing tax information. And their need to 

ensure that borrowers have consented to it. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Brian, for 

that. David, you're up next. 

MR. TANDBERG: Seems like a lot of us 
35 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

spent have spent a lot of time thinking about the measure 

of income and discretionary income alike and how we might 

come up with a better measure. I'm happy, Brian, to hear 

that you all are looking at perhaps automating or drawing 

in at least better information, more information. My 

thoughts between yesterday and today were really towards 

the research that overwhelmingly says that measures of 

wealth are far better than measures of income, which I 

think gets also at the idea of discretionary income 

versus income. And the challenge with measures of wealth 

is you have to draw from a lot of data sources to be able 

to come up with a valid measurement. And I just don't 

know a way of creating an automated or simple way of 

doing that that doesn't end up putting on a lot of 

additional administrative burden on people that don't 

need or deserve that. And and so I think I'm persuaded by 

Persis's argument that perhaps the most streamlined and 

efficient way of going about this would be to increase 

the percentage of poverty. I'll be honest, I don't know 

what the right amount is. Maybe, I mean, perhaps 400% is 

the right level to give us what we need. I don't know if 

there is, and Persis, maybe you have this, any research 

or data that would kind of validate that 400%? I'm not 

saying it's not right, I'll happily go along with it, but 

it would be nice if we could provide some empirical 
 

36 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

justification for the threshold that would make some 

sense. You know, it's one of these challenging areas 

where better data, I think we could really nail it in and 

something around, wealth, discretionary income, excuse 

me, would be where I'd want to go. But I think in policy, 

sometimes precision ends up hurting the folks because of 

the burden placed on them to reach that precision. So 

anyways, thinking out loud, I'll just end it there. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, David. Jeri? 

MS. O'BRYAN-LOSEE: Yeah, thanks and 

plus one to everything everybody's also said, and I just 

want to, for the record, just put in there whatever we 

do, which will be the best plan for everybody moving 

forward, I highly plus one that one. To do things like 

eliminate the distinction between grad and undergrad, and 

also to put a cap that no matter what it is, you never 

pay more than the ten year, ten year standard repayment 

plan and that we allow as many people as humanly possible 

to switch to this better program that will create without 

penalty so that they can anywhere possible that they can 

do that. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jeri. 

Daniel? 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Thanks, I have a lot 

to say, so I'll try to keep it within three minutes. So 
 

 

37 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

first of all, I support and respect and appreciate the 

comment about the FUTURE Act. I will say, Brian, the 

timing is (inaudible) here because we know the ’24, ’25 

FAFSA is also going to have to rely on the FUTURE Act as 

envisioned under the new FAFSA, and that's supposed to go 

live October 1, ’23. So this, you know, anything we do 

here wouldn't be able to be implemented until July 1, 

’23. anyway. So the timing would argue for expansive 

thinking in terms of the ability to to bring this to 

bear. In that, I would like to again reiterate what I 

suggested yesterday that rather than create a new plan 

that we, we change the default, we change the standard 

plan to an income-based plan so that there is not a need 

for a student to choose, and that by certifying or by 

providing certification, their their payment amount would 

be reduced. One of the notes that Raj made in the chat 

and I appreciate this note is a reference to the 

portfolio and a note of what percentages are under each 

and doing some quick research, I did see that over half 

of the borrowers in the DL program are on the standard 

plan either 10 years or less or slightly larger than 10 

years. So, you know, a concern I have is that students 

don't have to or borrowers wouldn't have to make an 

active choice if this were the default, they would be 

protected without a need to go through delinquency, 
38 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

default, et cetera. If we could automate the linkage of 

the income information and and by default or by nudge, 

just simply leave students in a plan that in that way 

could support them, they could always pay more. There's 

no limitation ever on paying more than your minimum due. 

They could always pay more. And I would want to see a cap 

at what the standard monthly plan amount would be to the 

10-year repayment information. So, if it comes through, 

the income based borrower would do more to support Jeri's 

comment, it would be capped at the standard 10 year 

amount. That said, I also and again, I'll appreciate if 

someone wants to check me on timing. The 400% to Persis, 

I support it I also would want to see some information 

about what is the right number. EmpiricallyMR. TOTONCHI: Thirty seconds. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: I knew I'd be running 

out of time, and what I want to make sure is that we also 

in whatever plan we offer, deal with the balance growing 

problem because I don't want students to be 

disincentivized by paying whatever they're paying and 

then seeing their balance grow over time. And finally, 

I'll get back to this, Jennifer. I think all loans should 

be eligible. So to your point, earlier about which loans 

are eligible, any DL loan should be eligible for this 

program. 
39 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

MR. TOTONCHI: Time’s up. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Okay, thank you. 

MS. HONG: I just want to get in 

there. Thank you for touching on eligible loans. We're 

going to get to every issue, including your certification 

and automation by the FUTURE Act. All these issues are 

important. I'm not trying to restrict how we talk about 

them, but just to kind of organize the we're clear on 

what we're left with when we leave. Right now, we're if 

you guys could speak to what loans should be eligible and 

just to kind of help guide you with that. Currently, 

under the PAYE and REPAYE programs, the eligible loans 

are Direct Loans other than Parent Plus and consolidation 

loans that repay Parent Plus and then currently under ICR 

eligible loans or all Direct Loan types, except for 

Parent Plus and Direct Plus consolidation loans made 

before July 1st, 2006. Except that direct consolidation 

loans made on or after July 1st, 2006 that repaid Parent 

Plus may be repaid under ICR, so that's kind of the scope 

that we're dealing with. What's available under ICR is 

more expansive than PAYE and REPAYE currently. So, and 

again, we're limited on what when we say all loans FFEL 

loans would not be eligible under the current plan. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jennifer. 

Persis? 
40 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

MS. YU: Thank you. So a couple quick 

things in terms of the support for the 400%, I did put 

that in the memo that was circulated. It's based upon 

both the MIT Living Wage calculator and also borrowing 

from other federal statutes that have kept things at four 

hundred is kind of like where I landed at that number. 

But but that has been circulated and I I know I haven't 

read everything thoroughly that's been circulated, but 

you can find it in there. I also do want to quickly 

support Jeri's point about the not making the distinction 

between grad and undergrad. There was a really excellent 

article in MarketWatch by Gillian Berman earlier this 

week, which I'm putting in, which talks about the 

disparities on on wages for black women in particular, 

and found that black women with graduate degrees make on 

average $7 less than white men with undergraduate 

degrees. So you can find that data, and I think that very 

much supports if we're, you know, if we are using a 

racial justice lens to think about these proposals on 

making sure we don't have a distinction between grad and 

undergrad. But to Jennifer's question about eligible 

loans, which is actually what I raised my hand to talk 

about, I think it's very important that we that we make 

sure to be as inclusive of Parent Plus loans as we can 

possibly be. Parent Plus borrowers are left out in so 
41 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

many different ways. Again, there are large racial 

disparities on Parent Plus borrowers. Students of color 

rely on their parents disproportionately. Low-income 

students of color rely on their parents 

disproportionately to take on these loans. We've had a 

number of clients who make, you know, make the minimum 

wage and wind up with $50,000 $100,000 in Parent Plus 

loans and have absolutely no way to pay them back. I 

realize that there's a statutory barrier to just allowing 

all Parent Plus borrowers to access the plans that they 

have to jump through this hoop of consolidation, which I 

hope that they're that, you know, Congress, and if 

there's a creative way administratively to do so that we 

can eliminate that hoop, but I think we need to make 

these plans available to Parent Plus borrowers as much as 

humanly possible and be as expansive as possible because 

especially low income parent borrowers of color are 

struggling right now to be able to afford those payments. 

So I will make that plug. The other piece that I think we 

heard a couple of folks during the public comment talk 

about spousal consolidation loans. 

MR. TOTONCHI: Thirty seconds. 

