Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

1 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION 

NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING 

STUDENT DEBT RELIEF COMMITTEE

SESSION 1, DAY 1, AFTERNOON

OCTOBER 10, 2023

On the 10th day of October, 2023, the following 

meeting was held virtually, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 

p.m.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

2 

P R O C E E D I N G S

MS. JEFFRIES:

Welcome back, everyone from this esteemed committee, as 

well as our honored public that are watching in on the 

live stream. We hope you all had a nice break and lunch. 

We're going to get right back into things. I have asked 

the two additions to alternate slots from this morning 

that were approved. First we have Carol Peterson. Carol, 

you want to give us a little introduction of yourself?

MS. PETERSON:

Hi, I'm Carol Peterson from Langston University a HBCU, 

and I have worked with the Vera Group on Second Chance 

Pell since 2016. I actually am the one that goes to the 

prison and sees the guys in person.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Okay. Thank you. And, Amber Gallup, if you would please 

introduce yourself.

MS. GALLUP: 

Sure. My name is Amber Gallup. I'm very happy to be here. 

I'm the director of adult education at the New Mexico 

Higher Education Department. You know, New Mexico wanted 

to be at this table because although we're a state with 

few resources relative to other states, we have one of 

the lowest rates of student debt in the nation and one of 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

3 

the most progressive free college programs in the 

country. I'm a borrower myself and currently a doctoral 

candidate in adult learning. Looking forward to being 

here as an alternate for state officials.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Well, we're very happy to have you join the committee and 

your expertise are extremely valuable and welcome. So if 

you would go ahead and turn your cameras off as per 

protocol, we'll go ahead and we're going to start. We're 

going to go back to the two constituency- the two 

constituency groups that were already approved this 

morning and address the filling of the primary and 

alternate. Tamy.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

Yes, we have one minor housekeeping issue we need to 

address. We need to confirm with the committee the actual 

constituency name for the group that we added today. 

We're not going to call them borrowers with disabilities. 

They are individuals with disabilities or groups 

representing them. So I need for- I guess we need to 

confirm with a consensus vote or are we just able to move 

to accept this name change? We can take a quick consensus 

check. We have one hand up, Sarah Butts. 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

4 

MS. BUTTS:

Can you just let me know if am the primary right now for 

four-year borrowers?

MS. JEFFRIES:

I don't see Sherrie back yet, so. 

MR. FRANCZAK: 

Sherrie is- Sher is in the waiting room at the moment.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay.

MR. FRANCZAK: 

I'll have to admit her.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Alright, so Sher is back. So, we can make that switch. 

Did you admit her, Mike? Okay. There she is. Sher, can I 

remind you of your naming convention, please? If you 

could make those corrections as primary and your 

constituency group. Okay. Thank you for bringing that to 

our attention, Sarah. We appreciate it. So we can take a 

quick consensus on what the Department has put forth on 

what the title of the- one of the new groups would be of 

individuals with disabilities and groups that represent 

them. Can we- we can have discussion on it. Seeing no 

hands, let's go ahead and see our show of thumbs on 

making that the title of that group. Sher, I can't see 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

5 

your thumb. There it is. Okay. It's wiggling up there in 

the corner. Thanks. So you have reached consensus on 

that. So Tamy, I think we're ready to go ahead and move 

forward with the nominations and discussion and 

consensus.

MS. ABERNATHY:

Wonderful. Thank you Cindy. Thank you everybody, and 

welcome to Carol and Amber. We're glad you were able to 

join us. At this time, we would like to propose that 

Jessica Ranucci be considered for the primary seat of the 

Consumer Advocacy Group and Ed Holtz be considered as the 

alternate for the Consumer Advocacy Group.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay, I will open that up for discussion. Seeing no 

hands, let's move to consensus of Jessica Ranucci as 

primary and Ed Boltz as alternate for the Consumer 

Advocacy Group. May I see your thumbs, please? Okay. It 

looks like you've reached full consensus on that. 

Congratulations. Kind of feels good to move along and get 

some agreements right off the bat. Appreciate it. So that 

brings us to the individuals with disabilities and groups 

that represent them. The nominees.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

Yes, we would like to put forth John Whitelaw as the 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

6 

primary negotiator for this constituency group.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. Discussion. Seeing no hands, let's take consensus 

on John Whitelaw serving as the primary for individuals 

with disabilities and in groups that represent them. May 

I see your thumbs? Looks like you have reached consensus 

on that as well. That does leave the alternate spot 

vacant for now. So let's move on to the third group that 

was proposed this morning. Council representing medium 

income borrowers.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

Cindy, The Department believes we have adequate 

representation of numerous borrowers at the table. 

Typically, our negotiated rulemaking committee members 

consist of roughly 12 to 15 constituency groups, and we 

have just added two more. We do not believe at this time 

that we need to add the constituency group for the middle 

income borrowers.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Tamy, for that discussion. Seeing none and do 

you want- I'm not- Myself, I'm not seeing a need for 

consensus on that because that is the Department's 

position, but I'm open to discussion on that.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

7 

MR. FRANCZAK: 

For clarification purposes, Ed Boltz was accepted, who 

was initially nominated for middle income borrowers as a 

category was added as an alternate for Consumer 

Advocates. Is that correct?

MS. ABERNATHY: 

Yes, sir. And Jessica Ranucci was primary for Consumer 

Advocacy.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. Richard, do you have your hand up?

MR. HAASE:

Yeah. Just a quick procedural question here. When we have 

not otherwise specified, do we default to Roberts rules 

for procedural governance? So like if there's a motion on 

the floor to add that group, would we need to close out 

the motion with a vote before moving on?

MS. JEFFRIES:

We can- that's what I'm asking. We certainly can do that. 

Knowing, just for procedural protocol in a matter of 

record, we can do that. So let's- Tamy, are you okay with 

us moving forward with that?

MS. ABERNATHY:

Absolutely.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

8 

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. So the motion that was on the floor for, adding the 

group of Council representing middle income borrowers. 

May I see a show of thumbs on that? Okay. There are- the 

motion has failed, so the group will not be added to the 

table. Appreciate your time and thoughtfulness on 

considering all of these decisions. It does have- it does 

show your willingness to be thorough and committed to 

this process. So again, I thank you. So with thatMS. ABERNATHY:

Can we reach out to those potential new members and see 

if they're able to join us?

MS. JEFFRIES:

Have you provided us- we need to talk to them. An FMCS 

person needs to talk to them. Can you please provide 

their phone number for- let's have John reach out to 

them.

MS. TAYLOR:

Yep. John, I will email that to you, their email and 

phone number.

MS. JEFFRIES:

And do you have Ed Boltz's too, or?

MR. FRANCZAK: 

Ed Boltz was just sent to me. I'll contact Ed Boltz. 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

9 

John, please contact Jessica and John. 

MS. JEFFRIES:

Okay. Thank you, team. I appreciate that so that we can 

move forward. I believe at this point on our agenda, I'd 

like to introduce Toby Merrill from the Office of General 

Counsel. Toby?

MS. MERRILL:

Thanks, Cindy. As this group and people watching online 

know, over a year ago, the Secretary announced policy to 

provide pandemic-related debt relief to Federal Student 

Loan borrowers. This was intended to avoid significant 

delinquencies and defaults as borrowers returned to 

repayment after an unprecedented three-year payment 

pause. That policy was based on a different legal 

authority, the HEROES Act, and what we will be talking 

about in these sessions. The HEROES Act authorizes the 

Secretary to waive or modify any statutory or regulatory 

authority that he deems necessary to ensure that Federal 

Student Aid recipients who are affected by a national 

emergency are not financially worse off because of the 

national emergency. It also specifies that the Secretary 

is not required to exercise the waiver or modification 

authority under the section on a case by case basis. 

Under that policy, eligible borrowers would have 

qualified for relief if they earned under $125,000 as a 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

10

single person or $250,000 a year for couples, and the 

plan would have forgiven up to $20,000 for a qualifying 

borrower who received a Pell Grant and $10,000 per

qualifying borrower who did not. The Supreme Court held 

that the Secretary did not have the authority to adopt 

this policy. It found that the size and scope of the 

Secretary's debt relief policy presented a major question 

of economic and political significance, which required 

clear congressional authorization. The court further 

found that the policy was not clearly authorized by the 

HEROES Act provision, authorizing the Secretary to waive 

or modify any statutory or regulatory provision of the 

Higher Education Act that he deemed necessary to ensure 

that borrowers were not worse off financially in relation 

to their loans as a result of the national emergency. The 

court held that the debt relief policy was neither a 

waiver nor a modification of the Higher Education Act. As 

you've seen, excuse me, the Department is now seeking 

input on potential regulations pursuant to section 432a 

of the Higher Education Act. Specifically, section 432a6 

provides that in the performance of and with respect to 

the functions, powers and duties vested in him by this 

part, the Secretary may enforce, pay, compromise, waive 

or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, 

however acquired, including any equity or any right of 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

11

redemption. In plainer language and for our purposes, 

this provision says that in carrying out the tasks and 

purposes related to the Federal Student Loan programs 

authorized by the Higher Education Act, the Secretary can 

change or forgive Federal Student Loan debts. We 

understand that there may be questions about the meaning 

of this language, the flexibilities that it provides, and 

the limitations that it places on the Department, what 

can and can't be considered, and what actions would be 

within the Secretary's authority. We're looking forward 

to a meaningful and robust policy conversation. In order 

to keep us focused on policies the Department can 

consider, we encourage you to focus on the specific 

purposes and provisions of the Higher Education Act. The 

Department must pursue policies that carry out the Higher

Education Act, and do not conflict with or obviate other 

portions of the law. So, just as an example of a policy 

that would conflict with portions of the law, the Higher 

Education Act provides for discharges if a borrower has a 

total and permanent disability, the condition has lasted 

or is expected to last for 60 consecutive months or 

result in death. Because there's an existing program 

authorized by statute for disability discharges, we could 

not create a whole separate program that offers 

discharges for borrowers who have met those exact same 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

12

conditions, but substitutes 30 months for 60 months. As 

we said in the issue paper, the Department is considering 

adding specific regulations on the Secretary's waiver 

authority in particular. As we think together about 

articulating bases for waiver, we should keep in mind not 

only the goals and policies of the Higher Education Act, 

but also some concepts relevant to waiver more generally. 

In other contexts, different agencies looking at waiver 

authorities consider a variety of factors, including when 

collection of a claim would defeat the purpose of a 

benefit program or impose financial hardship on the 

program participant, among other considerations. These 

underpinnings will be helpful to inform potential 

policies here. Thanks.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. Toby. Any questions, comments for Toby? Ben, 

did you have something? 

MR. MILLER: 

Oh, no, I think we're going to go to me then.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Yes, we are. Yeah. So not seeing any hands up. Thank you 

very much, Toby, for that, explanation. So next up, we 

are actually going to start into the questions in the 

issue paper and I want to turn it over to Ben Miller.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

13

MR. MILLER: 

Great. Thank you much- thank you so much, Cindy. Thank 

you all for a productive morning and a great start to the 

afternoon session already. Before Tamy starts walking 

through the discussion questions from the issue paper, I 

just wanted to provide a few high-level policy points to 

frame the conversation. First, you'll see that we are 

thinking about this issue in terms of distinct groups of 

borrowers. As others have already said today, we know 

that experiences and challenges in the student loan 

programs are varied. As we craft regulations, we think it 

is valuable to acknowledge the different ways issues 

arise so we can consider and create discrete solutions. 

Second, you will see that there are still many details to 

be worked out on these different ideas. In the first 

several questions, you'll see that we're interested in 

feedback to further refine the idea. The last question 

you'll see is raising broader concepts. We're also 

looking forward to hearing ideas you- we may have missed. 

From what we hear at this session, we will work on 

developing regulatory text to consider the next session. 

There may be some ideas where we still need more time to 

develop regulatory text, so some items may be further 

along than others as we continue this work. Third, I know 

there's been a lot of really excellent thinking about 

ways to improve student loans, and we heard a lot of 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

14

great ideas in the more than 26,000 public comments we 

received. As Toby already mentioned, and I just want to 

remind everyone, the Department's focus here is on issues 

related to waiver. That means there are some areas we 

aren't going to be tackling. One of those that we saw a 

lot in the public comments in particular, is the interest 

rate charged on student loans. That is something that is 

set by Congress and is not controlled by the Department. 

And as such, there aren't any regulatory- any regulations 

we could be creating around that. The other is regarding 

other discharge programs, such as Public Service Loan 

Forgiveness. Last year we finished regulations on this 

program, which we think will do a lot to help borrowers 

get the relief they are entitled to by law. We still have 

one final rule to issue on that program related to what 

types of employers are eligible, but we aren't planning 

on opening up regulations on PSLF or the other discharge 

programs here. Even with those limitations, we think 

there are a lot of exciting and interesting opportunities 

for ideas and thoughts, and I'm honored to have a chance 

to listen to these discussions. Thank you, Cindy.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Ben. Appreciate it. Alright, so next we're 

going to move to- back to Tamy to lead us through 

discussion on question number one.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

15

MS. ABERNATHY:

Thank you, Cindy. I'm going to ask Ms. Vanessa to share 

her screen and show question number one. Thank you, 

Vanessa. As Ben mentioned and others have mentioned, we 

have received many public comments about how borrowers 

felt underwater on their Federal Student Loan debt 

because they owe more now than they originally borrowed, 

despite making payments for years. Many said that they 

felt like they could not get back on track if they could 

just- or many felt that they could get back on track if 

they could just get back to the original amount that was 

borrowed. There are several reasons why borrowers end up 

in this situation. For some borrowers, it might be due to 

spending time in deferments or forbearances where 

interest accumulates and prior to final rules that went 

into effect this July, those periods resulted in interest 

capitalizing and being added to a borrower's balance. 

That resulted in those borrowers paying interest on top 

of interest, and some borrowers have never even- have 

even experienced multiple capitalization events. For 

other borrowers, it could be due to paying under an 

Income Driven Repayment Plan, which reduces borrowers 

payments based on their income, but allows payments less 

than the amount of accumulating interest, which causes 

the outstanding balance to grow. The Department 

eliminated interest capitalization where previously 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

16

required by regulation, and created new provisions that 

mitigate increasing interest in the SAVE Plan. Borrowers 

repaying on this plan are not charged interest when their

monthly payment does not cover, as long as they fulfill 

their full scheduled payment. While other borrowers find 

their balances exceed the original amount borrowed 

because they are unable to make payments and end up going 

into delinquent and default. Student loan default works 

differently than any other financial product, where 

higher debt levels correlate with higher risk of default. 

Instead, we see that most borrowers who default either 

never finished a postsecondary program or earned only a 

certificate. They tend to have low balances, lower loan 

balances. Default is an issue that we addressed and 

starting next July, borrowers who provide the approval 

for the disclosure of their tax information can be 

automatically enrolled into an Income Driven Repayment

Plan. Our hope is that borrowers in this situation who 

have a zero payment will no longer be at risk of default. 

We'd now like to hear the committee's thoughts on how we 

provide borrowers whose loan balances have grown due to 

the accrual of unpaid interest, with a better path for 

successful repayment.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Okay. Thank you. Tamy. I see for the record, Jordan 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

17

Nellums has joined in place of the primary, Jada, for 

this discussion. Is that correct? Alright. Welcome, 

Jordan. Alright. Let's open that up for discussion, 

comments, ideas. Yael?