MS. YU: Thank you. And this is this 

is a very small population of folks. You know, all of 

these loans were taken out before 2006, I did a FOIA for 
 

42 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

this data. There's fewer than, I think, 20,000 borrowers 

remaining in them. Arguably, we could just cancel all of 

these loans and be done with them. But but if not, but 

short of that, we need to come up with some procedure to 

ensure that they are able to meaningfully access it, 

especially for about for for co-borrowers who have 

divorced and no longer have access to their spouse’s 

income. We need to come up with some ways to get them 

affordable payments. Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Persis, 

appreciate it. Michaela? 

MS. MARTIN: I believe that the 

question that the Department is asking right now is on 

specifically on loan tax eligible, right? Just want to 

check because I got a lot of other things to say, but I'm 

trying to like be mindful so on that to include all of 

the loans that we can include. You're saying we what I 

heard is we can't include parent. What? One of them, one 

of the apparent ones, right? Sorry, I didn't quite write 

it down right. Jennifer, and we can't include FFEL? 

MS. HONG: Yeah, there's there are 

some restrictions that we can't include FFEL. We can 

include Parent Plus to the extent that they were paid off 

by direct consolidation loans. 

MS. MARTIN: So then like, do any of 
43 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

us objected to including all of those? Except for the 

ones that we can't. Can we just say that and just like, 

decide, is that what you're asking for right now? Cool. 

Well then thatMS. HONG: Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. 

Persis. 

MS. YU: Thank you. And so the other 

piece that I wanted to talk about in terms as we talk 

about eligible loans and this may not actually be the 

place to talk about them, but since you raised FFEL 

borrowers, I think it's at least worth putting in a flag 

here that while I understand that the ICR statute does 

not apply to FFEL borrowers. What I do think can be 

captured is time that borrowers with FFEL loans that were 

then consolidated into the Direct Loan program, the time 

that they paid in Income Based Repayment while a FFEL 

loan, I believe can be is allowed to be captured as 

qualifying payments for towards cancelation at the end. 

So even if we can't extend this plan, although arguably 

we if we're talking about the IBR statute, we could 

extend this to fellow borrowers. But regardless, FFEL 

borrowers who that consolidated into the direct loan 

program should be able to count the time and the payments 

that they made towards cancelation under this plan that 
44 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

we create. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Persis. 

Daniel? 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Sorry, and again, 

maybe I need some orientation on this. Brian is, can you 

point to the statute around exception of Plus Loan under 

IBR? Is there a particular carve out that that is 

referenced? 

MR. SIEGEL: It's in, 20 U.S.C., 1087 

E D 1 D, which says in describing repayment plans, Income 

Contingent Repayment plan, except that the plan described 

in the subparagraph shall not be available to the 

borrower or the Federal Direct Plus loan made on behalf 

of the dependent student. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Okay, so there is a 

particular carve out and where is the exception granted 

on consolidation? Again, is that is that particularly 

available through that same statute? 

MR. SIEGEL: Because federal 

consolidation loans are not excluded from coverage, a 

borrower who consolidates a direct plus loan or a FFEL 

plus loan into a consolidation loan is eligible as owing 

a consolidation loan, not a Plus Loan. Interestingly, in 

and under IBR, Congress specifically precluded that 

option for IBR, they said, except that the plan, the IBR 
 

45 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

plan, shall not be available to the borrower with Federal 

Direct Plus loan made on behalf of the dependent student 

or a Federal Direct consolidation loan, if the proceeds 

of such loan were used to discharge the liability on such 

Federal Direct Plus loan, so or FFEL plus loan. So they 

specifically precluded it in IBR because we had already 

allowed it in ICR. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: So again, just to push 

a little bit if we were to change the definition of a 

standard repayment plan under Plus, would that get to 

this or are we prohibited from that regulatory to allow 

consideration of income in the definition of a standard 

repayment plan for us Plus borrowers? So I understand 

that that there's been a definition congressionally of an 

IBR and an ICR, is there a definition of a standard plan 

or could we make the standard plan also something that 

considers income? 

MR. SIEGEL: I would just like to I 

mean, first, I have to note that the standard plan has 

really since the programs were established, been the 10 

year plan. If you look at so I'm not sure we can change 

the definition, but that's something that the Department 

can consider and take back. And also, there is a 

provision in the ICR statute that says if a borrower of a 

loan made under this part does not select a plan, the 
46 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

Secretary may provide the borrower with a repayment plan 

described in subparagraph A, B, or C or paragraph one, 

which is the standard 10-year repayment plan, a graduated 

repayment plan or an extended repayment plan. It does not 

include an income driven repayment plan as one of the 

ones that we can choose on behalf of the borrower. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Thank you for that 

clarification, I appreciate it, so again, I would support 

with that Michaela's comment that any loan we can make 

eligible for this, we should and we should be creative 

about trying to make other loans eligible if possible. 

MS. MACK: Thank you, Daniel, and 

thank you, Brian. Bethany. 

MS. LILLY: So I want to go back to 

Persis's point and emphasize this, because I I think this 

is actually important and I appreciate understanding if 

the Department feels they're limited in any way in this 

space. But so if folks transition to a direct 

consolidation loan, their loans are then eligible for 

this. But the payments that they made previously could 

count is that something we can regulatorily change? 

Because it seems to me that that's where most people get 

hung up on this is that their previous payments won't 

count if they consolidate. Can we change that? That was 

my understanding of Persis's proposal. I could be 
 

47 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

misunderstanding it. But like, if we can do that, like 

that seems to me to solve most of the problems here. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 

Bethany. It appears as though that's something that 

Department is going to have to get back to you on once 

they have some more information on it, appreciate it, 

Jennifer, I'm going to ask you this, I don't see any more 

hands for discussion and I know we had said A through D 

and you had walked through A and B, do you want to 

continue on with C and D before the temperature check? 

MS. HONG: Oh, I think, yeah, I think 

we hit D. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Oh, did we? Okay, 

alright, alright. So we've gone through all all four of 

those subsections. So let's go ahead and do a temperature 

check on subsection A through B in the Income Driven 

Repayment plans document, so I can see your thumbs. Okay, 

thank you. There are a number of thumbs down. I'm going 

to ask at this point if there is additional information 

that anyone who had a thumbs down, that you either 

haven't shared or need to share these, please raise your 

hands. Jeri? 

MS. O'BRYAN-LOSEE: Just the fact that 

this is more confusing to me than the what the way things 

are written now, I'm trying to figure out how to talk 
48 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

people through this. Yeah. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Ok, thank you. David. 

MR. TANDBERG: Yeah, I mean, I 

definitely think the 150% is just not backed by the data 

or research. And so we we need to move higher. I reviewed 

the justification that the legal aid folks included in 

their memo. I find it persuasive. And so I'd love to get 

up to one hundred, 400%. I also think there have been 

some other ideas that have been tossed around that I 

think have some potential. I I'm not at this point able 

to accurately understand their feasibility, though, and 

that the conversation has moved kind of quick on that. 

And so I think some additional exploration about the 

legal, our legal ability to make some of the innovations 

that have been suggested needs to be investigated. But 

the 150% is just I don't think that's justifiable and I 

think it's doing harm. And so if we do nothing else, 

moving that up would be a major victory for students and 

I can't support 150%. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, David, 

for that, Jennifer, is there anything additional. 

MS. HONG: Just I see a lot of 

nodding, so I'm understanding that a lot of the thumbs 

down or is pertinent to the 150% of the income. 

Discretionary income also to Jeri's point, and I 
49 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

understand the concern with regarding trying to organize 

and communicate the rules of these plans. This is our 

attempt at, if you look at the current regulations, and 

do side by side, I do I do feel like we significantly 

kind of cleaned a lot of this, these issues up by 

definition, you know, in terms of what we need to define, 

what we need to consider. I realize it is it is 

complicated and we have to put that in words and we have 

to put that in regulations. So this is our this is our 

cut at it. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jennifer. 

Justin? 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Yeah, and I just want 

to make sure one of the things I agree with everything 

David just said, including the 150%, but I just want to 

make sure that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle that I 

think there are a number of things that Department needs 

to come back to us with in terms of clarification with 

regard to their authority to do some of the things that 

were asked. I don't have the full list of those. I know 

Bethany, I think, raised a point about payment counting 

and there were a number of other things I think the 

Department needs. I would certainly appreciate if the 

Department would clarify they have the authority to 

accomplish in what we just discussed. I just want to make 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

sure that didn't get lost in the very valid points about 

150. Thanks. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Ok, thank you, Justin. 

So at this point, let's go ahead, Jennifer, and walk 

through the next breakdown E and F. 

MS. HONG: Okay, moving on to E. E is 

the treatment of married borrowers with regard to income. 

So, unless a married borrower certifies that the 

borrower's separated from the borrower spouse or unable 

to reasonably access the spouse's income the spouse's 

income is included in the calculation of the borrower’s 

monthly payment amount for the tax year on the income the 

Secretary uses to calculate the borrower's monthly 

payment under the following conditions. And we flagged B 

and C to, for negotiators in terms of whether the new 

proposed, I should say the proposed ICR plan which we're 

calling EICR. Again, we're open to recommendations on the 

name there, should go under B or C, and for B, the way we 

treat this for IBR PAYE is if the borrowing spouse file a 

joint federal income tax return and for REPAYE, 

regardless of whether the borrower's spouse file a joint 

federal income tax return. And the question there is 

whether the proposed plan should go and or B or C? F, 

setting payment amounts, I'll just keep going and then we 

can talk about all this. Just a quick note. Again, this 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

has to do with also streamlining the current plans just 

to flag that this section F on setting payment amounts 

would eliminate existing rules where we round payments 

that are five dollars or less to zero and those that are 

five to ten to ten dollars. So that's an improvement that 

we made in this section. Also, this would replace IDR 

payment application rules, which currently prioritizes 

fees and collection costs, which we don't charge to 

borrowers in IDR instead of interest. So those are 

improvements that we made in that section. Further down 

on page four at the top of page four, again, okay, 

setting payment amounts under under four, we have a note 

for the REPAYE plan. Again so today, if the borrower 

leaves the REPAYE plan voluntarily or otherwise, try to 

get back into REPAYE, we calculate what the borrowers 

payment would have been in REPAYE for the time they 

weren't in repayment and then adjust the new REPAYE 

payment upwards. Where we found the borrower got a lower 

payment and can repay the total amount of the difference 

is amortized over the remainder of the REPAYE forgiveness 

clock. So we've put forward some just payments, our 10% 

discretionary income divided by 12. Under five for the 

proposed EICR plan, payments are to cut blank percentage 

of discretionary income divided by 12. This is where we 

need some discussion here. So again, we're interested in 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

alternate ways to address payments. For example, should 

we consider a marginal approach, which amounts just over 

the 50 zero percent zero dollar payment threshold to have 

a lower payment rate? We're also open to suggestions on 

other ways to consider targeting, which could include 

concrete thresholds based on actual dollar earnings not 

calculated, not calculating it on a marginal basis. Or 

any other ideas. And again, if you could frame your 

comments in terms of a sense of prioritization between 

lower payment rates, higher income exemptions, interest 

benefits, and forgiveness timelines. Furthermore, just 

feedback on whether this plan, the proposed plan, should 

be set as one percentage for all borrowers, regardless of 

income, or again, whether we should take a marginal 

approach that could result in a lower percentage for the 

lower incomes. The latter approach would look like the 

below, so what so whatever percentage of the portion of 

discretionary income that are greater than 150% of the 

applicable federal poverty guideline and less than or 

equal to blank percentage of applicable federal federal 

poverty guidelines divided by 12 plus whatever percentage 

of the portion of discretionary income that are greater 

than whatever percentage of the applicable federal 

poverty guidelines divided by 12. We could really use 

Raj's assistance and kind of working some of the stuff 
53 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

out here on page four. Let's see, why don't we, I see a 

lot of hands up, that's a lot to digest, so why don't we 

take a pause here? 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jennifer. 

Bobby? And Aaron, could you stop sharing please? 

MR. AYALA: I think Daniel might have 

had his hand up before me, I don't know if he meant to 

get out of line or? 

MS. JEFFRIES: His hand is down, but. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Yeah thanks, Bobby, 

I'll go back in line. 

MR. AYALA: Okay. Jennifer alluded to 

this at the very end, there's a whole lot to digest. I'll 

probably have to come back around, but I wanted to 

comment on the on the marriage piece. Again, there's a 

disincentive to get married because of their 

consideration of the spousal income. I can almost 

guarantee you there are individuals out there that are 

not getting married because they consider if they're in 

one of these plans, that their payment is going to 

double. And then for the rest of them, they’re too much 

in love to even think about how getting married is going 

to affect their student loans. It's not like they got 

down on one knee and said, hey, hold on honey, before I 

propose, I got to check how this is going to affect my 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

student loan payment. So I'd like for us to consider a 

way to kind of rectify that and perhaps a consideration 

in the EICR payment could do something. Maybe we may want 

to consider a 5% and give those marriage folks a route to 

kind of address that. On another just kind of thought, 

and I'm not quite sure if this is allowable, but there is 

so much to digest in this particular section. I wonder if 

it may be incumbent upon this larger committee to create 

a subcommittee to review this in the time that we have 

between the this session ending in the third session 

beginning just kind of wanted to put that out there as 

well. And then I'll go ahead and stop for now because 

there's a whole bunch of other things I need to digest. 

So thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Bobby. 

Persis? 

MS. YU: Thank you. I also wanted to 

start with the married borrower piece, and I circulated 

yesterday a memo that a bunch of us had drafted back when 

we were negotiating the REPAYE repayment plan. And this 

was initially considered to say that it is extremely 

important to have some avenue for married spouses to be 

able to separate their income. And currently under IBR, 

it is through, you know, folks who file their taxes 

separately. I I agree that the marital status does not 
 

55 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

make a ton of sense in this day and age about what 

someone's actual financial expenses are. Some people who 

are not married are cohabitating and share, you know, 

household income, and some people who are married do not 

share their household income. And that's very real. And I 

think one of the particular things for the folks that I 

represent is that victims of of domestic violence are 

particularly vulnerable and need to make sure that they 

have an avenue through the REPAYE negotiations, we did 

create this check, you know, this box that you can check, 

but that the administration of of this, the requirement 

to have all spousal income has been has created a huge 

administrative burden for folks. For married borrowers 

who file separately in the other plans, they are now 

being required to provide their spouse’s income, despite 

the fact that I think that there's probably no legal 

basis for requiring their spouse’s income and it is 

causing a lot of recertification headaches. And as we're 

thinking about implementing the FUTURE Act, this is again 

going to cause, nearly impossible to do. So I think we 

need to have some, some method of allowing spouses to 

separate their income. I think the tax code, you know, 

the federal tax code, why are we the Department of 

Education and the IRS would treat married borrowers 

differently doesn't make any sense to me. It has an 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

avenue for folks to separate their income. There is a 

consequence to it. There's a financial consequence. They 

lose access to credits, they lose access to other 

benefits. So maintaining that separation through that 

means, I think, makes the most sense. And I think it is 

the most protective for the folks who need it to be able 

to separate their income from their spouse’s. And so I 

encourage folks to take a look at that memo. Some of the 

some of the numbers are now out of date. But I think 

importantly, it's very important to have that option 

available for spouses and to not create this weird, wonky 

system that we created that's causing borrowers a lot of 

problems. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Persis. I 

just want to make note before the next speaker that John 

Whitelaw has come to the table in place of Bethany Lilly 

for individuals with disabilities or groups representing 

them. Marjorie, you are next. 

DR. DORIME-WILLIAMS: Thank you, 

Cindy. So definitely plus one to Bobby and Persis. Thank 

you. And the other point, and maybe this is a question. 