MS. SHAVIT:

Thank you. So at the outset, first of all, thank you for 

raising this and raising this issue in the- in this 

question. As we jump into this discussion, I wanted to 

bring up a couple of broad principles that I think would 

be helpful for the Department to keep in mind in thinking 

about this, that- this issue more broadly that I think 

is- are particularly salient for the group of individuals 

identified in this question. So our office, the State 

Attorney's General Offices, have years of experience 

assisting borrowers with their student loans and 

undertaking detailed investigations of Federal Student 

Loan servicers and Title IV eligible schools. This 

experience, which is really the experience of looking 

under the hood, is unique and it's revealed pervasive and 

systemic misconduct by the Department's contractors and 

frankly, also profound failures of oversight and poor 

program design on the part of the Department in the past. 

And the type of misconduct at issue includes steering 

borrowers into forbearances and suboptimal repayment 

plans, failing to enable borrowers to maintain IDR and 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

18

depriving borrowers of opportunities to avoid default. 

Our work has demonstrated unequivocally the pervasive 

consequences of these issues, which have kept borrowers 

mired in debt through no fault of their own. And while we 

applaud recent efforts to try to retroactively address 

these issues, our work has also demonstrated the 

inadequacies of existing programs for addressing the 

cumulative impact of years of systemic failures, 

including, for example, that a lot of people weren't 

covered by the one-time adjustment because of past 

periods of default. So for that reason, I think it's not 

only legally appropriate, but necessary for the 

Department to zoom out a bit from the population in this 

first group to provide meaningful cohort level relief 

through the rulemaking that doesn't require borrowers to 

identify themselves and that addresses these longer 

loans. This goal is consistent with the framework that 

the Department is adopting here that asks the question of 

when collection of student loan debts would defeat the 

purpose of the HEA. I think it's particularly salient in 

the context of older loans, loans that have spent a long 

time in default, and think the question we should be 

asking isn't the question of lowering these people's 

balances, it's eliminating this debt. These are loans 

that, given the pervasive nature of servicer misconduct 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

19

and Department oversight failures, are in the position 

largely that they're in today because of these failures. 

And this is an appropriate remedy for those individuals. 

Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you, Yael. I just want to remind- not that you did 

anything over or anything like that. We are timing these 

for three minutes. So, you'll get a 30-second notice 

before your time is up, and then a final notice that your 

time is up. So with that, Kyra.

MS. TAYLOR:

Thanks, Cindy. I would just like to raise up everything 

that Yael has said already. Amongst low income borrowers, 

we see repeatedly that they are demoralized by their 

ballooning debt. I hear all the time from borrowers who 

feel that the Government is not looking out for them, who 

wonder about whether or not their student loans are a 

scam, as they watch their loans go from $5,000 in 

principal to five times as much in subsequent years. We 

applaud the Department's policy moves to reduce the 

instances of interest capitalization and to reduce 

negative amortization in IDR plans. However, that still 

leaves millions of borrowers whose balances have 

increased substantially via interest capitalization and 

interest accrual over the years. And they are still left 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

20

with their student loan debt. And as the Department 

noted, they do not know how they're going to repay the 

debt as it continues to grow. As Yael mentioned, some of 

the ballooning interest that has occurred on borrowers’ 

accounts is due to servicing misconduct. When borrowers 

have called for help instead of being driven to the 

programs that might discharge their debt in some 

circumstances, they were put in forbearances that made 

their interest accrual- accrue even more. And so I would 

like to reiterate Yael's call that I hope that the 

Department is thinking of ways to cancel these borrowers 

debts, to cancel the amount of interest capitalization 

and interest accrual that had the policies fixing the 

interest capitalization issues and fixing negative 

amortization been implemented earlier, those balances 

would not have increased in the first place.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you. Kyra. Next, I have Richard.

MR. HAASE:

Hi. Yeah, first, I think it's important that we go into 

these conversations recognizing that we have the 

Department, that the Government has the power to help or 

harm people through its policies. When we look at 

interest, and I know that there are limits to what we're 

being told we can discuss around it, I think it is 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

21

important to acknowledge first that $22.5 billion per 

year is paid, I believe, towards the US Government for 

interest on these student loans. I know for me 

personally, I went to state schools, I lived at home for 

most of that time, and I paid my student loans for 23 

years, and almost my entire balance was still there when 

I finally had them forgiven under PSLF about a year ago. 

When I hear from colleagues, other teachers, and schoolrelated professionals who've had similar experiences, 

they say, you know, they've started off with 40 or 

$50,000 loan balances, paid $40,000 over the course of 20 

years, and seeing that those balances have gone nowhere. 

In one case, I have a colleague, a friend who's been 

paying for 20 some odd years, has been substituting in 

and out of employment as other speakers have shared, 

encouraged to go into forbearance and different options 

for pausing her payments. The end result was that her 

loan was, as of a month ago, was up to $120,000. So I 

don't know what is within the scope of our authority to 

discuss in terms of interest, but I certainly hope that 

we do have those discussions, because I think that the 

interest is a good example of where our power to help 

people is kind of having the opposite effect, because 

we're not governing it effectively with the people in 

mind.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

22

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you, Richard. Next up is Angelika.

MS. WILLIAMS:

Yes, I echo the sentiments of my colleagues here on the 

committee about eliminating the debt of low income 

students. And I say that because research from the 

National Association of Independent Colleges and Schools 

has conducted some research about the Federal Pell Grant 

Program, and it was determined that when the Federal 

Program was initially launched, it covered 70 percent of 

educational costs. Today, it only covers 28 percent of 

educational costs, and that is increasing low income 

students' need to borrow, right? And so now they're at no 

other means but to borrow. But also they're subject to 

the same interest rate of individuals who demonstrate the 

ability to borrow. So the interest rate currently is at a 

one size fit all model. And I only wonder for one, 

eliminating the debt. And also, while they're currently 

enrolled, having a different interest rate than those who 

demonstrate the ability to repay the loans. When we do 

further research, we see in other situations, such as the 

banking system, they have different elements or interest 

rate scale, right, based on one's ability and willingness 

to repay the loan. I feel like the Department has 

information from the financial aid application, also 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

23

known as the FAFSA, that demonstrates one's ability to be 

able to repay the loan. And that's in correlation to how 

the banking system sees the credit score. So the EFC also 

will now change to SAI in the future is one way that the 

Department can see individuals who are Pell eligible. 

Obviously, who may not have the ability to repay the 

loan, so their interest rate should not be subject into 

this one size fit all rate group that's currently out 

there, published and disclosed.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Okay, I appreciate that. I need to take just a quick 

break here. The new committee members have joined us, so 

I want to take just a moment to introduce them. Jessica 

Ranucci for Consumer Advocates has joined us. Welcome, 

Jessica. And, John Whitelaw has joined us, for the 

individuals with disability and groups that represent 

them. We welcome you as well as Jessica's alternate, Ed 

Boltz, has also joined the session. I'm going to ask that 

John and Ed, the naming convention is you need to put an 

A before- or well, John, you a P, you know, right? You've 

done this before with me, and Ed, you need a P before 

your name and then after your name, the constituency 

group that you represent. And since Jessica is present, 

the alternate is off screen until such time that you feel 

you want to switch. So if you could turn your- 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

24

MS. ABERNATHY:

Cindy?

MS. JEFFRIES:

Yeah.

MS. ABERNATHY:

Just one Correction. Ed needs to put an A instead of a P.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

I'm sorry. Thank you. Got ahead of myself there. Thank 

you. So, Ed, if you could go ahead and turn your camera 

off and fix your naming convention, and we'll proceed 

with our discussion. So again, thank you, Angelika. Next 

up is Lane.

MS. THOMPSON: 

Yeah. Thanks, Cindy. I agree with, you know, with a lot 

of the people who have spoken- have already said. I just 

want to say that I hear from borrowers all the time who 

do feel like they are being taken advantage of because 

their balance is bigger than it used to be, and I just 

kind of want to bring in that feeling that when folks 

feel that the Government is taking advantage of them, 

it's just not a great feeling. Kind of similarly, the 

thing that I really struggle with, with negative 

amortization is trying to explain it to borrowers. There 

aren't a lot of financial products that do this, so I 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

25

just kind of want to point that out, that just negative 

amortization in general is very confusing for people. And 

kind of to add to that, one possible solution to these 

folks with large balances is, could the Department look 

at forgiving any debt over a certain amount based on what 

was borrowed? So, you know, no one should ever have to 

repay 200 times what they borrowed, for example. So 

that's just an idea of a way it could be addressed.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Lane. Appreciate that. I have one other change 

to announce before we move to Wisdom. Michael Jones will 

be going off camera and his alternate- did he come on? 

Andrew, are you there? Will be coming on camera in his 

place. I'm sorry, Vincent, are you there?

MR. ANDREWS:

Sorry. Yes, I am here.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay, great. Alright. We're all set now. Thank you. 

Wisdom, go right ahead, please.

MR. COLE:

Thank you so much. You know, one thing I want to make 

sure that is clear is that Black borrowers are 

disproportionately impacted by predatory lending, who 

targets vulnerable communities with unrealistically high 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

26

interest rates and makes it nearly impossible for 

borrowers to pay back their loans. We know that nearly 75 

percent of Black borrowers and 63 percent of Latinx 

borrowers see their student loan balance grow rather than 

shrink, compared to 51 percent of white borrowers. The 

average Black graduate owes $53,000 in student debt, and 

after graduation, that amount just continues to grow and 

grow and grow. And so we really want to make sure that we 

are presenting opportunities for all of our communities 

to enter into the economic system, but more so, something 

that I would like to just hone in on is that the 

elimination of all of this debt, it presents an 

opportunity for America to reduce the racial wealth gap. 

You know, when we think about folks' opportunity to 

become homeowners, business owners, and build 

discretionary wealth, the cancellation, the total 

cancellation of student debt for all borrowers impacts 

all communities. And so definitely want to make sure we 

raise that recognizing that, you know, millions of 

families, despite diligently repaying their debt for 

decades or more, continue to remain trapped in an 

unaffordable and growing debt balance.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you, Wisdom. Appreciate the comments. Melissa?
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

27

MS. KUNES:

I believe the key issue here is the inappropriate 

application of interest to borrowers over the years who 

have looked for ways and guidance from the Government in 

order to alleviate or help mitigate their loan payments 

while they were going through tough economic times. So an 

alternate I would like to suggest is, if it's possible, 

could we look at a borrower's accumulation of debt over 

time? Look at what the principal balance was initially. 

Take away all the interest. Forgive the interest. Use 

what the payments have been made towards the principal. 

Give the borrower credit for that and only hold them 

accountable for the principal they may have left to owe 

and put interest completely to a side. That's just simply 

an alternate plan I would like to throw out there for 

consideration of the group.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Melissa. Ashley, you are up next. Followed by 

Vincent Andrews. So, Ashley?

MS. PIZZUTI: 

Well, I personally believe that the Government should not 

be making money off of the society that it is trying to 

educate and raise all the votes up. We benefit as a 

society by educating our communities. It is a way to get 

people out of poverty. It is a way for the Government to 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

28

make more money on taxes. If people are making more 

money, then they're going to be returning that back to 

their communities and thriving. As somebody who has been 

a borrower for close to 24 years now and have been in the 

circles with the majority of my friends who have had 

student loans for 20 years, the Government has really 

failed them, not only for these policies that they have 

put in place and lack of really regulating the servicers 

because I know personally from dealing with servicers, in 

times of hardship, it was a three-minute phone call. It 

was, okay, we're going to put you in forbearance. Okay, 

we're going to put you in deferment. There was no 

explanation of the capitalized interest. You know, being 

a young 19-year-old and going into taking these loans 

blindly with a lack of education, because I came from a 

very poor background and I was the first to go to 

college, there has been no financial literacy in taking 

on these loans and then managing these loans. You know, 

occasionally you'd get something in the mail or an email. 

But I know that some of the servicers, Sallie Mae or 

Navient, we'd have a seven minute phone call, you know, 

get them, get them on the phone and get them off the 

phone. You know, they never explained the fees. They 

never explained what capitalized interest in all of these 

forbearance is going to do. My loan that I took when I 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

29

left when I graduated school in 2006, ended up adding, 

for taking an 18 month forbearance, ended up adding 

$30,000 to my loan, which was then capitalized daily for 

the next 15 years. So I think there's a lot- there's a 

huge gap for those who have dealt. That's pretty much 

what I have to say is, you know, we need to- it's not 

just steering the ship right, it's also fixing all of the 

mishaps for these borrowers that are still being crushed 

by this.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Appreciate that. Thank you, Ashley, for your comments. 

Let me just ask, Andrew- or Vincent, you had your hand up 

next and took it down.

MR. ANDREWS: 

I still wanted to talk. I thought you just had a list. 

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Yeah. Go ahead.

MR. ANDREWS: 

Yeah. So I wanted to speak particularly on behalf of 

veterans and I think I mirror a lot of the sentiments 

that Ashley just illustrated, especially for veterans. 

And it probably makes up a smaller constituency within 

the larger group. They're veterans who either commission 

out of college or still some veterans that even enlist 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

30

after they've accumulated some debt. And again, there's 

not a lot of information for veterans once they're active 

duty. And if you call your servicer, like she said, they 

kind of steer you towards forbearance or deferment, which 

is something that happened to me, actually still have a 

period even after the waiver, that they still haven't 

certified, even though it was all military experience was 

supposed to be counted towards Public Service Loan

Forgiveness. They're, for whatever reason, they're saying 

was in deferment and I'm pretty sure they told me to do 

that. But they've had to retroactively go back and undo a 

lot of- some of the things that did happen to veterans. 

And I think it's just not really fair to ask people who 

served 10, 15, and 20 years, to tell them that some of 

your time may not count just because of deficiencies we 

may have had or whatever the circumstance may be. Or the 

fact that their interest, like we were discussing 

earlier, just continues to accumulate in the way that it 

has over their time of service. They do tell you about 

SCRA, but for me particularly, it really only lowered my 

interest rate a half a percent, so it didn't really have 

a big impact. And during my time of service, my student 

loans probably went from around 80,000 to 120,000. And so 

there needs to be some way to have something in place for 

veterans, for people who are serving countries, for 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

31

teachers, people who are really dedicating a lot of their 

life towards public service. It's not fair to have all 

these loopholes for them to go through and for them to 

dedicate so much time and then still have to navigate, 

how do I even get this stuff accepted in the end without 

all the documentation that they probably didn't have in 

place when they were going through these processes.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Vincent. We appreciate that. One additional 

announcement. Jada Sanford has come back to the table as 

the primary and her alternate, Jordan Nellums, has gone 

off camera. Welcome back, Jada. Next is Ashley.

MS. PIZZUTI: 

I forgot to unraise my hand.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Okay. Alright. Jessica Ranucci, you are up next. 

MS. RANUCCI: 

Thank you. Nice to meet everyone. I just wanted to- I 

support everything that people have said, and I won't 

belabor that here, but I just wanted to make the 

particular point that as to FFEL borrowers, this issue is 

extremely important. So I think, as most of you know, 

FFEL loans were disbursed by private banks. So the 

interest pays on those loans was designed to and often 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

32

does just make money for private banks that have really 

nothing to do with the Department or the Government. We 

stopped that program a long time ago, but there are still 

many, many, many FFEL borrowers out there who are 

struggling with the weight of their loans. So that's on 

the one hand. And then on the other hand, FFEL borrowers 

are shut out of many of the relief programs. The 

Department's been making really important strides to help 

that. But it's not perfect, it can't capture everyone. So 

I think this issue is really important for everyone. But 

I just want to point out, especially for FFEL borrowers.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Jessica. Richard.