So it's not clear to me why we would count spouse’s 

income, but not their student loan debt. And so we're 

basically double charging married couples because they're 

married. So that doesn't make any sense. So my proposal 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

would be if we're dealing with spouses who both have 

student loans, then any calculation should take into 

account both of their loans and not penalize them because 

of their income. And we do it in so section 2 (B), that 

does happen in some cases, so the proposal that I have is 

that we simply for all spouse borrower's that we're 

considering the fact that they both might have student 

loans, that they're paying off for the household. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Marjorie. 

Carol? I should note that Carol is in for proprietary 

schools in place of Jessica. 

DR. COLVIN: Thank you. Back to both 

Persis's and Marjorie's points with concern on counting 

spousal income. It isn't consistent amongst the different 

types of repayment options, and where I'm concerned is 

the communication to student borrowers when they are 

choosing different repayment plans, making sure that they 

understand the consequences of the different repayment 

plans and whether or not their spouse’s income is taken 

into account before they choose those plans so that they 

can better understand the negative consequences. If 

that's the case in that situation, and also concerns over 

requesting student feedback to dispute conflicting 

marital status based on tax filing status. It's not 

always reasonable for low-income borrowers to expect them 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

to update that in a timely manner within a certain time 

frame, especially when their housing situation has 

changed or there may be extreme housing instability at 

that time. Which wouldn't allow for them to address that 

discrepancy before they fall into extreme financial 

duress. And also the ability to contact students during 

that time frame tends to really be an issue for low 

income borrowers. So I would ask that that be considered 

when taking into consideration, including spousal income. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Carol. 

Jennifer I see you're off mute. 

MS. HONG: Yeah, just real quick 

quickly to Marjorie's question, you know, under 2, I'm 

sorry 2 (A) to the extent that the spousal, spouse’s 

income is included. It's always a loan debt to answer 

your question. And what I'm hearing, and please correct 

me if I'm wrong, is the general discussion is is leaning 

toward (B) in terms of, you know, filing a joint spousal 

in terms for the inclusion of the proposed plan. Let me 

know if I'm not hearing that. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jennifer. 

Persis? 

MS. YU: Thank you. I'd like to also 

talk about the setting the payment amount section as 

well. And so I I appreciate the various different options 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

I think for from our sense, the biggest priority for the 

legal aid community is protecting the largest portion of 

income. I think that has the biggest impact for the 

lowest income borrowers. And so however we can do that, I 

think, is it would be important and I definitely look to 

Raj's modeling to see how we can do that and if we can 

look to see more really about real world data. And you 

know what borrowers’ real financial circumstances are, I 

think that would help inform this conversation. The other 

piece I want to say is, I think that this is also an 

opportunity for us to be a little bit more creative on 

how we define what the payment amount is. And I think 

back to our conversation about interest capitalization 

and how deferments, for example, are statutorily required 

to capitalize interest, but Income Contingent Repayment 

is not statutorily required to capitalize interest. And 

so one of the things that I would like to propose is that 

we actually create new, different ways of determining 

payments so that if anyone qualifies, for example, for 

one of the deferments, we actually just presumed that 

they have an income content or EICR or whatever we're 

calling this payment plan payment amount of zero. And I 

think we could do that for more than just the existing 

deferments. I think we could create new deferments. For 

example, we have the cancer deferment, which I think is 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

very important, but why not other medical categories as 

well? So I think that this is a way that we could be more 

creative in determining the repayment amount. And I 

actually do have some regulatory proposed regulatory text 

that I can drop in the chat on a really simple way to at 

least capture the existing deferment plans and giving 

them an automatic zero-dollar payment amount, which has 

the benefit that then they count towards cancelation. 

They don't have to have their interest capitalized. So 

that is my proposal for your consideration. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Persis, you 

read my mind. I was going to ask you if you were going to 

put forth some red text, so I appreciate that. John? 

MR. WHITELAW: Just a couple of brief 

points, I think for most of the people on today, this 

will will be they will understand this, but I do think 

it's important to note that the so-called poverty 

guidelines have got actually very little to do with real 

poverty. And so because I think there's a perception 

among certain populations, perhaps outside of this call 

that if you are above the poverty line, you're not poor. 

And I think it's important to understand that just 

because you are poor and I know most people on this call 

understand this, but I do think it's worth mentioning all 

the time. And I think continued use of the word poverty 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

guidelines does imply that if you're at 200% or 300%, oh 

my, you can't be poor because you're at three times the 

poverty level. And I just think it's always important for 

us to remember. But that is absolutely false, that the 

poverty, the poverty level is destitution for any family 

size. And I think just because you're above it, we should 

understand that that is not a real world number. The 

poverty guideline is not about poverty, it's a number 

that is set in an arcane way that does not reflect actual 

poverty. So I think that's just an important 

consideration for us to keep in mind as we work through 

this. And then just one other quick point, Persis noted 

that marriage is a very poor proxy for fact per 

households in terms of what's going on. But I think in 

the mirror, that was something that Jennifer has said on 

numerous times, I don't think there's any interest in 

actually delving into the household to look beyond that. 

So it seems to me the better rule is to, where possible, 

disregard marriage as opposed because it's such a poor 

proxy as opposed to because because of the consequences 

of it, as opposed to trying to dig into the actual 

household components, because that would just be a way 

too burdensome and intrusive. So having said those 

things, I will now be done. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, John. 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

Daniel, your hand is up. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Yeah, thank you. I've 

raised and lowered it like five times already. The issue 

that I just wanted to center in regard to what John said 

specifically around the marriage issue is what always 

struck me as unusual in this regard is that if and when a 

student passes away, which hopefully, or borrower passes 

away, which hopefully does not happen during their loan 

repayment. But as we're extending repayment periods, it's 

possible the debt is not an obligation of the spouse. So 

the debt is canceled as a result of the student passing 

away or the borrower passing away. So it doesn't make 

sense to me is why then we would base the repayment 

amount on the spouse's income. Where the obligation is 

not jointly to take it on there is no liability for the 

estate or, as I understand it, for the for the the 

surviving spouse. The fact that we would then assume that 

the spouse would have liability from an income basis 

doesn't really make sense to me. So in as much as that's 

helpful, I'll add that I did put that in the chat as 

well. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you for that, 

Daniel. Michaela. 

MS. MARTIN: So for these sections, 

we're talking about one the payment, but also one of the 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

questions that was posed by the Department of Education 

was a sense of prioritization. And so I have kind of two 

questions on those kind of lines. One, I am very, very 

seriously proposing 10 years to forgiveness on this plan. 

Like, I'm not that's not like just and I don't think that 

that's totally absurd, right? You mentioned like it was 

mentioned about the 10-year standard plan, right? But, 

that 10 years to debt relief for pursuing an education 

shouldn't be just limited to wealthy people, right? Like 

we're we're literally conditioned as children to believe 

that if you don't go to college, then you can't do 

anything like I dropped out of high school and I worked 

really, really hard to get to where I am now in law 

school. And sometimes I wonder if I was just sold, you 

know, more than a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of debt 

for what so that I can be paying it back for the next 

twenty five years so I can be paying it for the rest of 

my life when my son goes to college and I take out more 

debt. I think that it's really, really important to lower 

these forgiveness standards. I also think that 10 years 

is reasonable. I know that PSLF is also 10 years. I was 

actually listening last night, four hours to the floor 

hearings from 2007 when they passed this bill. I needed 

to know what they were talking about was that that this 

the PSLF, I know that's not what we're talking about 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

right now, but I think it's important to mention since I 

am very seriously about proposing 10 years, that PSLF was 

supposed to be a Republican Senator from Wisconsin, said 

a thank you from a grateful nation for your service, 

right? It wasn't supposed to be about bailing people out 

of unreasonable student debt. It was about helping folks, 

especially middle-class folks, be able to go into public 

service when they could go to the private sector. Right? 

It was about acknowledging that they could make more 

money elsewhere and that this is, you know, within kind 

of that middle class that might not otherwise qualify for 

other relief. So my my overall question is, what is the 

intention with this plan? Are we trying to help the 

lowest of income folks? Or are we trying to look at 

something that can create broad relief? And I think 

that's important when we're talking about what the 

payment isMR. TOTONCHI: Thirty seconds. 