MR. HAASE:

Thank you Cindy. First, in terms of concrete steps and 

answers and suggestions to respond to the question, I 

would like to say that I support some of the ideas that 

were advanced a little bit earlier. I think it was 

Melissa who shared ideas for applying payments that have 

been made towards interest or principal, and getting rid 

of any, you know, interest that continues to compound on 

the principal of these loans. I think that the Government 

should not be in the business of making money off of what 

we're doing. I think that it's important, and someone 

else alluded to this as well, to do more to improve 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

33

transparency for borrowers. I know that when my kids go 

to- you know, start driving in a couple of years, I'll 

certainly warn them that if they put a $30 tank of gas on 

a credit card, they're going to pay $60 towards it. I 

know that when I get a credit card statement in the mail, 

it tells me if you pay the minimum payment, this is how 

long it will take you to pay off what you financed here. 

I think that we need more protections in place than 

people are sharing here in these 3 to 5 to 7-minute 

conversations. They've had loan servicers who steered 

people towards decisions that were not in their best 

financial interest. You know, and finally, you know, as I 

think about where we are right now, it reminds me of, you 

know, what we've learned in history from how the 

Government responded to housing after the Great 

Depression, when basically they decided that 

homeownership was a path towards, you know, building up 

the American middle class. I think that we're at a 

crossroads right now in our country, where we're 

recognizing the same thing about higher education. And I 

think we need the Government to do like what it did back 

then when it put guardrails in on the system and 

supported it so that it could help expand access to 

people to build up the middle class. Right now, I think 

we have, you know, the idea that we need higher 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

34

education, that we want more people going into it, but we 

haven't yet aligned Government practices towards 

empowering them to do that. So I think it's really 

important that the Government, if we really believe this 

is an important path forward for the American middle 

class, that it acts swiftly to put guardrails on the 

system so that people are not harmed by their desire to 

enter it.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you, Richard. Kyra?

MS. TAYLOR:

I also really appreciate all the comments that have been 

made thus far. I would like to call the Department's 

attention to borrowers in default. Many borrowers likely 

defaulted because of the servicing misconduct, because 

they were steered to forbearances that increased their 

balances until those forbearance ran out. In the other

circumstance, the borrower may have periodically used 

forbearances, seen their interest capitalized, and then 

watch their balance increase year after year, at which 

point they felt that they would never repay their debt 

and they may not have had access to legal assistance on 

their student loans either. There are many borrowers in 

default who, despite the Government's collection powers, 

may not be able to repay the principal, meaning that they 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

35

will be stuck in a cycle of default on their student loan 

debt. The other point I'd like to raise is that this 

ballooning debt has collateral consequences for 

borrowers. We hear from borrowers who cannot get a lease 

because their debt to income ratio is too high. We hear 

from borrowers who cannot get car loans, meaning they 

cannot drive to their job because no one will finance a 

car loan because of what has happened with their student 

loan debt. In addition, borrowers may not be able to 

afford a mortgage, which in some cases may be more 

affordable for them than renting, again, because their 

outstanding amount of debt is too much and so no one will 

provide them with a mortgage. So I strongly encourage the 

Department to right size borrowers' debts to what they 

can repay, and to right size borrowers' debts to reflect 

policy changes and policy corrections that it has engaged 

in previously.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you, Kyra. I need to make an announcement before we 

move to Scott Buchanan. Jalil Mustafa Bishop has come in 

in place of Andrew [Richard] Haase. So, let's move on to 

Scott Buchanan.

MR. BUCHANAN:

Sure. I know we've had some discussion here and I think 

this is probably a request for the Department as we move 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

36

forward here, perhaps for the next session, but I think 

there's been a lot of discussion about sort of, you know, 

whether the Government makes money on these loans or not. 

It'd probably be useful for the negotiators to hear, sort 

of, and receive a sort of a financial overview of the 

programs and where there is cost today, where the subsidy 

goes, particularly on student loans for Stafford and Grad 

PLUS that might be helpful as we're thinking about the 

overall direction of where subsidy needs to be applied 

and where it can be best and most effective in helping 

borrowers. So financial projections on the profitability 

of those student loans would be useful.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you, Scott. I'm going to ask you to put that 

request in the chat so that the Department doesn't lose

track of it. And, they will look into a response on that. 

Hey. Okay, Jalil Mustafa Bishop. Thank you. Go ahead.

DR. BISHOP:

Thank you. So I think it's important for us to just be 

clear as we are going through this discussion, that the 

Department has a lot of the lead experts around student 

loan debt, that when we think about what information is 

shared with you all, I can look at the research and the 

professional history of the undersecretary of Higher Ed, 

James Kovaal, who has spent much of his career helping to 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

37

refine and introduce arguments and stances around Income 

Driven Repayment Plans and understanding that those 

plans, even though they've been tried repeatedly, often 

leave many borrowers in lifetime debt sentences. I think 

we can turn to the work of Ben Miller, who since 2017 has 

highlighted and put out research reports that show that 

student loan debt was harming or inflicting injuries to 

borrowers of color more than any other group, despite 

Black borrowers often enrolling in Income Based Repayment 

Plan. So again, Ben Miller's work highlighted the racial 

injustice issue going all the way back to 2017. The 

senior advisor to the undersecretary, Julie Morgan, 

highlighted that it was not only about what has happened 

after you borrow student debt, but it's also was about 

the idea that credentialization, the idea that if you 

earn a credential, you can go on to get a market return

that will allow you to pay this ever growing student loan 

balance. And it was Julie's work that showed that that 

promise was broken from the very beginning. So I think 

it's important to just already highlight that the 

Department has the experts and the research and has 

published this research to show repeatedly that the 

student loan system is broken and a lot of the issues 

we're experiencing is from that policy failure, and that 

from their own evidence, that it may require more than 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

38

tweaks to really solve some of the issues that we're 

seeing, especially for our most marginalized groups. So I 

would like to see us really remember that when someone 

borrows a student loan, the standard repayment, the 

standard agreement was not 20 years, it was not 25 years. 

It was really a ten-year standard repayment plan. So I 

would like us to move to a point where if we're going to 

cancel or waive student debt, we start there. That for 

anyone who has been in repayment for over ten years, we 

really look at how can we start to cancel some of that 

debt? For those who have student loan balances that are 

more than what they originally borrowed, how can we start 

to cancel that debt? We have a SAVE Plan that has already 

started to address interest, but how do we make sure we 

go back and extend that to all borrowers, Parent PLUS 

borrowers, borrowers who are right now excluded from that 

type of interest benefit? How do we cancel debt for 

borrowers? How do we cancel a debt for borrowers as they 

move along? So rather than making folks wait 10 or 20 

years, how do we cancel that debt maybe as they move 

along in the repayment process? And then again, just 

including all loans, not having this kind of 

exclusionary, arbitrary way of what's included, what's 

not included.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

39

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you, Jalil. We appreciate your comments. Kathleen.

MS. DWYER:

Thank you. I want to say that I appreciate all the 

personal perspectives that I've heard here today. I feel 

like there's been a lot of very compelling points raised 

and how it has truly impacted people. And I think that's 

important for this committee to be considering. Heard 

some good ideas related to caps on repayment. Definitely 

understanding negative amortization, that can be very 

confusing for people. So some good points about how we 

can make some differences there in addition to 

reallocating payments on interest. A new question I 

wanted to add to the debate is I think it would be 

compelling for us to understand and even visualize what 

is the percentage of borrowers who have seen their 

balance grow? We've kind of all talked about it and 

mentioned instances where we know that's happening. Is 

there data that exists on that that would really help 

visualize that to the committee and help us make some 

decisions about how many people are really impacted by 

that happening.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Yes. Could I kindly ask you just to drop that question 

into the chat?
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

40

MS. DWYER:

Yes.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Alright. I appreciate it. It looks like India Heckstall 

is switching with Wisdom Cole at this point, so.

MS. HECKSTALL:

Alright. Thank you. I just also wanted to bring to the 

conversation that when we're talking about borrowers, 

student loan borrowers, it not only impacts the students 

themselves, but it also impacts their family and their 

ability to build generational wealth. High monthly 

payments can prevent borrowers from building personal 

savings accounts, purchasing a home, making a down 

payment on a home. And we often see that 

disproportionately Black borrowers are those who are 

impacted by these disparities. Homeownership is often the 

primary way for populations earning lower middle incomes 

to build wealth in this country. And so the current 

student loan system is not built in a way to support 

generational wealth, because the debt from pursuing 

higher education can inhibit Black families from building 

wealth for future generations. Black borrowers, Black 

parents are often borrowing Parent PLUS Loans and can 

have a negative financial impact on not only those 

students, but also future generations as well. and so the 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

41

other thing is that in addition, 45 percent of Black 

college educated households reported also providing 

financial support to their parents, while only 24 percent 

received support and only 16 percent of comparable white 

households reported providing support to parents, while 

33 percent received this support. So this means that 

Black households are more likely to provide financial 

support to their parents and to provide at greater 

amounts compared to white households as well. And 

oftentimes higher education is seen as somewhat of an 

equalizer for communities of color to be able to get 

ahead in education and employment opportunities. But a 

lot of research has shown that that's not always the 

case, considering that we have more debt, but can also 

oftentimes make lower wages compared to some of our white 

peers. And so, ironically, sometimes pursuing higher 

education can actually negatively impact Black families' 

wealth due to the burden of student loan debt and unequal 

employment opportunities and outcomes for Black 

graduates. And so that's important that we take into 

consideration interest accrual when thinking through 

student debt cancellation.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you India. Appreciate it. Richard has come back on 

in his primary role in Jalil has moved back into his 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

42

alternate slot off camera. So, Richard, you are up next.

MR. HAASE:

Well, first, yeah, I completely agree with everything 

that was just shared. It's important that as we look at 

what we want for our country, for the American middle 

class, and building it up, that we be mindful of the fact 

that the student debt program, the way it is right now, 

is not only perpetuating, but really exacerbating 

inequities in our society. And I think we have both a 

financial and a moral responsibility to do something 

about that. I think that as people dive further into the 

topic of- because this question originated with the idea 

of interest. Right? And there have been ideas floated out 

there about canceling, erasing, applying, whatever it is. 

You know, I would assume that some people will counter 

by, you know, worrying about the cost there. And I do 

think it's important to kind of- back to this idea of 

investing in the American public that we remember the 

impact that we get economically from expanding access to 

higher education. College graduates are going to pay an 

extra $273,000 in income tax. Even more than that, if 

they've gone beyond the four-year college education 

experience. They're going to require $82,000 less in 

Government expenditures. The reality is, is that it is 

probably the safest investment that our Government can 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

43

make in the future of the middle class in this country. 

So I think it's important then when people consider, you 

know, any financial impact to adjusting interest and 

things like that, that we remember the payoff that comes 

from making higher education accessible to as many people 

as we can.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. Richard. Jordan has swapped places with Jada 

again. So, Jordan.

MR. NELLUMS:

Yes. I also wanted to echo India's point about making 

sure that we're also bringing into the conversation 

Parent PLUS Loan borrowers, especially when we talk about 

the impact that interest has on those types of borrowers, 

especially because the Century Foundation found that 

after ten years, the length of a standard Parent PLUS 

repayment plan, more than half of the initial balance 

remains after ten years. So I just want to make sure that 

we're bringing them into the conversation about what we 

can do about interest payments and the disastrous impact 

it has on them.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you. Appreciate that. Yael, your next.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

44

MS. SHAVIT: 

Thank you. Just a couple of points. One, in an effort to 

be helpful as there was a request for information. When 

the Department was promulgating the new IDR regs, it 

included the following statistic that may be relevant, 

which is that among borrowers who first entered college 

in the 2003 to 2004 academic year, more than one-third, 

37 percent, had a higher balance in 2015 than what they 

originally borrowed. And, you know, I think- I hope that

that's helpful in the context here. But there is 

something that I want to kind of, again, zoom out about. 

I think the conversation about how to- the necessity of 

and the propriety of eliminating interest is well placed. 

And I agree with a lot of what's been said so far. But I 

do also want to note that when you look at ballooning 

interest and length of loan terms together, I think these 

are variables that can helpfully be used to identify 

people who are much more likely to have been steered into 

forbearance, steered into non-IDR plans, received bad 

advice from their servicer, not being offered affordable 

plans and ultimately resulting in, for a lot of people, 

default and unhelpful deferments that have not been 

adequately addressed by the efforts the Department has 

recently undertaken to retroactively correct a lot of 

these servicing failures and failures of oversight, and 

that simply wiping out interest, though that is 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

45

completely appropriate and necessary, is inadequate for 

these borrowers. And this aligns, again with the 

interests and principles that the Department has laid out 

as motivating the Department in the context of its 

consideration of debt relief right now, both the 

likelihood that it will be able to collect the debt, the 

equity around whether or not to collect the debt. And 

again, I think the conversation in the, you know, the 

conversation surrounding the effect of these ballooning 

interest payments is important, but I want to make sure 

that we're considering broad relief for these individuals 

and recognizing that this ballooning debt and loan firms 

is a way to identify cohorts of individuals who should be 

entitled to full relief of their debt. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you. Kyra.

MS. TAYLOR: 

I think Yael really hit the nail on the head there by 

pointing to borrowers' account histories as indicative of 

whether or not they can- they will ever afford to repay 

their debt, and whether or not the Department can expect 

to reasonably pay off the debt within a reasonable amount 

of time, even via their collection powers. However, I 

wanted to call attention to something else. Jordan 

mentioned Parent PLUS borrowers. Parent PLUS borrowers 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

46

are cut out of many of the Income Driven Repayment Plans. 

In fact, they are generally only eligible for income 

contingent repayment, which is the least generous Income 

Driven Repayment Plan. And as a result, we see in the 

legal aid community lots of Parent PLUS borrowers who are 

extremely low income, who cannot afford their ICR 

payments and thus their only option if they're trying to 

afford default in many cases are forbearances and default 

and deferments, which then in turn increase their student 

loan balance. So I would hope that the Department would 

consider proposals that will help low income Parent PLUS 

borrowers again right size the debt before they default, 

because Parent PLUS borrowers did not have a different 

employment outcome because they took on the debt, they 

were simply trying to provide for their children.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you. Jessica?

MS. RANUCCI:

I just want to highlight a comment made by my alternate 

in the chat. I could let him say it, but if you don't 

mind, I'll just say it out loud so we don't have to 

switch. Which is that he'd like to know that student loan 

borrowers who faced other extreme financial distress and 

resorted to filing bankruptcy were, until recently, 

explicitly excluded in contravention of Federal Law from 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

47

enrolling in or remaining enrolled in an IDR payment 

plan, which left them facing up to five years of accrued 

student loans following their bankruptcy case, which 

often exceeded or released- exceeded or released- ceded 

or erased any relief they were able to get in the 

bankruptcy and I think that that's a really important 

point, and goes to what Yael said, that there are these 

big categories of borrowers that were cut out from relief 

for whatever reason, among them the one that Ed raised 

who could be identified by these cohorts separately. I'd 

like to make a point, going back to the introductory 

comments, I think two themes of this rulemaking are going 

to be sort of administrability and also common waiver 

standards, both of which were brought up in the 

introduction. And I just want to say that especially when 

we're talking about old loans, I think whether there is 

an accurate recordkeeping of all. You know, historically, 

I'm not exactly sure what the recordkeeping is, but of 

the interest and principal, to the extent that there 

might not be precise record keeping that would allow the 

Department to look back and unwind, you know, potentially 

multiple consolidations or something that would allow the 

Department to really tease out principal and interest, I 

would just say that that in the- certainly in the private 

student loan world, and I would think, among other 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

48

Federal agencies, is exactly a reason to forgive debt, 

because it's exactly the kind of case you couldn't bring 

in court, for example, if you didn't have the paperwork 

that would show exactly years of payment history, exactly 

years of transfer, exactly principal, exactly interest.

Those are the exact types of cases where I think pursuing 

the debt is not appropriate. And so I think that I would 

encourage the Department not to see potential 

difficulties in recordkeeping here as a barrier to broad 

scale relief.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Jessica. Wisdom?

MR. COLE: 

Yeah, I would love to request some specific Parent PLUS 

data from the Department. Just thinking about how, and 

this may have said- may have said it before, thinking 

about, you know, 3.7 million families taking on over 104 

billion in Federal Parent PLUS Loans. I think there's 

considerable need to lean into that. I think has been 

mentioned in the chat and mentioned here, the exclusion 

of the SAVE Plan, many of our members, many of the folks 

who support our youth and college members, our Parent 

PLUS borrowers, and are feeling the weight and burden of 

this debt on them.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

49

MS. JEFFRIES:

Okay. If you have that specific data request, you could 

put it in the chat please, Wisdom. Appreciate it. 

Alright. Tamy, I am not seeing any other hands. Does the 

Department feel they've had sufficient input on this or 

is there additional information or questions you'd like.

MS. ABERNATHY:

I think that we have heard every one of these comments, 

and we are taking every single thing that you guys are 

saying very seriously. And part of the reason why you 

were chosen to serve on the committee is to provide us a 

wide range of options to look at. One of the things- I 

want to mention two things. We are not looking at a 

broad-based debt cancellation, where we are going to wipe 

off debt in its entirety. We are looking at individual 

ways that the Secretary can exercise his authority to 

grant waivers, and the conditions by which the Department 

can craft regulations that would solidify the actions of 

wavering- of waiving specific debt. I'd also encourage 

you to look at the other questions because some of what 

you're saying is interwoven with the age of the loan and 

how long borrowers have been repaying the loan, and those 

types of things, we are looking at those as well. 

Everything that you're saying is extremely important to 

us. I do think that in some situations, while we're not 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

50

looking at broad-based debt cancellation, that doesn't 

mean that in some cases there would not be cancellation. 

So we're looking at ways in which we can formulate 

regulations to- that are in the best interest of our 

borrowers, which represent much of what you're saying 

already. So I think we have enough on this question, 

unless there's any additional comments on that. We thank 

you so much for what you have given us to consider, and 

we look forward to creating regulations for the second 

session with many of the things that you have said today.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you, Tamy. I see one additional hand up. Vincent?

MR. ANDREWS:

Yes, just really quickly. Tamy, I wanted to ask, like, 

has there been like much data on who the waivers would 

impact the most because I think, especially considering a 

lot of consistencies that we've discussed today, 

individuals who have ballooning debt, who aren't likely 

to repay debt really aren't going to be that impacted by 

waivers anyways, because eventually the interest will 

accrue again. Well, now they have some safeguards. but a 

lot of them are in the position where they already can't 

repay the loans. And I see the waivers as mostly 

impacting people who can already pay their debt and are 

closer to finishing paying off their debt. But again, 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

51

like, what about the people who have been paying for 10, 

15, 20 years? And they owe 80, $90,000. And you waive 

10,000 of it. Like, what good is that really going to do 

for them?

MS. ABERNATHY:

I think one of the things that I would say is if it's 

coming to data, we're going to have to put that request 

in the chat, because we're going to want to come back to 

the table after the Department has had a chance to pull 

that data. We crunch numbers all the time for all the 

various things that we look into. We don't typically 

crunch numbers on costs and things like that until after 

we've started to formulate rules. So I'm not sure that we 

can go as far as what you're asking, Vincent. But if 

you'll put that in the chat for us, we'll go back and 

we'll give it a best effort to kind of come to the table 

with some of the things that I'm sure that we've already 

identified and addressed. We are looking at the length of 

loans. We are looking at the length of time borrowers 

have been in repayment and unsuccessfully making headway. 

This is one provision. Looking at the interest is just 

one provision of where we'd like the Secretary to 

exercise the waiver authority that is granted through 

regulations. This is not all-inclusive. It is like a onetime clean this part of the loan, you know, the systemic 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

52

problem as some of you have mentioned, up. And then we're 

looking at other ways to craft regulations that would 

additionally waive other aspects of systemic problems or 

areas that we feel we need to address to help our 

borrowers go forward with their loan debt. So I think 

it's more of these are separate provisions that we're 

looking at. And then of course, any brilliant ideas that 

we come up with at the table, we'd like to take those 

back and flesh those out as well. So it's not just- I 

don't want us to piece and part things because it's kind 

of a whole process. We would start with interest, and 

then we would look at other ways in which we could craft 

regulations to help us waive debt.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. Tamy. A few more hands have come up. I think 

we'll take these three questions and then take a break 

and move to question two, if that's alright.

MS. ABERNATHY:

Actually, there was a question in the chat from Kyra.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Oh, okay.

MS. ABERNATHY:

Also, add that to the list of things that I need to 

address, please.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

53

MS. JEFFRIES:

Yes. Did you want to address that now or did you want toMS. ABERNATHY: 

Sure, I can do that.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

Kyra. No. I am not saying that we are not going to 

completely cancel borrowers debts and that we're only 

going to waive a portion of their debts. What I'm saying 

is that there are many moving pieces and parts of this 

and the categories for which we are presenting, and we 

end up crafting those regulations could cancel some 

borrowers debt completely, but it could not cancel all 

borrowers debt completely. So thank you for having me 

clarify that. I certainly don't want us going into our 

discussions being confused by something that we've said 

at the table. Did that answer your question? Great. Thank 

you.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thanks, Tamy. Alright, we have Ashley and Jessica. Well, 

Sher, we'll start with you because they called on you, 

correct? And then do the other two and then take a short 

break. 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

54

MS. GAMMAGE:

Yes. While I appreciate the fact that, the Department is 

looking at multiple ways in which to provide waivers or 

approaches to looking at this. I want to tag on to the 

comment that was last made about the- I am a- both a FFEL 

borrower, I'm a Department borrower, and I started outand I'm on an income payment plan that I've been paying 

for approximately- since 2004. I would hope that out of 

our discussions and our- and I'm also a borrower who is 

now over the age of 65 and still paying these loans which 

have- interest has been capitalized, you know, I've 

become ill. I've had to take forbearances, those kind of 

things, that we would look at some way in which we can 

actually help all borrowers, but especially four-year 

borrowers and parents who are financing their children's 

education, be able to deal with this problem of interest 

because the interest is what is killing people. You know, 

I'm one of those people who don't mind paying my debt. I 

took out the loan. I don't mind paying it. However, for 

me and lots of other BIPOC people, the Department has 

placed an undue burden on us by making money off of us 

and making more money off of us each year that the loan 

continues. So I would hope that we would look at some of 

these loans that are- who do not- because of the narrow 

scope of public student loan forgiveness, who do not 

qualify under what is considered quote, public service 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

55

now, some of us are in service-oriented occupations. Look 

at these long-term loans of 20 years or more or 15 plus 

years, and look at some way to provide relief to that 

group of borrowers who've attended four-year institutions 

and graduate programs.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you, Sher. Appreciate your comments. Ashley?

MS. PIZZUTI: 

I just want some clarification from the Department. Just 

around this neg reg meeting of minds. Are we still 

focusing on the 1020 waiver and trying to find different 

ways to achieve the original- the waiver and where it 

stands as far as the different income caps and the 

amount, are we bringing everything back to the drawing 

board to allow for an expansion of cancellation for more 

people included?

MS. ABERNATHY:

So I would like- thank you for asking that question. This 

is not about the broad-based waiver that- what the 

Supreme Court, you know, turned down under the HEROES 

notice. This is something completely different. So there 

are not caps of if you make certain amounts of money, 

you'll get $10,000 forgiven or, you know, $20,000 

forgiven if you were a Pell Grant recipient. So no, that 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

56

is not what this particular negotiated rulemaking is 

about. This negotiated rulemaking is specifically to look 

at the section in the statute where the Secretary has the 

authority to waive and compromise, and looking at ways in 

which we would like to craft regulations to allow that 

authority to be exercised, to waive and compromise 

student loan borrowers' debt. So it is totally separate, 

different things. You know, we did not- our intent here 

is to look at ways that we can best help our borrowers. 

We have already instituted through other negotiated 

rulemaking that interest- you know, interest will no 

longer capitalize. We have looked at things where we have 

streamlined many of the application processes to make 

things easier. We have looked at ways to have the 

interest benefit in our Income Driven Repayment Plans 

that we have recently implemented. So what we are trying 

to do is to build upon what we've already started. In 

prior negotiations and rules that have been effective 

this year and some that will, you know, continue to be 

effective by July 1, 2024. So it is not about just debt 

cancellation that was proposed under the HEROES waiver, 

but this is about looking at compromise and waiver 

authority under a different statute altogether.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. Jessica?
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

57

MS. RANUCCI: 

Thanks, Tamy, that helps clarify. But just one further 

clarification. So it sounds like the Department is 

interested in proposals regarding the specific statutory 

authority and the HEA, both that would be essentially 

like immediate and perhaps on an ongoing basis, that 

would set up a regulatory scheme to effectuate that 

provision on an ongoing way that could affect both people 

now and potentially borrowers in the future, that both of 

those things are on the table here.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

Yes. That is 100 percent correct. Thank you, Jessica, for 

bringing that up. You said it a little bit better than I 

did.

MS. RANUCCI:

Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Okay. Thank you. Jessica. Alright. I'm not seeing any 

further hands. So at this point in time, I'd like to let 

you all take a break till- is 2:30 sufficient? About 22 

minutes or I'm sorry, about 12 minutes. And at which time 

we would come back and start with the next question. Is 

that okay? Alright. We'll see you at 2:30. Okay. Welcome 

back from break. I hope you all had a chance to get a 

little refreshment or a little outdoor air or something. 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

58

At this point, Tamy, I think we're ready to move on to 

question number two.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

Right. Before we jump into question number two, I do want 

to just take a second to mention that several of the 

components of the conversation earlier dealt with 

statutory provisions that we are not able to address 

through negotiated rulemaking. Those particular changes, 

such as Ben alluded to earlier, the interest rate 

charges, those are required by statute, and those would 

have to be changed through an act of Congress or 

legislative changes. So it's not that we're not trying to 

address all of your questions, but some things were just 

simply not able to do with regulations. And I just wanted 

to, you know, level the playing field to tell you that we 

are looking at everything we can look at through the 

regulations that we can change within our ability. 

Vanessa, would you put up question number two if you 

haven't already? Thank you. Traditionally, student loan 

relief programs require borrowers to understand complex 

rules and requirements. Borrowers have to figure out 

which program is best suited for them, determine their 

eligibility, submit an application, and that can be very 

overwhelming. Before the pandemic, about a million 

borrowers defaulted every year, even though many of them 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

59

would have had a zero payment under IDR. We also believe 

the number of borrowers who have applied for Public 

Service Loan Forgiveness is far below the number that 

appear to be eligible, based on employment data. We have 

done considerable work to make administrative changes 

that reduce or eliminate burden on eligible borrowers 

with positive results. Here are some of the highlights. 

For years, we've had a data match with the Social 

Security Administration that indicated which borrowers 

were eligible for total and permanent disability 

discharge. In August 2021, we changed the process, and 

the first time we ran the new process, we found more than 

350,000 borrowers who were eligible, but never applied. 

We've helped hundreds of thousands of borrowers who have 

attended certain institutions receive relief through 

group discharges without requiring them to wade through 

onerous paperwork. When implementing long-term fixes 

through the income Driven payment account adjustment, we 

identified over 800,000 borrowers who were eligible for 

forgiveness. We will discharge loans for those borrowers 

who do not opt out of this process without an 

application. We believe regulatory changes that provide 

flexibility to use other information that identifies an 

eligible borrower who will qualify for that discharge 

would provide critical help both now and into the future. 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

60

The new SAVE Plan, once implemented, will forgive some 

loans after ten years of repayment, making up to 2 

million borrowers immediately eligible for forgiveness if 

they enroll in the SAVE Plan. However, because borrowers 

have historically faced administrative burden, not all of 

these borrowers are expected to enroll in this plan. 

These borrowers may miss out on the possibility of loan 

forgiveness. We welcome the committee's thoughts on how 

the Department can better assist borrowers who are 

eligible but do not apply for forgiveness under programs 

such as an Income Driven Repayment Plan.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you. Tamy. Thank you for stopping the share. So at 

this point, we will open the floor for discussion on 

that. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Ashley?

MS. PIZZUTI:

Are we looking at all plans? Public Service Loan 

Forgiveness, Borrower Defense. Are we focusing mostly on 

Income Driven Repayment at this point?

MS. JEFFRIES:

I think we are looking at this holistically, but there 

are going to be like PSLF and some of the other- I think 

we're looking at the Income Driven Repayment Plan at this 

moment. But we welcome your comments. Where we can look 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

61

at it, we certainly want to do so.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Richard?

MR. HAASE: 

First, I want to say thank you for again having us, 

giving us this opportunity to do this. I do think that 

although we probably want heaven and earth, there are 

going to be things that you guys can't accomplish in the 

Department that I do think it's really worth recognizing 

that the administration is trying to do this and actively 

trying to help people. So that kind of leads me right 

into, you know, our- mine and our personal experiences 

with the program that you did improve, which was the PSLF 

one you referred to earlier. I think that it's a good 

example of the Department taking steps towards improving 

access to forgiveness for people. I think first by 

expanding the eligibility, the number of people who were 

able to achieve it. And then towards the end of what was 

that initial waiver period, expediting the approval and 

forgiveness processes for people. I think that anything 

we could do to make things look like that, or better, 

will help make sure that people don't slip through the 

cracks. I know that when we did our organizing work, 

reaching out to members to help them take advantage of 

PSLF, we helped dozens and dozens of people probably 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

62

achieve more than $2 million worth of forgiveness just in 

our district through that work. But I know that we still 

probably missed a third of the people who were eligible, 

which is to what you were saying before as well. So I 

don't know if it's possible, but, you know, I wonder if 

there are ways to integrate any of this into when taxes 

are filed. I feel like it creates an opportunity to 

identify who an employer is. It creates an opportunity to 

identify what someone's income is. I'm not sure if that's 

a way to make sure that we prevent people from slipping 

through the cracks. But again, I do want to thank you for 

what was done for PSLF. I think it's a good step in the 

right direction and I hope that we continue to move that 

way.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Richard. Lane?

MS. THOMPSON: 

Yeah. So this is also a comment, kind of tangentially 

related to Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Something 

that we've been talking about a lot in the state advocate 

call, the State Student Loan Ombuds call that we have is, 

the issue of hanging loans. So these are people who did 

get Public Service Loan Forgiveness but still have a 

balance. And there's reasons, a range of reasons how that 

happened. But I think one pretty simple place to start 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

63

would be to cancel all debt for folks who have had any 

debt canceled under Public Service Loan Forgiveness. It 

seems like a pretty simple fix to me. And then the other 

thing that I'll just add here is that any time that we 

can automate any of these programs, it really, really 

lessens the workload for me and all of my colleagues. The 

amount of time that we spend trying to figure out where 

applications are in process, what happened, how it got 

misprocessed is extremely high and extremely onerous. So 

just wherever we can automate any- anything. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you, Lane. Angelika?

MS. WILLIAMS:

Yes, I'm coming at this from a perspective of a financial 

aid administrator and the information that we report to 

the Department. For example, we report when the student 

has withdrawn or graduated and I feel like that piece is 

significantly important because I think at this point, we 

can eliminate the borrower's need to apply for these 

repayment programs, because the FAFSA, which is now 

changed by the future act, all applicants have to use the 

IRS data tool to import their income into the FAFSA. So 

you have their last record of income. And at that point, 

I think they should be targeted within the six-month 

grace period to either apply for the loan or 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

64

automatically enrolled in those repayment plans. I'm 

sorry, apply for the payment- repayment plan or 

automatically enroll them in the repayment plan.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you, Angelika. I just want to make note here thatwell, now he's gone. I was just gonna say Ed Boltz was in 

as primary, but it looks like they've swapped so. And 

John [Jordan] Nellums is back in place of Jada, right? 