MS. MARTIN: the pressure points so 

that we can actually find out what is reasonable and 

possible under this plan, or if we should target this as 

low-income folks. And then maybe also look at the 

timelines on the other plans and lessen those. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Michaela. 

Okay. I don't see any additional hands. So, Jennifer, if 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

you have what you need to go ahead and take the 

temperature, check on the sections E and F only. 

MS. HONG: Sure. And, well, I see 

Persis, was going to frame this a little bit better. But 

go ahead, Persis. 

MS. YU: Yeah, maybe you're about to 

get to this. I'm just confused. It seems like most of the 

things in this section are TK how we can do a temperature 

check on it. 

MS. HONG: So a lot said here in this 

section on income, spousal income, and setting payment 

amounts. What I'm hearing about the spousal income, short 

of, not considering it at all, given what is written 

here, I'm understanding the preference to be less 

restrictive and B is a less restrictive option under 

income. If I'm hearing that correctly? Also for setting 

payment amounts, what I'm hearing is more of a marginal 

approach versus concrete threshold than protecting the 

largest amount of income for borrowers, generally. So, 

but yes, most of the stuff here is TK, but if if I'm 

correct, if we could take a temperature or a temperature 

check, at least on the leaning towards in the options 

that are provided, the leaning towards B rather than C 

for income, for spousal income. And then we still have a 

TK on five for the ICR plan. So let's just if I'm just 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

please correct me if I'm wrong in terms of what I'm 

hearing in terms of more of a marginal approach rather 

than a concrete threshold. And maybe I'm over stating 

right now and then we can take if that is the case and we 

can take a temperature on just those general concepts. 

Also, to Michaela's point, yeah, I mean, I think I think 

the idea here is, you know, we are trying to get to those 

lower income, lower balance borrowers that seem to end up 

in default and delinquency despite the existence of these 

plans. So I'll stop there and I see your hand up. 

MS. MARTIN: Yeah, I want to also just 

touch on default, not in the problem solving the way that 

Persis is, but just, you know, we want to address how 

folks are ending up in default. And I think really a 

broader issues that we lack market participation. You 

have like a couple of generations of folks now that don't 

see this debt is ever going away. And so there's no 

reason to continue either to like make sure that you’re 

recertifying every year because either way, it's just 

going to get garnished or taken like we currently have a 

student loan debt crisis. Like, it's bad enough that we 

have like comedies on late night shows, right? Like it's 

literally a joke like how bad this is. And so I think 

that we have to look at how we're structuring a system 

and not tweaking a program. Right, and I think that the 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

only way to do that is to acknowledge what we're 

targeting with this program and how we can make the other 

programs work better. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Michaela. 

Persis, did Jennifer's explanation of what the 

temperature checks B help you? 

MS. YU: Yes that was helpful, thank 

you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, so with that, 

let's go ahead and take that temperature check as 

Jennifer had outlined it. Can we see your thumbs? Okay, 

thank you. I see a couple of thumbs down. Is there 

anything that you need to share with the Department as to 

why your thumb was down and what what ideas you have that 

haven't already been shared to make a difference for you? 

Anybody? Dixie? 

MS. SAMANIEGO: I just had a question, 

I was, it's a question that popped into my head, I'm 

sorry, I can wait. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Oh, okay. Alright, 

Jennifer, you good on this one? 

MS. HONG: So I I have trouble seeing 

I saw Marjorie's thumb down. Is there any anything that 

we can? 

DR. DORIME-WILLIAMS: I didn't have 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

anything new to add beyond what was already discussed and 

shared. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Alright. Dixie, 

we're about to move into the next sections of G through 

J. Did you want to speak before that or? 

MS. SAMANIEGO: Yeah, just mainly a 

question for Jennifer and the Department. How do you 

define low income? Because the first question I I talked 

about, including a regional acknowledgment that like 

thirty thousand in one area is not the same as and 

another, right? So like to be poor in Orange County is 

very different than in another area of the country and to 

the Department has failed to just even acknowledge that 

in the sense of in the text, even from the first session. 

And I think I made a point then and a lot of other 

negotiators did, too. And so I'm still confused as to 

what the Department defines as low income, because if we 

use a federal like the federal poverty guidelines, right, 

that threshold, right, that's protected and stuff like 

that, if we use that definition, like John just said, you 

were still poor, you are still poor, no matter like, 

right, you are still incredibly poor. But also there 

needs to be at least acknowledgment, but also an 

understanding of the way folks live across the nation. 

And so the Department I just I need the Department to 
69 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

answer that because I've been trying to and I've been 

thinking about it for a while, like in this entire 

conversation, trying to think about how the Department 

defines it. And so it would be incredibly helpful to 

define that because for me I am poor. I am very low 

income, very low income, and I know other folks with the 

same household income as me, like would definitely not be 

considered poor in other areas, right? And so there needs 

to be acknowledgment of that. And also we have to then be 

like, okay, so if we consider if we define this as low 

income, as poor, et cetera, then how are we accurately 

and just accurately providing relief for these folks, for 

folks who are poor, folks who are low income? So if if 

the Department can answer that or if there's a working 

definition that the department has, please drop it in the 

chat. 

MS. HONG: Thank you, Dixie. I think 

this is this is why this is so challenging. We are 

relying on poverty guidelines and we have proposed 150%. 

I understand from the discussion of income protection, I 

understand from the discussion that there's an interest 

in seeing that number increased. We're also open to how 

much of the share share of the income percentage of the 

income we should borrowers should pay on this plan. So 

those are all open questions. But your point is 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

absolutely, I think, getting to the crux of this matter. 

We're really interested in those borrowers that are that 

were that are losing out, that are falling into 

delinquency and trying to find a way to capture them in 

these plans and prevent that from happening. I don't know 

if that answers your question, but this is relying on 

existing poverty guidelines. 

MS. SAMANIEGO: No. Yeah, it really 

doesn't answer my question. But the 150% covered in the 

federal poverty lines, as I think we've made very clear, 

doesn't even cover childcare, doesn't even cover rent, 

right? And especially in cities like or in areas like 

Orange County, Los Angeles, San Francisco, the Bay, 

overall, the Bay Area, New York City, right, D.C., the 

DMV that that's not covering rent, that's not covering 

child care, that's not covering transportation, that's 

not covering so many other things and also the added 

costs that the pandemic has brought on to people. Right. 

And so what they answer, just your answer, just, I think, 

disappointed me more, mainly because I don't think that 

Department has been able to in the three weeks before in 

the three weeks in between the first session and the 

second session. I don't think thought about it. So yeah, 

it's disappointing, but. And yeah, so I am out here 

supporting Persis's point 400% should be protected 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

because the 150 doesn't wouldn't even cover the childcare 

costs for the average parent, so, yeah. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Dixie. John, 

and then we're going to move on. 

MR. WHITELAW: Just want to pose a 

question to Jennifer, she has said we use the poverty 

rates, but is that required? I know in lots of other 

areas the government doesn't necessarily use national 

rates, but I think what Dixie is saying is look different 

parts of the country, urban, rural poverty, what puts you 

at, what puts you at risk, changes depending on what part 

of the country and what shelter costs might be. Does it 

have to be a national standard? And I realize I'm just 

saying this out loud. I haven't thought through the 

entirety of this, but there's lots of data about regional 

living expenses. There's lots of data about poverty. 

What's what's a living income depending on where you 

live? And the federal government does in fact use, for 

example, just on per diem rates that they reimburse their 

own employees when they travel is not a national 

standard. It's based upon where you travel to. So I'm 

curious, and I realize it wouldn't necessarily be the 

simplest way to deal with it. But it seems to me, if 

there are two choices, right, I would suggest is you 

either pick a rate that's high enough to cover the cost 
 

72 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

of the person in the highest, and I'm going to use Dixie 

for this just because we're Dixie lives, in which case 

that's fine. And then everybody else is going to be 

covered. Or you've got to figure out a way that because 

if you pick a number that's too low, there's going to be 

a whole lot, a bunch of folks who live in high-cost areas 

who are going to essentially not be protected. So, I just 

wanted to raise that as a sort of in response to what 

Dixie said in response to your answer to Dixie. So being 

done, I'm done. Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, John. Okay, 

Bobby? 