Alright. Appreciate it. Vincent.

MR. ANDREWS:

Yes. So I think Michael, my alternate, had asked a 

question in the chat right before the break really 

similar to this question, basically just stating that 

people oftentimes don't even know where to go to repay 

their loans. And mirroring off of what some of Angelika 

just said, a lot of times students will drop out, and if 

they drop out early in their education, they may assume 

that they just don't owe anything. And may- maybe they 

move or things happen and they never get the 

correspondence to start their payments, but I think, 

because now that these services that I've seen, they've 

progressed so much over the last couple of years, there 

should be a way that they can automatically or as soon as 

you take out a loan, it should trigger something for your 

servicers to be able to kind of initiate that process for 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

65

you, and maybe even put you in a plan that meets your 

level of employment or however much you're getting paid, 

because nowadays they can pull- or they work with the 

Federal administrators, they can identify your employment 

and how much you're paid. It should be relatively easy to 

identify which programs would work for the given 

individuals, either after they drop out of school or 

right after you leave school. but we need to find ways to 

automatically do that so people don't find themselves in 

these situations where 10, 15 years down the road that 

they still haven't enrolled in something, even though 

they've been working for a Public Service Loan 

Forgiveness entity for forever and now they're having to 

go back and retroactively try to figure out the ins and 

outs of these programs when their servicer really should 

have been contacting them and discussing these things 

with them.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Vincent. And I do see Ed Boltz now who is in

as alternate in place of Jessica. So welcome, Ed. Wisdom? 

Wisdom, you are next.

MR. COLE: 

Yes. No, I would say just to this question, you know, I 

think part of it is also increasing the eligibility to 

the Income Driven Repayment programs. I would like to
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

66

read an excerpt from a letter that we sent to the 

Department last week, particularly around Parent PLUS 

borrowers. I know we've touched on the topic a bit, but I 

think that it's important for us to really- to understand 

how increasing the existing authority to fully extend all 

Income Driven Repayment programs to Parent PLUS borrowers 

is absolutely necessary. You know, there have been great 

strides towards student loan equity by launching the new 

SAVE Income Driven Repayment program that helps 

borrowers, particularly students of color, to lower their 

monthly student loan payments to affordable levels. 

Student borrowers also have access to loan forgiveness 

options, including Public Service Loan Forgiveness 

programs and other programs towards repayments, and I

want to make sure that we note that, you know, originally 

Parent PLUS borrowers were left out of the Public Service 

Loan Forgiveness program, but then included in the 

permanent adjustment this past July to bring borrowers 

closer to forgiveness. And so by extending the 

eligibility, particularly when folks are taking out loans 

as parents to support their students, those loans also 

impact those students as well. And so when we increase 

the eligibility to the parents, we will see more people 

apply, more people enroll, and more people see the relief 

that they desperately need.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

67

MS. JEFFRIES:

Thank you, Wisdom. Kyra?

MS. TAYLOR: 

I was glad to hear that the Department recognized that 

these programs- that its existing statutory discharge 

programs are incredibly complicated to navigate. They 

have a lot of nuances. And so it is incredibly 

demoralizing for borrowers who say, I should be eligible 

for this program. I was defrauded by my school. I 

attended a closed school, and now I'm struggling with my 

student loan debt. They apply for statutory discharges. 

They may fall slightly outside of the eligibility 

requirements, and then they receive a denial. When they 

receive that denial because of how complicated those 

programs are. They may be discouraged from applying for 

other forms of relief because it tests their faith that 

the Government is actually going to follow through when 

they're struggling on providing them with relief. So I 

would- I wanted to note that. I also wanted to note that 

broadly, across this country, we do not have enough 

student loan lawyers to provide folks with legal services 

to help borrowers navigate these complicated programs and 

to help them choose the best form of relief for them. I 

am fully aware that this is a solution that is beyond 

what the Department can do, but even LSC programs do not 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

68

have distinct funding just for student loan services, 

even though we know that many low income borrowers 

struggle with their student loan payments. In addition, 

there have been a number of delays in terms of 

effectuating and implementing these discharge programs 

and errors that also dissuade people from borrowing. 

People receive the wrong information from their student 

loan servicers about the statutory discharge programs or 

the IDR plans. Currently, borrowers are getting wrong 

billing information when they're enrolling in the IDR 

plans and when they get that incorrect bill, it tests 

their faith that these programs are actually real. In 

addition, borrowers who are eligible for relief have been 

told that their loans are going to get discharged, are 

receiving bills now also testing their faith that those 

statutory discharges actually exist. I would encourage 

the Department to think about ways that we could 

streamline relief in this rulemaking to reduce the number 

of people who still have outstanding debt, to reduce the 

administrative burdens that are associated with 

processing these programs. The student loan system is 

just- the student loan portfolio is just too big, and we 

need to reduce the number of borrowers in the system.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Kyra. Next we have Ashley.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

69

MS. PIZZUTI: 

I asked this question in the chat, but I would like to 

know what the Department is actually doing for outreach 

for a lot of these programs. What steps have you taken to 

reach these borrowers? I know from my personal 

experience, and that's mostly under Borrower Defense, 

when the Sweet vs Cardona settlement was announced, it 

was up to the advocacy people and the other class members 

to spread the information. There was a little bit of

media coverage and so many of them, so many people, even 

to this day, it's been a year and a half, I've never even 

heard of this program. I didn't know that I had this 

option. You know, I've been struggling under my school 

that closed in 2016, and I had no idea that I could apply 

for this program. So I would like to know what the 

Department is doing, taking steps as of now that we can 

maybe fill in, and then. Yeah, go from there.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

There are a number of ways that the Department 

communicates with our borrowers. We have Studentaid.gov, 

which is a plethora of information. We have worked on 

creating help tools within Studentaid.gov. Ways to 

evaluate which repayment plan is better. Streamlining the 

information to give real-time, not real-time access, but 

the ability to engage in the process and ask specific 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

70

questions related to your specific- the borrower's 

specific financial circumstances. And it kind of aids you 

and gives you a cross reference of which payment plan 

might better serve you. That's one way. There are 

numerous communications that are sent out, numerous 

emails. We use social media platforms as much as we can, 

because we know we have a rising population that looks to 

those social media platforms for information. We are 

doing every effort that we possibly can to get out the 

message for these borrowers. I have seen in the numerous 

years that I have been doing loan work, that more 

communication is readily available now than it ever has 

been before. I think this administration has done 

remarkable with setting priorities for communicating, for 

setting up borrowers for success, for holding our 

servicers accountable, and for fixing problems when- for 

past issues with our servicers. We can do all that we can 

to communicate with our borrowers. We know our schools 

are doing excellent jobs with this as well. At the end of 

the day, we don't know how to make borrowers read what we 

put out there, even if it is easily understandable. And 

we appreciate the community that works diligently with 

our borrowers to help them understand a very complex 

process. Again, we welcome suggestions on ways that you 

think we could communicate better. I'm not saying we have 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

71

it 100 percent correct because we're doing the very best 

that we can within the parameters of working with our 

servicers, on our social media platforms, with the 

communications that are sent out. I think here we are 

simply trying to make sure that we can get the 

information to the borrower so they don't have to figure 

it out. We want to find ways that we say the message in 

the most succinct way possible, and communicate on the 

level that we are reaching borrowers. So where you can 

help us with that, we welcome your suggestions.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. Tamy. Next up is Yael.

MS. SHAVIT: 

Thank you. So I first wanted to thank the Department for 

acknowledging this challenge and looking for 

opportunities to help borrowers who would otherwise fall 

through the cracks. It was very heartening to see that 

focus. I have two quick thoughts to share. First, I just 

want to reinforce the Department's focus on automating 

application processes, State's experience trying to help 

borrowers confirms the Department's observations that 

many eligible borrowers, particularly those in greatest 

need, will not be able to access available relief if they 

need to take affirmative, often confusing steps to do so. 

So whatever the Department can do to automate this 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

72

process should be done, including putting any necessary 

authorizations in borrowers promissory notes to allow 

borrowers who become delinquent, for example, to 

automatically be placed in IDR plans which the new regs 

contemplate requiring servicers to maintain information 

in a manner that will facilitate these processes is also 

appropriate. And while it may fall somewhat outside the 

scope of this rulemaking, but also ensuring inter-agency 

information sharing to the greatest extent that will 

allow the automation of some of these processes, I think, 

will be critical. I also want to note that a few of the 

issues that other negotiators have raised, like the 

hanging loan problem and Parent PLUS problems, are 

related to challenges surrounding loan consolidation, 

where borrowers who would otherwise have been eligible 

for relief or for better outcomes didn't access it 

because they failed to consolidate or apply for a program 

like the limited PSLF waiver within a certain timeframe. 

And you know, one thing that I think the Department could 

do in the context of this neg reg would be to remedy the 

kind of inequitable outcome that arises in these 

scenarios by creating avenues for those borrowers to 

access relief who would have otherwise been entitled to 

it, were it not for failure to consolidate timely or 

failure to apply timely. And I would note, as Ed knows, 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

73

that borrowers have received incorrect and confusing 

information and advice about consolidation for years, but 

specifically recently related to the one-time adjustment 

and limited PSLF waiver, there's been a lot of welldocumented confusion about consolidation. So whatever can 

be done to sort of remedy that through this neg reg would 

be great.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you for that. Ed Boltz, you are up next.

MR. BOLTZ: 

Thank you. I want to reiterate what Kyra said is that 

while there are insufficient numbers of student loan 

lawyers throughout the country, that number is growing, 

however, and while there certainly is the need for the 

Department of Education, along with other Federal 

agencies and state agencies to keep a close eye on 

student loan debt scam relief companies, one of the 

obstacles that it has been- remains for regarding 

borrowers getting assistance from lawyers in relief is 

that currently, the Department of Education does not 

allow third party representatives of those borrowers, 

again specifically private attorneys, but also arguably 

legal aid attorneys as well, to access the borrowers 

NSLDS files and other student loan information directly. 

This is actually in contravention, I believe, of the Stop 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

74

Student Debt Relief Act, which required that the 

Department provide that access, and in conversations with 

other parts of the Department, it appears that this is 

not a technical issue, but a priority issue. And if moreif that was made more feasible for borrowers to get 

assistance from legitimate, competent and ethical third 

parties, then I think more people would be- would have 

success in navigating what are admittedly complicated and 

interlocking programs.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So, Ed has gone back and 

Jessica has come back in. Next up is Jalil, who is in 

place of the primary, Richard, so, Jalil.

DR. BISHOP: Thank you. So I really just have a question 

for the Department of ED. I wanted to get some 

clarification. So with the SAVE Plan and some of the

other income-based repayment plans we have seen, can you 

just give clarification or context of why Parent PLUS 

borrowers weren't included? Why certain type of loans 

that we know are where some of our most struggling 

borrowers, some of our students of color borrowers are 

often concentrated, why those particular loans weren't 

included in the SAVE Plan. Just so we have that context 

and understanding limitations or other barriers that may 

exist.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

75

MR. MILLER:

Hey, this is Ben. I'm going to step in for a second for 

Tamy here. So, we discussed this issue at length in the 

SAVE final regulation. We'll get that around to you in 

the chat. We'll get you the page numbers where you can 

see it, but sort of as I noted at the top of this 

exercise, we're not going to be opening the Income Driven 

Repayment regulations here, and we're not going to be 

opening the PSLF regulations and other ones here, because 

we want to focus on the use of the authorities under 432a 

so we're happy to sort of discuss ways to deal with 

Parent PLUS borrowers and things of that nature with 

regard to the questions we're raising, but we're not 

looking at changing the parameters of those other 

discharge programs. So this, for example, is about 

finding ways to basically say if we find somebody is 

automatically eligible for any discharge program, instead 

of making them apply, we get to them automatically. But 

the actual terms of the discharge programs exist 

elsewhere, and we're not looking to amend those today.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. Ben.

DR. BISHOP: 

Thank you.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

76

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Next is Sarah.

MS. BUTTS: 

Hi, thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this 

discussion. I want to highlight some issues or barriers 

that I'm advocating on behalf of the social work 

profession and our workforce have surfaced to the 

National Association of Social Workers that really, I 

think, impact all four-year and graduate borrowers. When 

applying for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, 

if you have multiple jobs and change jobs or positions 

frequently, which is the case for many of our social 

service workers, social workers, other health care 

providers, the system of application is arduous. So I 

would also support automation and looking at predicating 

Public Service Loan Forgiveness eligibility on the actual 

public service and not the tax status of employers. We 

have many individuals who we know are providing a public 

service, who are a healthcare provider, for example, but 

are working for for-profit or nonprofits that are not 

currently eligible. This is extremely confusing for the 

workforce because they may not understand why they are 

not- they're not qualifying and this discourages 

applications. One example is an individual who was 

working in a skilled nursing facility was PSLF eligible. 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

77

The facility was sold to a for-profit entity. And then 

they were no longer eligible. We should be able to look 

at this and remedy these examples. I also would just want 

to highlight that servicers do not always know how to 

advise borrowers. They may not understand the details of 

the programs available, and they may actually misadvise. 

This is definitely the case when it comes to 

consolidation and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness 

program. Regarding Income Driven Repayment, we should try 

to help prevent default. In the case of social workers or 

social service professionals, child welfare workers, we 

may have bouts where we're having difficulty paying 

bills, and we only need some kind of help for a couple of 

months, so asking the borrower, what can you pay to avoid 

default and giving them some options. Helping folks to 

get back on track is just critical for our workforce, 

many of whom do not make a lot of money and are working 

more than one job. And finally, say that we should give 

consideration to the cost of living and the location of 

these workers. Because it's much more expensive to live 

in some parts of our country than others. And this 

impacts what borrowers can pay. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Sarah. John Whitelaw.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

78

MR. WHITELAW: 

Good afternoon and thank you. A couple of points I want 

to make, and I will probably say this a number of times 

automation, automation, automation. I think the 

experience with total and permanent disability has shown 

that the only way to get folks into the programs they 

qualify is through automation. And to put it really 

bluntly, to give folks who on this negotiated rulemaking 

who may not have been aware of the nitty gritty details 

of that, even where people were sent- this is people with 

disabilities, who were sent specific letters telling them 

they were eligible, but they needed to apply, a huge 

number did not. And I think that, again, it doesn't 

matter why, it's irrelevant to me why. But the point 

again is, look, the only way to get actual appropriate 

relief to people is to change the default from opt in to 

opt out. Again, obviously people can opt out of it, but 

it changes the entire game. And again, it may- this may 

not be- there may not be a specific regulation about 

automation other than a general sort of requirement that 

the Department should consider automation wherever it is 

reasonably feasible. I cannot tell you in my work how 

important automation is to relief. And then I just want 

to reiterate what some other folks have said. Confusion, 

misinformation, lack of information. If you think that 

that all is a problem for students who do not have 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

79

disabilities, it is significantly worse for students who 

have disabilities, especially those mental impairments, 

cognitive disabilities. Navigating this process is- I'm 

not going to say it's always impossible, but it is oftenit is just- it's not on. It is not happening. It's not 

going to happen. Which is also why advocates need to be 

given, with appropriate releases, better access, because 

the only way many people with disabilities can get access 

is through an advocate. And if it is made difficult for 

that to happen, it's not going to happen. And with that, 

I'll be done for right now. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, John. Appreciate it. Lane?

MS. THOMPSON: 

Yeah, I just want to speak for a second to people who 

were mistakenly rejected from these programs. I have 

folks that I work with, borrowers who have called me to 

file complaints because they are eligible for Borrower 

Defense to Repayment, Total Permanent Disability 

Discharge, Public Service Loan Forgiveness, whatever it 

may be. They applied, got rejected, and it was because of 

an error. Right? So now there's a PSLF reconsideration 

process, seems to be pretty bumpy. But if you think about 

somebody who graduated from college, let's say ten years 

ago and works in public service, they have had this debt 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

80

growing. In most cases, it's impacting their debt to 

income ratio. They have been earning less income because 

they're working in public service. They've been told to 

never consolidate because consolidating loses all of your 

eligible months. And then they've been told you have to 

consolidate. They've been told they have to submit 

employer certifications that cannot be electronically 

signed. Now we have the electronic signature process, 

which is awesome. But these are all things that have just 

changed. So I guess just really want to bring forward the 

perspective of somebody who meets all the criteria for 

one of these types of forgiveness and is rejected anyway.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. Lane. Tamy, we did see your hand briefly go 

up? Did I overlook you?

MS. ABERNATHY: 

You did not overlook me. But yes, I did. We wrote as much 

as we can automate, and as much as we can create 

processes that pull borrowers into things and find ways, 

new ways that we can automate our processes and 

streamline our processes, we've done that. We've done 

that with PSLF. We have done that with closed school. 

It's not everywhere, but we are working to expand that in 

any instance that we can. So your comments are very well 

received. We understand that it is difficult to manage a 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

81

very complex loan program and, and all of the moving 

pieces and parts and where we're able to we like to 

streamline our processes and bring uniformity to that so 

that we can be more transparent when we communicate to

our borrowers and have paths that are easier to, you 

know, to access and ways for us to, you know, do things 

automatically as well. So I wanted to make sure that I 

just kind of said where we've been able to do that, we 

have done it with recent rulemaking where we can explore 

ways to do that through this rulemaking. It's completely 

appropriate for us to do so, as it relates to the waiver 

authority that we are looking at implementing. We are 

not, again, looking to change PSLF. We are not looking to 

do- to change IDR. Those rules were published through, 

you know, good faith negotiations, much like this 

negotiation. And they're kind of solidified in the 

processes. Rest assured, anywhere where we were able to 

automate, we've been able to do so or that's slated for 

implementation at some later date.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Tamy. Jordan.

MR. NELLUMS: 

Yes, thank you. And on that note, A, I wanted to offer a 

possible idea in that when students immediately- when 

they have to sign their master promissory note, students 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

82

can be immediately made aware of or they have the 

opportunity to enroll in an IDR plan. So just as much as 

we're required- we let them know about their upcoming 

payments, giving them the opportunity to enroll as soon 

as they sign that master promissory note is important. 

And then also possibly considering regarding Parent PLUS 

Loan borrowers and automatically enrolling them in some 

type of IDR plan if they are at risk of defaulting on a 

loan, the Parent PLUS Loan and could possibly have some 

of their Social Security benefits withheld.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. Jordan. Wisdom.

MR. COLE: 

I'm thinking about the 26 million people who had applied 

or were automatically eligible for the one-time student 

debt relief, and what communication has been given to 

them about programs and enrollment in programs. I think 

making sure that the folks who were interested in seeing 

their debt canceled, or believed that their debt was 

going to be canceled should be supported, and making sure 

that they are able to achieve it through whatever program 

is most accessible to them. And so I think that's 

definitely an idea and just interested in hearing if 

there has been any further communication with that 

population, with that group. I know myself as somebody 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

83

who applied after the Supreme Court didn't really receive 

communications besides getting ready to return to 

repayment.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. If you could put that question in the chat, we 

would greatly appreciate it. Wisdom? I'm sorry, Wisdom, 

you just spoke. Jessica.

MS. RANUCCI: 

Thanks, Cindy. I want to echo the calls for automation. I 

think that that's a really important piece here, 

whichever way the Department decides to go. Also, with 

respect to the waiver authority that we're talking about 

in this negotiation, I think that it would be very 

appropriate to use that waiver authority to apply debt 

cancellation to people who would be eligible for specific 

categories of relief, but for something that was either 

totally or partially outside of their control. So I think 

that the PSLF waiver and the use of the Department's 

authority there is a really good example of how the 

Department has authority to apply forgiveness to people 

who- you know, you can't control if you've got a direct 

or FFEL loan. And I would say that a huge set of things 

that are outside of borrowers' control, it's been 

referred to, but just to really put a fine point on our 

servicing problems. You know, much earlier, Tamy, you 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

84

said something like, we don't know how to make borrowers 

read what we put out there. And I was just thinking in my 

head like, oh my gosh, you know, there are just so many 

times where borrowers are really trying to do the right 

thing and they're stymied, you know, many times that 

they're not. But think from the consumer point of view, 

like, look, this is a little embarrassing, but just 

myself I accidentally paid my loans twice in September 

because I actually just couldn't figure out how to do it 

on my servicer website. And like, I tend to be someone 

who's, you know, relatively in touch with student loans. 

You know, people get communications in their online 

servicer inbox and then a message that says you have an 

important message. People are getting spam calls. I'm 

sure many of you get them. Many of us get them. Spam 

calls, spam emails, lots of people who are signed up with 

third parties, essentially scammers, student loan debt 

relief companies that are trying to get their business 

that sort of compete with legitimate servicers, that 

makes people skeptical of communications from the 

Government. Even when people are able to get through to 

the servicer, sometimes there are real problems in the 

way servicers handle things. You know, everybody makes 

mistakes. I think there's a tremendous burden on 

servicers right now, and they basically have to do an 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

85

impossible job. But, you know, I have seen individuals 

get- you know, it's been referred to applications 

rejected in a way that's demoralizing and makes them sort 

of lose faith in the system. And, you know, I think it's 

important to think that for borrowers, we're really not 

just talking about these kinds of issues happening now in 

2023, but really over a period of, you know, what, 40 

years, 50 years? There are borrowers who've had loans for 

decades. And we're looking at servicing problems going 

back many, many years. So think I would encourage the 

Department [audio] Yes, to use its authority to look at 

those problems and use its authority to remedy them.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Jessica. I do want to point out that Valerie 

from the Department has posted a link to the Parent PLUS 

discussion and SAVE regulations in the chat for those of 

you who are interested in accessing that. Kathleen?

MS. DWYER:

Thank you. You know, I wanted to comment on the fact that 

I agree with so many of the suggestions that have been 

brought up here today. I feel like a lot of good 

strategies were outlined for finding and addressing 

borrowers in a proactive way. But most particularly, 

John's comments really resonated with me regarding being 

able to automatically identify and opt people into the 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

86

best programs for them. So, you know, we've really heard 

you all say we're not here to create new regulation on 

some of the existing programs, but just given what 

programs exist today, the Department should have the 

resources available to implement this program at scale, 

given the volume of borrowers that participate in the 

program. So there should be programmers that could apply 

a set of rules out of the database of borrowers that you 

have that you could just even see again, with respect to 

the programs that are offered today, or they could 

require servicers to apply that same kind of technology 

to be able to just go ahead and see under the exact 

programs we have today, without even adopting any 

additional suggestions from this committee, how could we 

find those borrowers who have not availed themselves to 

these programs and then automatically put them in? I just 

think the resources may exist, and they may just need to 

be pointed in the direction of working on this particular 

project or initiative.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. There we go. Ashley?

MS. PIZZUTI: 

I want to circle back just quickly to the social media 

outreach that the Department of Education is doing. So it 

looks like somebody posted one Instagram account that the 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

87

Department uses. And it looks like that is possibly- just 

covers all education. It covers everybody from preschool 

through, you know, college. Are there specific outreach 

things that the Department is doing or accounts that deal 

specifically with student loans?

MS. ABERNATHY: 

Ashley, I am trying to get somebody working on that to 

provide that to the committee. So if you- I saw your 

question in the chat, there are. I don't have them off 

the top of my head and I wouldn't even- I don't know what 

else is in my head at the moment. I'm trying to focus on 

all of this at the same time, but we are working on that 

for you, so if you could stay tuned, we'll try to get you 

something as soon as possible.

MS. PIZZUTI: 

That was kind of two-fold. Would the Department consider 

an advertising budget within some of these social media 

platforms, namely Instagram? I don't know if anybody's 

even on Twitter anymore.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

We'll be happy to take that back if you put that in the 

chat. I can't speak to our advertising budget, I'm sorry.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thanks, Ashley. I'm not seeing any other hands. We have 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

88

approximately 15 minutes before public comment begins. Is 

there anything that anyone wants to add, either on 

question one or question two? Well, let's go back. Okay. 

Sarah's got her hand up now.

MS. BUTTS: 

So, I actually think that the Department needs to make 

this information about these programs available to the 

servicers and their staff, because it's at that point 

when individuals think they qualify, and then the 

servicers misguide them. And so- and then there's no 

process for them to be assured of what they should or 

shouldn't be doing, particularly around big decisions 

like consolidation, individuals that have been in the 

system for a long time were required to consolidate 

initially, sometimes at much higher interest rates. So 

there's a whole, history for some folks of distrust with 

these systems and it makes- it's intimidating.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Sarah. Other questions, comments, ideas?

MR. FRANCZAK: 

[Inaudible] coming back as primary, and Sarah going back 

as alternate.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Okay. Thank you, Mike. Ashley? You're on mute.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

89

MS. PIZZUTI: 

Are the services required to tell the borrowers different 

programs that they are eligible for?

MS. ABERNATHY: 

There are a number of deliverables. There are a number of 

deliverables that servicers are required to communicate 

to the borrowers. So without going into specificity right 

now, because I am not on the operations side, there are a 

number of oversight provisions that the Department has in 

place to make sure that the servicers are providing thatyou know, the right information to our borrowers. But 

that is really handled through our Office of Federal 

Student Aid. They deal with our servicers. So I don't 

have all the specificity around that.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Lane?

MS. THOMPSON: 

I wanted to speak a little bit more to a topic that I 

think has come up from a few folks, which is, who has 

access to the NSLDS reports? As a state regulator, I'm 

not able to access the NSLDS system, and that makes my 

job just so much more difficult. And the reason I'm 

bringing that up is that we are expecting folks to do 

this all on their own, right? We can't even really help 

them because we have to help them from logging into 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

90

studentaid.gov, like starting there. So I really think 

that there's a lot to be said for where we can share 

information with folks who might be supporting borrowers. 

I know it's a little in the weeds, but it's just 

something that is a really, really long running theme 

where the fact that attorneys, state advocates aren't 

able to access that information just adds kind of a whole 

new barrier.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. Sher?

MS. GAMMAGE:

Yes. I have a question and a comment. One is, could theand answer the question too, to better assist borrowers 

and deal with some of the misinformation that servicers 

have to the Department provides services a list of job 

types. I mean, we know teachers, firefighters, those kind 

of things. That's sort of in the public knowledge. But 

the- it's my understanding that the Department just 

opened that up, for example, to adjunct faculty who may 

be eligible. Could you provide that to servicers who 

also- so that they can better help and inform their 

borrowers of who is eligible for public student loan 

forgiveness? And also on the Department website, could 

there be some place where that list is updated as folks 

are added to that group, going back again, for example, 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

91

adjunct faculty?

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

Cindy, could I take a stab at that? 

MS. JEFFRIES: 

You sure can.

MS. ABERNATHY:

We have a database on Studentaid.gov that lists eligible 

employers. When the Department identifies eligible 

employers not listed, they add to it. So it is updated on 

a regular basis. It is very easy to navigate to that 

respective section for PSLF. We have one PSLF servicer 

who is well versed on the types of jobs that qualify. So 

I think we have done all of the efforts that we can to 

streamline that process since the new regs have come into 

play. But if you have additional suggestions, please let 

us know because right now we do have all of those things 

available to our borrowers.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. Thank you, Tamy. Kyra?

MS. TAYLOR: 

I think with our remaining time, it would be really 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

92

helpful to hear from the Department some clarity around 

how this question fits within the relief that the 

Department is planning on, or considering providing to 

student loan borrowers, because I'm sensitive to the fact 

that we cannot change the regulation regarding the 

existing statutory discharge programs. But many of the 

suggestions here sound sub regulatory, would take 

budgetary items, etcetera that may be beyond the scope of 

this negotiation.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. Go ahead, Tamy.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

Kyra, thank you for that. At this time, we're going to 

take all that we are hearing back and discuss it. We are 

not really able at this point- I mean, there's been so 

much information that you guys have given us and ways for 

us to really look at. These are just the first two 

questions on our issue paper. I'd like for us to take 

that back and give you a better answer when we've had a 

little bit of time to discuss it as a group.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you. Okay. I'm not seeing- oh, Sher?

MS. GAMMAGE: 

Yes. While I appreciate the DOE's response to the point 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

93

that I raised, it- what I was getting at is the problem 

is, is that it is based on employers, not the borrower's 

job and role, especially those who work in public 

service-oriented occupations.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you for that clarification. I'm not seeing any more 

hands. We have approximately 20 minutes before the start 

of- or 10 minutes. Why do I keep turning 10 into 20? I 

don't know. Something about that today. We have about ten 

minutes. How are we coming on the log-in and order of 

time slots?

MR. FRANCZAK: 

So our first two participants who are on the list to 

speak are in the waiting room. So- and then there's two 

others. So there's a total of four in the waiting room 

right now.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. So I'm going to ask the Department and the 

committee what's their pleasure? You could have the 

option of starting early and getting through in as many 

as we possibly could today, or we can adjourn for these 

10 minutes and resume promptly at 3:30 with public 

comments. I don't want to throw the schedule off, and I 

don't want people to miss their turn.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

94

MS. ABERNATHY: 

We could go ahead with public comment for those that are 

ready. And hopefully the way that I know we deal with 

public comment is as people come into the area, we would 

always, you know, adjust and allow them to speak, even if 

it was a few minutes later.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. We do have three hands up now. Jessica?

MS. RANUCCI: 

I think- I just thought Kyra's question was a really good

one. And I know as we're turning to questions three, four 

and five tomorrow, perhaps someone from the Department 

could, you know, give them maybe a little connection to 

the waiver authority or the- you know, these questions 

are a little bit high-level and try and connect them 

maybe more concretely to the HEA section that we're 

discussing. I think that that might help guide our 

conversation tomorrow.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

I'm not sure that we would have time to go through all of 

those before public comment. And I'd hate to stop- have 

to stop in the middle of it, because we do have to start 

promptly at 3:30 with our- 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

95

MS. RANUCCI: 

Sorry, I just meant tomorrow before we start talking 

about that. I think it would be helpful for the 

questions. I'm sorry. Once we get there tomorrow. 

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thanks, Jessica for that clarification. Because I thought 

you meant to use the remaining time right now. Wisdom?

MR. COLE:

Yeah, part of the reason I lowered my hand is because I 

would love to hear that answer from the Department, so 

looking forward to hearing some more tomorrow. But I 

think to that second question, I think there is a role 

that data analytics plays in terms of monitoring and 

evaluating the effectiveness of outreach efforts and the 

participation rate in Income Driven Repayment programs 

and Forgiveness programs. And really like comparing like 

what is actually working. You know, these are some great 

ideas that have been thrown out, but I think there's a 

way to actually see an increased amount through clear, 

concise data points that can show, like who is actually 

applying, who is actually engaging, who's actually 

enrolling, and what areas are we missing, and are we 

targeting those who are most impacted by the debt?

MS. JEFFRIES:

Okay. I thank you for that. In our opening, we talked 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

96

about, you know, there can be no expectation of immediate 

answers. And even many of these more complicated ones 

where they have to, actually produce- you know, find the 

documentation and the statistics and get them ready, you 

know, is going to take some time, right? But they will 

respond to what they can when they can. And that is why 

we put it in the chat so that they don't lose track of 

what has been requested by the negotiators that they feel 

would be helpful to them for- as we progress through 

this, okay? Scott?