MR. AYALA: Just really quickly, I 

kind of want to mesh what John just mentioned, and maybe 

we can try and keep it as simple as possible and also 

what Persis brought up earlier. And so, in the question I 

have for Jennifer is this EICR plan, can we just 

completely knock it out of the park in terms of 

benefiting the borrower in terms of the threshold or 

percentage of discretionary income and as well as the 

percentage of, you know, that was proposed earlier by 

Persis? Can we just have one knockout plan that may be 

extended, you know, if it needs to be out over 10 years, 

but also it provides an avenue for those, those people 

that are that need to be in PSLF, right? So they can kind 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

of go in that way and they'll have their loans forgiven 

in 10 years. So I just kind of wanted to bring that up. 

And maybe that's the way that we kind of address all of 

this is by having one knock it out of the park plan. Can 

we knock it out of the park? 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. 

MS. HONG: I'll second that goal, 

Bobby. I think as we get into these discussions, we're, 

you know, it's it's complicated, but we're we're having 

the conversation. And I think about these very complex 

issues concerning repayment with borrowers need, what the 

pain points are. And so I mean, we're behind you in 

concept and trying to get there. 

MR. AYALA: So, so in section three, 

we are just going to be completely knocked out by this 

EICR plan, is what you're saying, right? And none of us 

will have a comment like this is the one right here, this 

is the one, right? 

MS. HONG: It's what I'm hoping. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay with that. 

Jennifer, are you ready to walk through (g) through (j) 

before we break for lunch? 

MS. HONG: Yes. So I just, I guess, 

you know, a big, big piece of this before we move on 

under (g) is just how we're thinking about payments and 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

setting payment amounts, so. You know, we talked about 

this kind of marginal approach. I just I think that's 

that's a huge point that we need to think about more. So 

if you could just, you know, just keep chewing on that 

piece. And we are currently doing the same. There isn't 

a... (g), (h), (i), and (j)is basically, again, just 

streamlining those sections. There is a note under (i) 

about changing repayment plans. They've simplified this 

section. Again, and I think to Jeri's point, it may have 

been useful to kind of hold up the current regulations. 

You guys can hold those up just to see you can do a 

comparison right away. This is far shorter and I didn't, 

in the temperature check I didn't go back and flag those 

areas that we've improved upon in terms of the existing 

plans and technical language associated with those plans. 

So, this is another piece right here. And that's, you 

know, eliminating the complexity around IBR today related 

to leaving IBR for standard and then only being able to 

leave for another plan if you make the payment or enter 

reduce payment forbearance of five dollars and paying 

that amount. So that section (i) simplifies that piece. 

The interest cap again, is, you know, incorporates the 

proposed interest cap eliminating interest cap where we 

can for for those that are non-statutory, that's 

incorporated there. So. So there isn't a whole lot there. 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

But if you could look at the language and we could take 

after people have comments and questions, I see Persis's 

hand's up on that issue, so I'll go on mute. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, Persis? 

MS. YU: Thank you. I very much 

appreciate both the elimination of interest 

capitalization, as I've said many times before. I also 

appreciate the intent of providing an interest subsidy 

for borrowers where the payment is scheduled to be zero. 

I think we can go further than that and any time that 

there is unpaid, unpaid interest can be subsidized, 

right? So I mean, I think absolutely $0 for for the 

clients that I represent most, almost all of whom have $0 

payments, the interest growth is just a big barrier and 

they see their balances grow and they kind of wonder what 

they're doing here. But I think but it's still true for 

folks who have you know smaller, you know, 10 15 dollar 

payments where they're not touching principal at all, 

they still have this interest growth. So I think a better 

approach would be to say that we need to subsidize any 

unpaid interest, right? So if we have borrowers who do 

have incomes that are high enough that their payments are 

covering the entire interest amount and touching 

principal then than we, we should can continue to charge 

those borrowers interest. But for the lowest income 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

borrowers, I think that this would be a a it would 

eliminate the cliff of this zero, you have no interest, 

but like the ten dollar payment you do right, just any 

unpaid interest should be subsidized, in my opinion. I 

also think just for the purposes of creating the plan to 

beat all plans, you need to carry over the three-year 

interest subsidy just for the purposes so that we can 

phase out the other plans as I understand the idea of 

making them more generous. I'm not necessarily 

philosophically tied to that, but I think it's important 

as we are approaching simplification. But yes, I'm happy 

to also draft some language of what it would look like to 

subsidize any unpaid interest if that's of interest to 

you? 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you, 

Persis. Joe? 

MR. SANDERS: Yeah, I would just 

second what Persis said about carrying over the, at a 

minimum carrying over the three year subsidy and you 

know, maybe I'm missing something basic here, but is 

there a reason that it has to be capped at three years? 

Can we do more? 

MS. JEFFRIES: It looks like they'll, 

you know, if you want to put that question in a chat Joe? 

They'll get back to you. Thank you. Michaela? 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

MS. MARTIN: I just want to go with 

what Joe is asking for the percentage and point out that 

this is another time where we don't have an understanding 

of what our cost-benefit analysis is on all of these 

choices, and so it makes it very difficult to make us to 

allow us to have informed conversation about where we're 

willing and what we're prioritizing because we're just 

throwing out mystery suggestions. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Seeing no further 

hands. Jennifer, are you good on this for right now and 

we'll pick it up after lunch? 

MS. HONG: Yeah we could do that. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. It’s my 

understanding that Josh is substituting in for Persis and 

wants to make a comment. 

MR. ROVENGER: Yeah, thank you. I 

didn't want to eat up into the substantive for this just 

how important the IDR conversation is, but I did want to 

flag that I share the concern that David raised the other 

day that we are really limited on time not only for the 

remainder of the conversations that we need to have 

today, including on false certification, which is really 

a critical issue for our client base. But the more 

general concern that there are a lot of open questions 

that it just feels really cramped to try and get answered 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

and resolve everything with only one additional session 

left. So, I understand the Department's position that it 

doesn't want to add or cannot add additional session 

days. But I also, from the protocols, understand that any 

negotiator can call for a caucus at any time that the 

protocols don't limit the caucus as occurring within the 

session time that a negotiator can set who is to join the 

caucus and that the negotiator can set the agenda for the 

caucus. And so I just wanted to flag my intent now so 

that people can look at their calendars to call for a 

caucus to occur after the public comment session ends 

today. At some point between today and session three to 

include the Department negotiator and any other 

negotiators who would like to join to both discuss any 

issue where we aren't, that we don't resolve on the 

agenda for today and to circle back to some of the issues 

where I think a lot of us feel like more discussion is 

needed. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thanks, Josh. 

David? 

MR. TANDBERG: I support that 

completely. I would say people are if it's too much of a 

struggle to work our calendars to add days between two 

and three. I would also support adding days after three 

in an official negotiation table capacity rather than a 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

caucus, either is is is good with me. I don't know that 

the, that we discussed, adding, I had proposed adding 

days, I don't think the Department responded, adding 

days, I think they responded to my other proposal of 

adding hours. But either way, I support either the caucus 

proposal by Josh between two and three or adding days 

after three and officially extending our negotiations. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright, thank you. 

Jennifer, see you're off mute. 

MS. HONG: Real quickly, so we 

wouldn't be able to extend officially, that would 

seriously jeopardize our ability to publish anything 

timely. Remember, we have a pending table and 

negotiations starting in the new year. To the extent 

allowable under the protocols, it would be amenable to 

Josh's suggestion on caucusing. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jennifer. 