MR. WATERMAN: 

Yeah, I think this is just a general comment, and 

probably this is related to probably conversations 

tomorrow, but before the next session, I think it would 

be- and I can talk about this more tomorrow, but I think 

it would be useful for the committee to have some 

guidance from the Department about sort of the legal sort 

of bumpers that they feel they have in relation to the 

authority which they're pointing to under the law related 

to these topics. You know, it's useful for the committee 

to talk about sort of ideas and suggestions. And I know 

we've talked about a lot of things today that are 

statutory in nature, and so not in the scope of the 

conversation that we can have. And I think for the next 

discussion, a particular sort of proposals and options 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

97

would be useful for us to, you know, pare down to things 

that are within the authority that the Department 

believes it does have, so that we can have discussion 

tightly focused on those things so that we're using the 

time productively on a go forward basis. I realize that's 

probably not something we can get tomorrow, but for the 

next session, that would, I think, be incredibly useful 

for all of the negotiators to know what is the world 

we're operating in and the Department's view of its 

authority that it might be asserting here.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

Scott, I think you're right. It might be a little over 

rambunctious for us to try to get that for you for 

tomorrow. One thing I do want to say, and I want to 

remind everybody, is I know that PSLF is near and dear to 

all of our hearts. And working in public service is 

extremely important to those borrowers. And making sure 

that when they fulfill those commitments in public 

service, that they do receive the forgiveness that they 

so deserve. Again, we're going to have to draw the lines 

where what's within our control for this negotiated 

rulemaking and what is not. PSLF is not going to be 

opened up for additional negotiations to expand on the 

ways that we have already determined qualifying 

employers. IDR is not going to be opened up, and we need 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

98

to kind of set that as a boundary for us. What is within 

our rights or what is within the realm of this 

negotiation is how we are going to look at the statutory 

authority under the Higher Education Act in 432. Toby 

pointed out in many of her opening statements about what 

the statutory authority was under HEROES, and now how 

we're looking at trying to have a regulatory package that 

outlines the Secretary's authority to waive and 

compromise student loan debt. The title of this 

negotiated rulemaking committee is Student Loan Debt 

Relief. That is what we are trying to accomplish and the 

questions that we're asking, while they may seem very 

overarching, you guys are helping us frame what we're 

going to bring to the table for the second round of 

negotiations, proposed regulatory text. So it's a little 

bit hard for- you know, we don't have proposed regulatory 

text to share with you. And so it's a little bit hard for 

you to see the value of your conversations with us today. 

Everything that you're saying to us is well received. And 

we understand that we do need to- we will come back 

tomorrow with another attempt at trying to draw the lines 

of the authority that we're trying to exercise and create 

regulations on, and maybe give you another little primer 

on that so that we can have more formidable conversation 

tomorrow.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

99

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. We have about a minute and a half before we must 

start the public comments. Probably not going to be able 

to get both to Jalil and Jada. Jalil, do you have 

something that can be said very quickly?

DR. BISHOP: 

Yes. I just want to underscore that I think the 

Department should really focus on tomorrow, drawing those 

lines, telling us not only what we can't do, but what we 

can do so that we can just be clear and we can be a 

little bit more focused, a little bit more poignant in 

our energy. So whatever you're able to give us and 

further guidance, I think that is actually urgent for you 

to do that tomorrow so that we can engage in this 

conversation a little bit more productively and not 

feeling so much like we're shooting [inaudible]

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Jada, I see you took your 

hand down. Are you good?

MS. SANFORD:

It's very quick. I asked in the chat as well. I know you 

mentioned about information requests. I was wondering, is 

the information that's been requested going to be given 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

100

to us as negotiated on a rolling basis as the Department 

gets it? Or is it going to be administered at our next 

session?

MS. JEFFRIES:

I can speak to how it has been done in the past, Jada, 

that as the Department has information to share, 

documents, papers, whatever, they send them to us and we 

forward them to you. And that happens in between sessions 

as well.

MS. SANFORD: 

Okay. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Great. It is now- yes, it is now 3:30. And we are going 

to let our first speaker in. Mike, do you want toMR. FRANCZAK: 

Yes, I'll do a quick intro. I just admitted the person. 

It's Kate Maguire Tedrick. She is representing herself.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Okay. Thank you. Kate, can you hear us?

MS. MAGUIRE TEDRICK: 

Yes.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay, great. Wonderful. Welcome. And we appreciate you 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

101

taking the time to address the committee today. You will 

have three minutes for your comments. You will be given a 

30-second notice that your three minutes is coming up to 

an end, and at three minutes, you will be notified your 

time is up. Alright. With that, you are free to begin.

MS. MAGUIRE TEDRICK: 

Okay. Great. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My name 

is Kate Maguire Tedrick. I'm an attorney. I live in New 

York. I went to law school. I took out the loans 100 

percent on my own, and I took out approximately $160,000 

after the- all was said and done when I graduated in 

2009. I've been on an Income Contingent Repayment Plan 

since then, and I've paid around probably about $90,000 

back of it so far. But because I wasn't even paying 

enough- paying the interest, my loan is now $260,000, 

despite the fact that I've paid all that money. And so my 

main question is, you know, I'm really planning and 

looking forward to that forgiveness after 25 years. 

However, is there anything being done about this being a

nontaxable forgiveness? Because if I'm looking at a 

$200,000 forgiveness after paying back at least $160,000 

by that point, so I'll have paid back at least what I 

owe. I don't know where on earth I'm going to come up 

with a third of $200,000 to pay a tax bill, when I pay 

maybe a fifth of that every year towards my student loans 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

102

based on my income. And then how is that relief in any 

way if I have a problem with the Federal Government 

knocking on my door asking for all that money, and I have 

no way to pay it? It also seems illogical to me, 

considering the fact that the loan is through the Federal 

Government, that you're forgiving it, but you're not 

really forgiving it because you're still asking for a tax 

bill. So I was just wondering if there's any thoughts 

about taking care of that. I know it's, you know, 12, 13 

years down the line, but as one of the- the first 

generation and the first year of people who will get that 

forgiveness in 25 years, I'm very concerned about whether 

or not I'm going to have to take out a home equity line 

of credit in order to pay off a tax bill on a loan that 

I've already been paying for 25 years. Thank you all.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Kate. The committee appreciates your comments. 

Okay. Next, Mike.

MR. FRANCZAK: 

Yes. The next person is Joanne Mercedes, representing 

herself.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. Joanne? Can you hear us?
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

103

MS. MERCEDES: 

Yeah. Can you see me and hear me? I was trying to get 

into video, butMS. JEFFRIES: 

We can hear you, but we can't see you.

MS. MERCEDES: 

Oh, okay. So. Alright. I'm sorry. 

MS. JEFFRIES: 

You will have three minutes to address your comments to 

the committee, and you will be given a 30-second notice 

of when that time is about to expire and notice when it 

does actually expire. So with that, you're free to begin 

to address the committee.

MS. MERCEDES: 

Thank you. I applaud the Department and the negotiators 

for their devotion to improving the student loan system, 

including PSLF and IDR. My hope is that the new 

rulemaking committees, the committee, the rulemaking 

committee notices the issues that are still prevailing 

and become evident and solutions that are- and give a 

solution that provides policies, that are helpful to us. 

I am a nurse for the past 14 years and I have dedicated 

my life to service, but due to all the information and 

confusion over the years, I have not been yet forgiven 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

104

the PSLF. Proposed change from previous committees. 

First, hold harmless. And I have emailed Ms. Abernathy 

about this, so we all hope this measure was going to be 

retroactive and now we inform if we consolidate it, we 

are not allowed to pay for our forbearances and 

deferments. A lot of us consolidated multiple times, 

especially during the waiver time and our deferments are 

in what servicers call closed loans, and not direct 

loans. We are not asking for this time to be given us for 

free, so don't- and don't limit this for certain 

statuses. Please include school chapter 13 and default 

forbearance, which have been left out from all the new 

changes. Moreover, some of those deferments were placed 

as errors and we can't do anything to fix it. Some of us 

may actual payments during these deferments since the 

loan was on a deferment, it's not being recognized. Prior 

to 2013, there were no forms to waive, for example, a 

school deferment. If you requested it by phone, it was 

useless and the services would place borrowers in 

whatever leisure and at random. Please review this policy 

which is failing us. Default in chapter 13 payments. And 

this is a close for me. I was a defaulted borrower. And 

we were all left basically defaulted in chapter 13, 

borrowers were left out of all the waivers with an array 

of penalty fees that actually increase your loan balance. 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

105

Actual note payments, and new loans with no payments at 

all is consolidated with old ones were forgiven, but us, 

because we had default or chapter 13 with actual high 

payments, we're left behind. Learning the chapter 13 and 

default payments are not going to be counted 

retroactively after we have all this documentation is 

cruel. In my case, after a life event, I was suggested by 

my servicers to actually default on my Federal loans, now 

telling me that defaulting on my loans were my wages were 

going to be garnished, $8,000 of my tax was garnished by 

the Treasury andMR. FRANCZAK: 

30 seconds remaining.

MS. MERCEDES: 

Thank you. I rehabilitated my loan, which were over $500 

a month for ten months. And that is not counting either. 

And we know that it's going to be counted after July 

2024, after the new rules for IDR. But budget issues of 

not counting these retroactively is unacceptable. So I 

hope that this take into account defaulted borrowers and 

that a lot of us are still struggling towards PSLF. Also 

a portion of us- a portion of- [Time] Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

And thank you for your comments. Okay. Next up, Mike.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

106

MR. FRANCZAK: 

Yes. Next up is Bobby Patrick, and this person is 

representing the organization, I believe, Spousal 

Coordination Do Us Part.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. Bobby, can you hear us? Is it Bobby or Robert?

MR. PATRICK: 

Either one will work.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay, so you can hear us. Great. Welcome. We appreciate 

you taking time out of your day to address the committee. 

You will have three minutes to address them. You will be 

given a 30-second reminder that your time is about to 

expire. And then at three minutes, you will be told that 

your time is up. So with that, you are free to start at 

any time now.

MR. PATRICK: 

Alright. Thank you. Once again, my name is Robert 

Patrick. I'm part of a group called Spousal Consolidation 

Do Us Part. It's a grassroots group of about 1000 

borrowers that are trapped in spousal consolidation 

loans. Tomorrow, it'll mark one year since President 

Biden signed Public Law 117-200. The Joint Consolidation 

Loan Separation Act, which directed the Department to 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

107

separate the loans and reconsolidate them into direct 

loans. As of today, there's been no relevant resolution. 

As of right now, the Department has said that 2024, at 

the end of which is the earliest before any possibility 

of separation of these loans. I'm a 57-year-old first 

generation college graduate. I've been in public 

education for 28 years and continue to be, 25 years as a 

band director and music educator. In 2012, I was awarded 

the National Band Director of the year. Not shabby for a 

guy from Mississippi. In 1996, I had $25,000 worth of 

student loans in hand. I began paying on those in earnest 

until 2001, when my former wife consolidated them into a 

joint consolidated loan. My portion was $17,000 in 2001. 

In 2023, today, 22 years later, my portion is over 

$40,000. You- and these are FFEL loans. We've brought upyou brought up questions today with the first two points 

about PSLF. We're not eligible because of the type of 

loan. Teacher forgiveness, not eligible because my loan 

started before then. Home ownership. That's a laugh. 

Retirement. I'll be doing this until I die, which, that's 

great. I love teaching, but the one thing that I do wantwould like to point out to the committee is the total 

lack of information, or for that matter, misinformation 

by servicers such as Sallie Mae and Navient in my own 

personal cases, that have been given to myself and 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

108

others, there are many of us who are in this boat, we 

would love to see something happen. And we've talked a 

lot- you talked a lot today about automation of 

processes. I remind the committee it took 79 days from 

the announcement of President Biden's broad forgiveness 

plan until there was an actual plan and mechanism in 

place. So we- I ask that the committee and the Department 

of ED, look at that and please take pity on us poor folks 

out here who are just trying to do our jobs. Thank you.

MR. FRANCZAK: 

Alright. Next up is Melissa Byrne. Melissa Byrne is 

representing herself.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Melissa, can you hear us? Melissa.

MS. BYRNE: 

Yep.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay, great. We can't see you. Do you have video? It's 

okay if you don't.

MS. BYRNE: 

I do.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

109

MS. BYRNE:

Sorry. Hi.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Hi. Melissa, I'm Cindy Jeffries from FMCS. You- thank you 

for taking the time today to address the committee. All 

this information is very important. You will have three 

minutes to address the committee, and you will be given a 

30-second notice before the three minutes expire. Okay? 

With that, please go ahead. 

MS. BYRNE:

Hi, my name is Melissa Byrne. I am an advocate and a 

defaulted borrower, and I'm here to really talk about the 

hardships. And I really want everyone here who's serving 

on the committee and the Department to be as expansive as 

possible when thinking about hardships. Were you steered 

to the awful FFEL loans instead of direct loans when you 

started out your education career? Did you come from a 

family that didn't know how to use the FAFSA process 

correctly, so you ended up with more debt instead of 

grants? Did your family face foreclosure and hardships 

during the financial collapse, which caused you not to 

have savings for your parents to be able to pay for your 

college? This is all very systemic in terms of how we 

think about where we got here with people having debt. 

Did they- when they went into repayment, did they have 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

110

bad servicing? Let's be clear. The servicers care about 

making a profit. The servicers do not care about actually 

serving borrowers, and that needs to be thought of at 

every single step along the way. Servicers don't care 

about borrowers. And so did you face, you know, eighthour wait times on hold? Were you not able to get help 

with your servicing? Did that bad servicing lead you to 

going into default and then not being eligible for 

programs? And because generally people want to do the 

right thing. And did you grow up when people- when the 

states were cutting education budgets and deciding that 

we don't want to fund education so people can take it on 

debt? Meanwhile, there's been no cuts to 529. So rich 

families have never faced any cuts to their shelters that 

help them pay for college. But kids who grew up in 

poverty, kids who are working class, kids from middle 

class families, have to shoulder the burden of what we've 

been doing to education over the last 30 years, and those 

are all hardships. Is it a hard- we should have had our 

debt canceled, but because the Missouri AG and other 

people that represent servicers protected their profits 

that they wanted to make through servicing, that's a 

hardship for borrowers because it's not our fault that 

they are greedy and that they care more about their 

profit than actually servicing people and doing the 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

111

public what it matters in terms of making education a 

public good. Education should not be a route for 

servicers to profit off people who were born poor or 

working class. The children of the wealthy don't have to 

sit here and have people decide if they have merit for 

relief, if they have dignity. And that's, you knowMR. FRANCZAK: 

Melissa, 30 seconds left.

MS. BYRNE: 

We have to sit here and listen to see if we're worthy to 

have dignity. This should be broad-based, and this needs 

to be understanding what hardships are. And it's not that 

borrowers don't listen. It's that borrowers can't get 

through to servicers because servicers don't care about 

borrowers. And that is a hardship. So everyone who's had 

to deal with a servicer has faced a hardship and should 

get relief as much as possible. Thank you so much for 

doing all your work.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Melissa. Mike, who's next?

MR. FRANCZAK: 

Next is Chris Alldredge.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

112

MR. FRANCZAK: 

Is also with Spousal Consolidation Do Us Part.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Alright. Great. Chris, can you hear us? Chris, if you can 

hear us, you might be muted. Check to see if you're 

muted. There he comes. Chris, hi, welcome.

MR. ALLDREDGE: 

Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

You're welcome. I'm Cindy Jeffries from FMCS. Thank you 

for taking the time today to address the committee. And 

you have three minutes to address them. You will be given 

a 30-second notice of when- just before your time will 

expire. Okay. With that, please begin.