With that, we are at your lunchtime hour, so we will see 

everyone back here at 1:00 Eastern time and pick back up 

on the Income Driven Repayment plan. Have a great lunch. 
Appendix 

Department of Education 

Office of Postsecondary Education 

Zoom Chat Transcript 

Affordability and Student Loans Committee 

Session 2, Day 5, Morning, November 5, 2021 

80 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

DISCLAIMER: 

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a 

recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate; 

in some cases, it is incomplete or inaccurate due to 

inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as 

an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but 

should not be treated as an authoritative record. 
 

 

 

 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

From Brady Roberts to Everyone: 

Issue 9 - Pre-Dispute Arbitration 

A-D 

E-F 

G-J 

K 

L 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

Congrats on the move, Persis! 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

What a week to do it. 

From Persis (P), Legal Aid (she/her) to Everyone: 

Thanks Joe! 

From Jessica (P), Proprietary Schools to Everyone: 

Carol is subbing in today for me. 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (ella/she) to 

Everyone: 

FriYAY indeed :D 

From Brady Roberts to Everyone: 

Morning all! I'll be on tech today so feel free to 

message me or email broberts@fmcs.gov with any 

questions or issues. 

From Jaye (P) - FFEL agencies to Everyone: 

26 degrees this AM! 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

And I thought 43 in DC was bad! 

From Rachelle (A) Four Yr Publics to Everyone: 

39 in Chapel Hill. Brrrr 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (ella/she) to 

Everyone: 

And I thought 55 degrees this morning was bad... 

From Rachelle (A) Four Yr Publics to Everyone: 

Cold for So Cal Dixie! 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 

I was going to say, 55 in SoCal is cold! 

From Michaela Martin to Everyone: 

Except it's 7am here rn Christina 

From Christina, she/her (A) 2-year Public to Everyone: 

= ) 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 

Everyone: 

37 here in Missou-rah 

From Bobby (P) Two Year Public Colleges to Everyone: 

An awesome 65 in Uvalde, TX 

From Michaela Martin to Everyone: 

Daniel - neither from what I am understanding it 

operationalizing that = 'administrative burden' 

From Alyssa (A) Fin Aid Admins to Everyone: 

Broken record over here, sorry, but I must mention 

SOCs again. We accept employer verification of time 

'served' why can't we accept employer verification of 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

SOC? 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 

Everyone: 

Can we use these codes in combination with existing 

practices? 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 

Everyone: 

Put otherwise, can we create a system with a 

combination of methods including based on employment 

or the role of employee? 

From Persis (P), Legal Aid (she/her) to Everyone: 

There are some suggestions of way to administer this 

idea in this document which Suzanne introduced earlier 

this week: https://protectborrowers.org/wpcontent/uploads/2021/10/2021.10.29-Neg-Reg-Memo-reFixing-PSLF.pdf 

From Alyssa (A) Fin Aid Admins to Everyone: 

There are gaps to every solution. It would provide an 

avenue for many who should qualify. 

From Michaela Martin to Everyone: 

Without a "disinterested" moderator there is an 

imbalenced power dynamic 

From Michaela Martin to Everyone: 

Stan is in for Ind Students 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (ella/she) to 

Everyone: 

Would like to just drop into the chat that I think 

FMCS facilitation would be most helpful for the Prison 

Ed Subcommittee. I think it'll be productive for the 

subcommittee to have a neutral/"disinterested" party. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

So strongly supporting Stan and his request for 

facilitation. 

From Stan (A) Ind. Students to Everyone: 

ok. I think it's all good at this point. 

From Rachelle (A) Four Yr Publics to Everyone: 

Can you not allow any new students into other plans 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 

Everyone: 

Right, and phase out these in the meantime. 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

We do "teach out" of existing programs all the time. 

Could we expire the old plans to new applicants? 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

I reiterate my data request for # of borrowers 

enrolled in each of the current plans, and 

repayment/delinquency rates 

From Michaela Martin to Everyone: 

For the record Dr. Stan's comment about being all good 

was meant to be a private chat and not a response to 

the need for a moderator 

From Michaela Martin to Everyone: 

I am returning to the table 

From Stan (A) Ind. Students to Everyone: 

yes. thank you Michaela. 

From Raj - Advisor Econ/Higher Ed/Data to Everyone: 

Suzanne -- if I understand your request, some of that 

information is included here: 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

https://studentaid.gov/data-center/student/portfolio 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

Agree with Justin. This is what I wanted to say... 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 

Everyone: 

+1 Justin on consolidation of plans 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 

+1 Justin 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

Thanks Raj. It would also be helpful to get more 

granular detail on repayment status - i.e., in 

repayment and paying down principal, in repayment and 

negatively amortizing, in repayment and in 

forbearance, etc... 

From Justin (P) Service Members/Veterans to Everyone: 

+1 Bethany; It was my understanding that there were 

only statutory barriers to consolidating some of the 

plans, not all. 

From Raj - Advisor Econ/Higher Ed/Data to Everyone: 

Thanks Suzanne, yes understood. That information 

would need to come directly from ED. 

From Jen (she/ella): (A) Student Borrower to Everyone: 

+ 1 Bethany 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 

Everyone: 

+1 Bethany 

From Raj - Advisor Econ/Higher Ed/Data to Everyone: 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

Not directly applicable to Bethany's comment about 

specific costs like child care, but the poverty line 

does increase with household size 

From Bobby (P) Two Year Public Colleges to Everyone: 

+1 to Bethany, Daniel, and Justin. If There is an 

opportunity for us to streamline and lean into the 

experiences of those that need the most help, as well 

as an avenue to benefit PSLF borrows, support +! 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

+1 persis on make this plan the best 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

+1 Persis. This plan should be the clear best IDR 

option 

From Misty (P) Priv. Non-Profit to Everyone: 

YES! +1 Persis 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 

+1 Persis 

From Bobby (P) Two Year Public Colleges to Everyone: 

+1! Persis. Make it the BEST plan 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

+1 Persis 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

Looking at the data Raj referred to, 42% are on the 

standard level plan. 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (ella/she) to 

Everyone: 

+1 Persis 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

From Justin (P) Service Members/Veterans to Everyone: 

+1 Persis 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

7% are on the longer than 10 year standard plan. 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

(these are for DL borrowers) 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

If we change the standard plan as I suggested earlier 

(yesterday) to an income-contingent plan, that will be 

the default plan and more people will be in the 

standard plan. 

From Jen (she/ella): (A) Student Borrower to Everyone: 

+ 1 Persis! 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 

+1 to Persis' 400% proposal 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 

It's so much easier for the Department, but gets at my 

concerns re: child care and housing costs 

From John S. Whitelaw (he/his) (A-Disability) to 

Everyone: 

And to provide concrete numbers for the poverty 

guidelines. 100% of poverty is less than $1,100 per 

month for a one person family. My point is that 300% 

of poverty may sound like a lot. It isn’t. It is 

less than $40,000 per year. 

From Bobby (P) Two Year Public Colleges to Everyone: 

400% and 5%calculation for payment! 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

+1 Joe, auto recert. 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

Lol! Wrong use of romanette.... :) 

From Justin (P) Service Members/Veterans to Everyone: 

+1 Joe 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

+1 joe. During REPAYE negotiations in 2015,ED 

reported that 57% of borrowers on IDR plans did not 

recert on time. Has that improved since? 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

+1 Joe 

From Carol (A) Proprietary Inst. to Everyone: 

+1 Joe 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 

+1 Joe 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

Thank you for the information on the IRS consent, 

Brian. 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 

Suzanne's request re: more granular detail on 

repayment status would help here 

From Raj - Advisor Econ/Higher Ed/Data to Everyone: 

To support David's comment: measures of wealth are 

undoubtedly important, but are very difficult to 

observe and collect systematically 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

Everyone: 

+10000 Jeri 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

+1 jeri, no interest capitalization when switching to 

the new plan 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

^ thanks Suzanne - that too! 

From Carol (A) Proprietary Inst. to Everyone: 

+1 Daniel with a cap on the monthly payment at the 

standard repayment rate now as it exists 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

Raj and other - Any research that could help us pick 

an appropriate % of poverty threshold? I'm struggling 

to go from wealth and/or discretionary income to % of 

poverty thresholds. 

From Raj - Advisor Econ/Higher Ed/Data to Everyone: 

RE: comments on the outstanding loan portfolio. Keep 

in mind that is on outstanding debt, not new 

borrowers. So there are different considerations for 

existing borrowers switching plans versus default 

plans for new borrowers 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

+1 Daniel 

From Bobby (P) Two Year Public Colleges to Everyone: 

+1 Daniel 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 

Everyone: 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

+1 Daniel all loans should be eligible 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

ALL loans should be eligible. 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

PLUS or not. 

From Bobby (P) Two Year Public Colleges to Everyone: 

Back to Persis Point, Make this new plan the BEST plan 

From Persis (P), Legal Aid (she/her) to Everyone: 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/i-cant-imagine-theday-when-im-not-paying-black-women-are-being-crushedby-the-student-debt-crisis-and-demanding-action11635948623 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

+1 persis 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

+1 Persis!!!! 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (ella/she) to 

Everyone: 

+1 Persis 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 

Everyone: 

+1 Persis 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 

+1 Persis 

From Alyssa (A) Fin Aid Admins to Everyone: 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

+1 Persis. Let's all remember that income is not a 

factor for consideration of eligibility. Allowing for 

IDR must be inherent to this program. 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

+1 on lack of options for Parent PLUS loans. We get a 

lot of consumer complaints on this issue. 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

PLUS 

From Raj - Advisor Econ/Higher Ed/Data to Everyone: 

RE: Persis' comment: I encourage you to read the 

document "Race, racism, and student loans" that 

Dominque Baker prepared for the committee and that I 

circulated yesterday with the IDR presentation. It 

includes additional information and research on this 

point11:05:01 From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics 

(she/her) to Everyone: 

Yes, Dr. Baker's work on this issue is widely 

recognized in postsecondary ed 

From Rachelle (A) Four Yr Publics to Everyone: 

+1 Marjorie 

From Persis (P), Legal Aid (she/her) to Everyone: 

150% is too low for discretionary income 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 

+1 Persis 

From Bobby (P) Two Year Public Colleges to Everyone: 

No additional information, would like to see how the 

EICR plan shapes up and consideration for a more 

streamlined, less options, etc.. 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

Everyone: 

+1 persis 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 

Everyone: 

+1 Persis | Discretionary income 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

+150% to Persis 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 

150% FPL is extremely low: 

https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economicmobility/poverty-guidelines/prior-hhs-povertyguidelines-federal-register-references/2021-povertyguidelines 

From Justin (P) Service Members/Veterans to Everyone: 

+1 David 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

+1 on need to raise 150% 

From Jen (she/ella): (A) Student Borrower to Everyone: 

Only because they are slightly less confusing in 

comparison they can be improved because we need 

students to understand the language too. 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

Yes, kudos to the Department for how much they have 

already improved the program in their proposed 

language. Now let's keep improving it. 

From Persis (P), Legal Aid (she/her) to Everyone: 

+1 justin 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (ella/she) to 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

Everyone: 

Language clarification + better information for 

providers about this as well 

From John S. Whitelaw (he/his) (A-Disability) to 

Everyone: 

I will be coming in for Bethany at 11.30. She should 

be back for the afternoon session. 

From Michaela Martin to Everyone: 

Just checking: The first temp check was just for what 

loans to include right? Now we are talking 

percentages? 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

+1 Bobby 

From Christina, she/her (A) 2-year Public to Everyone: 

+1 Bobby on marriage penalty 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

+1 Bobby 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 

+ Bobby 

From Misty (P) Priv. Non-Profit to Everyone: 

+1 Bobby 

From Bethany (P) Disability (she/hers) to Everyone: 

And I'm going to swap with John now. Thanks! 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

Marriage is a major disincentive to enrollment in IDR. 

We get that question from borrowers all the time 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

Also loan debt at death of the borrower does not 

accrue to the spouse. The loan is not "owned" by the 

spouse, so the income should not be included. 

From Kayla - FMCS to Everyone: 

Thank you Bethany. John, please come on camera to 

join the main table. 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

We do count student loan debt for married borrowers 

filing jointly 

From Kayla - FMCS to Everyone: 

Michaela, the first temperature check covered 685.209, 

(a), (b), (c) and (d). We are now discussing (e) and 

(f). 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

Married borrowers in REPAYE or in other IDR plans who 

file joint tax returns have a monthly payment amount 

based on joint income. That "joint" monthly payment is 

distributed across the spouse's loans on a pro rated 

basis according to each spouse's relative loan 

balance. 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 

Everyone: 

Thanks Heather. 

From Persis (P), Legal Aid (she/her) to Everyone: 

(1) A Direct Subsidized Loan or Direct Subsidized 

Consolidation Loan borrower who meets the requirements 

described in paragraphs (b), (d), (e), (f), (g), (h), 

(i), or (j) of § 685.204 shall have a $0 payment under 

this section. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

From Persis (P), Legal Aid (she/her) to Everyone: 

+100000 John 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

Thanks for setting this understanding, John! 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (ella/she) to 

Everyone: 

+1 John 

From Greg, A Dependent to Everyone: 

+11111 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 

Everyone: 

+1 John 

From Carol (A) Proprietary Inst. to Everyone: 

+1 John 

From Jen (she/ella): (A) Student Borrower to Everyone: 

+1 Michaela 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

+1 Michaela 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (ella/she) to 

Everyone: 

+1 Michaela 

From Marjorie (P), Four Yr Publics (she/her) to 

Everyone: 

+1 Michaela 

From Greg, A Dependent to Everyone: 

+1111 
 

96 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

From Misty (P) Priv. Non-Profit to Everyone: 

GREAT point Michaela! 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

+1 

From Greg, A Dependent to Everyone: 

preach 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (ella/she) to 

Everyone: 

+110000000000000 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (ella/she) to 

Everyone: 

The 150% forces folks to choose between food and rent, 

insurance or student loan payments, food or childcare 

etc. Including an understanding a regional guideline 

for poverty and including that in the definition of 

low income will include more protection for the folks 

the ED wants to target. 

From Michaela Martin to Everyone: 

I like that John. There's the generous way or the 

complicated way 

From Persis (P), Legal Aid (she/her) to Everyone: 

HUD standards are regional. 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (ella/she) to 

Everyone: 

I apologize for taking us off track it took me a while 

to gather my thoughts LOL 

From Brady FMCS to Everyone: 

Does someone maybe have the livestream up? That might 
 

97 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

explain the echo! 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

+1 persis, interest capitalization creates long-term 

risk 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

AMEN! 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

+1000000 to Persis. 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

And I will lower my hand. 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

+persis 

From John S. Whitelaw (he/his) (A-Disability) to 

Everyone: 

+1 to Persis 

From Justin (P) Service Members/Veterans to Everyone: 

+1 to Persis naming convention: plan to beat all plans 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

IS there a reason that interest subsidies can only be 

three years? 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

+1 Persis 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

Subsidizing interest for longer would be a step toward 

making EICR the clear best in field IDR plan 
 

98 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

From Persis (P), Legal Aid (she/her) to Everyone: 

josh would like to come to the table 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

Let's hit it out of the park, as Bobby suggest 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

+1 one on time limits constraining what we can do here 

From Justin (P) Service Members/Veterans to Everyone: 

+1 Josh 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (ella/she) to 

Everyone: 

+1 Josh 

From Jen (she/ella): (A) Student Borrower to Everyone: 

+ Josh 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

+1 Josh 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

+1 josh, we also have a lot of outstanding data 

requests 

From Daniel (P) - Fin Aid Admin (he/him) to Everyone: 

+1 Josh 

From Bobby (P) Two Year Public Colleges to Everyone: 

+1 Josh 

From Josh (A), Legal Aid (he/him) to Everyone: 

+1 
99 

Committee Meetings - 11/05/21 

From Misty (P) Priv. Non-Profit to Everyone: 

+1 Josh 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

+1 Josh