MR. ALLDREDGE: 

Alright. My name is Chris Alldredge, and I'm the founder 

and executive director of Spousal Consolidation dot Do Us 

Part. We're a grassroots advocacy representing the 

interests of over 75,000 joint consolidation loan 

borrowers, JCLs, comprised of over 1000 active members 

spanning 47 states and two foreign countries. Tomorrow we 

will- it will mark 365 days since President Biden signed 

the Joint Consolidation Loan Separation Act into public 

law, which amends only one section of the HEA and states 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

113

it can deliver that law no sooner than the end of 2024, 

choking off its ability to deliver Congress's restorative 

promise for two years. Parody and writing, but not 

inaction. In our case, the executive and legislative can 

unite to show the American public that true, real, and 

existing problems should be fixed by utilizing the 

Secretary's power to discharge. The case of JCL loans is 

one such issue. Our minority of borrowers are 

deprioritized because they're not a large voting bloc. If 

the Secretary's power is leveraged in the true spirit of 

the HEA, JCL loans would be immediately discharged 

because it is the right thing to do. The law is most 

meaningless when it cannot be executed to restore justice 

at a time when it is so direly needed. Invoking these 

sections of the HEA to discharge these loans immediately 

can finally deliver proper justice. Hara [inaudible] 

changed 29 sections of the HEA in 2006. It instated 

statutory parity between FFEL and direct loan programs in 

section 455a1, and it struck JCLs under section 428c. 

After 296 days of execution, the Department released the 

final regulations acknowledging the costs to joint 

borrowers whose unearned benefits would be traded for 

market equitability and transparency. Despite program 

termination and statutory parity, existing JCLs continue 

to be serviced in dual deregulated and discriminatory 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

114

landscape. The Department has had systematic- has- the 

Department has systematically maintained, tracked, 

benefited and enforced about 20 percent of JCLs, leaving 

80 percent to the full ownership discretion and 

deregulation of FFEL institutions. The cost to joint 

borrowers has been devastating, particularly FFEL 

borrowers who cannot consolidate direct until they have 

separated under the law. The average joint borrower has 

paid for 19.9 years, paid 101 percent of their original 

balance, and owes 125 percent. First generation 

graduates, 74 percent qualified for Pell, 37 percent of 

direct and FFEL borrowers remain shackled to abusive or 

uncooperative spouses only through theseMR. FRANCZAK: 

30 seconds remaining, Chris.

MR. ALLDREDGE: 

71 percent of these cases fall under FFEL. Continued 

servicing of these loans sustains economic abuse as 

defined under the Violence Against Women Act 

Reauthorization of 2022. FFEL borrowers are denied 

rightful access to COVID payment pause, PSLF, the PSLF 

waiver IDR adjustment, Borrower Defense, permanent 

disability, you name it. We had to push a bill up a hill 

during the COVID pause. Already ravaged by the Great 

Recession, 26 percent intersect bankruptcy, 23 percent 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

115

intersect default, 99 percent are 40 plus. 

MR. FRANCZAK: 

Times up.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you, Chris. We appreciate it. Alright Mike, who do 

we have next?

MR. FRANCZAK: 

Michael Lopez representing himself.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. Michael, can you hear us?

MR. LOPEZ: 

I sure can. Can you hear me?

MS. JEFFRIES: 

We can hear you. We cannot see you.

MR. LOPEZ: 

That- that's fine. That's intentional.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Alright. Okay. Wonderful. Alright. So I'm Cindy Jeffries 

with FMCS. Michael, you will have three minutes to 

address the committee. You will be given a 30-second 

verbal indication that your time is about to expire. And 

then when your three minutes are up, you will be so 

notified. So with that, please feel free to start 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

116

addressing the committee.

MR. LOPEZ: 

Okay. So, hello, everyone. I'd really like to just 

address two particular areas. One, for borrowers like 

myself who have seen a huge increase in the original 

principal owed due to both the interest rates as well as 

capitalized interest, you know, it's just an exorbitant 

amount, especially for borrowers who are in PSLF where, 

you know, by the time I finish, I won't have even made a 

dent in that capitalized interest. And so it's as if I 

didn't even pay back any of what I owed on that loan. And 

it almost seems like it's a useless attempt to try to pay 

something back. Right? The other consideration I would 

also ask for is borrowers like my household, you know, 

the SAVE Plan has been named to be capped at 10 percent 

of discretionary spending, right? There are households 

like mine where both my wife and I have taken out loans. 

And there's no consideration for that. In fact, our 

combined incomes are utilized for that calculation and 

it's applied separately. So in effect, my household ends 

up spending 20 percent of our discretionary income 

towards our loans every month, which amounts in 

essentially a double our bills. Right? So, just 

consideration in those two areas. I think ultimately and 

I heard this throughout the hearing process as well, if 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

117

anything is done by any of these comments to also make 

sure that it's clearly communicated as effectively as 

possible in as many outlets as possible. And yeah, that 

sums up my comments and I appreciate y'all giving me the 

time.

MR. FRANCZAK: 

Next up is Chris Fragassi. Chris indicates representing 

himself.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Alright. Wonderful. Chris, can you hear us?

MS. FRAGASSI: 

Yes, I can. Can you hear me?

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Yes, and we can see you. Welcome.

MS. FRAGASSI: 

Great. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

I'm Cindy Jeffries from FMCS. I'm want to thank you for 

taking your time to address the committee today. You will 

have three minutes to do so. You will receive a 30-second 

verbal notice that your time is about to expire, and then 

you will receive a verbal notice that your time has 

expired. So with that, Chris, we invite you to go ahead 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

118

and address the committee.

MS. FRAGASSI: 

Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you for letting me speak. 

And again, I'm Chris Fragassi. I live just outside of 

Chicago. And my comment is regarding Federal Parent 

loans, which really have been left out of any kind of 

discussions of debt relief so far. I- my husband and I 

have two Parent loans for our two children who graduated 

with bachelor's degrees back in 2004 and 2009, and we 

have not even started to climb out of this hole. I had 

some- I felt hopeful when I heard about President Biden's 

SAVE payment plan, which at least would have helped with 

the monthly payment, which, by the way, for the two 

Parent loans, it's $900 a month, more than our main 

mortgage. But as I recently discovered, Parent loans are 

not eligible for the SAVE payment plan. So once again, it 

just seems like there's an assumption that, you know, 

parents are not struggling, that we can afford this. I'm 

happy that there is some relief for the kids because my 

kids are also affected by this. But I think, you know, 

maybe, you know, just one suggestion is maybe look at 

including Parent loans in the SAVE program. The other 

concern I have is the amount of interest that has accrued 

over time, because when my husband and I took out these 

loans, which, by the way, we were advised to do as our 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

119

only option when our kids were in college. When I lost a 

job I had for almost 30 years, and we had trouble paying 

the payment, we contacted the lenders who were Navient 

and Nelnet at that time, and we were told Parent loans 

really were not eligible for any, you know, debt relief 

or any help or even I believe even income contingent 

loans did not apply to Parent loans back then. And they 

strongly advised us to just take advantage of 

forbearances, which we had to do. We had no choice but 

the multiple forbearances we did take advantage of. 

During that time, the interest accrued on our original 

loan, the larger Parent loan on one of our children has 

almost doubled. That loan was originally around 60,000. 

It is now almost 110,000 just because of accrued 

interest. It just seems toMR. FRANCZAK: 

30 seconds remaining.

MS. FRAGASSI: 

Just want to say quickly, for both parents and students, 

this might be a good option, maybe a reset, and at least 

just remove this accrued interest that so many people had 

to do when they couldn't pay the monthly payments. Thank 

you very much for listening.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you Chris. We appreciate you sharing. Mike, who is 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

120

next?

MR. FRANCZAK: 

Up next is Andi Webb, indicates representing themselves.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay. Andi, can you hear us or hear me? Andi. Andi, can 

you hear me? Oh, it looks like she's still trying to 

connect. Andi, can you hear me now?

DR. WEBB: 

Yes.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Wonderful. Well, wonderful. I'm Cindy Jeffries from FMCS, 

and I want to thank you for taking your time to address 

the committee on these very important issues. You will 

have 30 seconds- 30- 3 minutes. I'm getting confused 

here. Three minutes to address the committee. You will 

receive a 30-second verbal notice when your time is about 

to expire, and then a final verbal notice that your time 

has expired. So with that, Andi, we- I invite you to 

please address the committee.

DR. WEBB: 

Yes. One moment. I have the Zoom going on in two places, 

so I'm hearing double.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

121

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Yeah, you need to mute the other one if you're on the 

livestream. Did you get it muted? 

DR. WEBB: 

Trying.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Mike, don't start her time yet, please.

DR. WEBB: 

I'm still hearing the other. And I've closed everything 

out. Let's see.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

You may have to log out of that one for now becauseDR. WEBB: 

Yes, I'm trying.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Oh, and it's not letting you get out?

DR. WEBB: 

No. Just one moment. I'm so sorry. Finally. Thank you for 

your patience.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

You are so welcome. No worries.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

122

DR. WEBB: 

Had to close everything out.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

We have no control over technology. Alright. No worries. 

Thank you. Mike, you want to go ahead and start the time? 

Andi, please feel free to begin.

DR. WEBB: 

Thank you. Thank you again for your patience. I'm Dr. 

Andi Webb. I'm a public school educator. In 2016, I 

enrolled in my Doctoral Studies. I did not apply for any 

additional student loans, as I had a private grant that I 

had applied for. That's the only way I could go back to 

school. During that time I was put into involuntary inschool deferment. My MPN states that I would be contacted 

about the deferment and I was not. I have written 

documentation that was submitted to Navient and to my 

university dated in October 2016, requesting to opt out 

of in-school deferment. And in my request, I noted that I 

did not want my Public Service Loan Forgiveness 

negatively affected. That was not done until two years 

later. So for 24 plus months, I remained in involuntary 

and school deferment. I have requested repeatedly via 

Studentaid.gov and MOHELA, now that the Department has 

made many corrections in the PSLF process to be allowed 

to correct this error as the Department states that there 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

123

are opportunities to correct errors. I have requested to 

be- not to be given those 24 months back, but I have 

repeatedly requested to be allowed to repay those months 

that I spent into deferment- in deferment that I was not 

allowed to pay during that time. I have been told I could 

not repay my deferment time because I did not make 

payments during that time when I was involuntarily put 

into deferment. My request is that with the 

considerations pertaining to balances continuing to 

accrue interest during these time periods when errors 

were made, that the Department- and during these neg 

regs, that it would be considered to allow opportunities 

to correct errors regarding involuntary in-school 

deferment. I'm certain I'm not the only one that this 

affects. Again, I do not want those months to be given to 

me. I want to be able to repay those 24 plus months and 

have those months count toward my PSLF as a public school 

educator. Thank you for your time and all the work that 

you're putting into this. Much appreciated.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Thank you Andi.

DR. WEBB:

Thank you. And again, I appreciate your patience.

MS. JEFFRIES: Sure. It is now 4:00 pm, which is our 

scheduled end time. There is one person from the waitlist 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

124

that is still in the waiting room. What is your pleasure?

MS. ABERNATHY:

Let's go ahead and have that person.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Okay. Thank you. Mike, you want to let Karen in?

MR. FRANCZAK:

Karen Baker is now being admitted. She is representing 

herself.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Karen, can you hear me?

MS. BAKER: 

I can.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Wonderful. And I can hear you. Yay!

MS. BAKER: 

Can you see me? That is the question. Where did you go? 

MS. JEFFRIES: 

I'm hiding.

MS. BAKER: 

There you are.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay, Karen, thank you for taking the time to address the 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

125

committee here today. You- my name is Cindy Jeffries. I'm 

from FMCS. You will have three minutes to address the 

committee. You will receive a 30-second verbal notice 

that your time is about to expire, and at three minutes, 

you will receive verbal notice that your time has 

expired. So with that, please feel free to go ahead and 

address the committee.

MS. BAKER: 

Hi, my name is Karen Baker. I've been following along, so 

I've been listening to what you guys have been saying and 

actually covered a lot of what have. I have lists over 

here. So I'm not going to bore you with backstories, but, 

I think that a way that we can help with not only now, 

but our future generation. And I know this is something 

that I believe her name is Tracy had said that they can't 

do is that it has to be an act of Congress that have a 

reduction or cap on interest, because as multiple people 

have said, that the interest is what is causing our loans 

to compound and double and balloon and get to these 

extraordinary amounts that a lot of us can't handle, 

including myself, for a little bit. And luckily I was 

able to, over multiple years, finally get my interest to 

a manageable level and consolidate and everything like 

that. I believe that there should be a mandatory 

information seminar in high school, because when I 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

126

entered college I had nothing. When I entered, it was, 

you go to college or you're going to amount to nothing, 

you won't be able to get a good job. You won't be able to 

do anything like that. Trades were considered dirty or 

bad or just not good. And that's where we actually needed 

a lot of our people at. And so I think that there should 

be some sort of mandatory thing in college or before 

college in high school where it's talks about loans, 

compounding interest, how to maybe navigate your way into 

finding grants and scholarships and stuff like that. 

Because there was none of that for when I went in. 

Another thing that an actual- another user had made me 

think of was child care issues, is that I actually 

stopped working because I've been blessed enough that my 

husband's been able to make enough to where I can stay 

home, but my entire paycheck would go to child care. And 

so I think that there needs to be some sort of

consideration for those people who have to deal with 

that. So it's not in my interest, but maybe in somebody's 

others' interest that child care cost take effect into 

how much repayment or income driven or anything like 

that. Also, I had an idea of counting past income driven 

payments, so I was on forbearance- or deferment for quite 

a while because that's what I was told was the best thing 

for me.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

127

MR. FRANCZAK:

30 seconds remaining, Karen. 30 seconds remaining.

MS. BAKER:

And ended up in forbearance, or ended up in deferment and 

then went to an income driven. And now I'm not in that. 

But if it would be beneficial to other people, count past 

time in an income driven- in the SAVE Plan that you guys 

have currently. That's all.

MS. JEFFRIES:

Karen, thank you very much for your time this afternoon.

MR. FRANCZAK: 

You're muted, Cindy.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

No, I'm not. I shouldn't be.

MR. FRANCZAK: 

I couldn't hear you there for a moment. 

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Okay, so with that, we have concluded the public comment 

portion for today and the entire agenda that we had laid 

out for today. I want to commend the Committee for 

digging in diligently and moving through these 

discussions. I see John Whitelaw has his hand up.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

128

MR. WHITELAW: 

Just briefly, we may have an alternate for students with 

disabilities. Can we- do you want me to get on a few 

minutes early tomorrow to sort of give you the details of 

that, or how do you want us to propose it for a vote and 

so forth? Should we do that first thing before we get 

started tomorrow? How would you like to handle that?

MS. JEFFRIES: 

I'll have to- Tamy, you came off mute.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

John, if you could circulate the materials. If you are 

officially presenting an alternate, we will have to 

probably take that in the morning.

MR. WHITELAW: 

That's what I thought. I wanted to- my proposal was not 

that we do it this evening. Not now, but we do it in the 

morning.

MS. ABERNATHY: 

What I would like though is if you could get the 

materials so that the committee could send the name. 

Well, if you could put the name in the chat now and you 

could send some materials about this person, much like we 

did today, that would be very helpful. And that way we 

could just immediately have this as a- an agenda item 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

129

first thing, and then proceed.

MR. WHITELAW: 

I have to confirm with her after this. So-. 

MS. ABERNATHY: 

That's great.

MR. WHITELAW: 

I'll put it in the- I'll put it in the [inaudible] 

understanding this is our intent to do it in the morning. 

But if something falls through in our later conversations 

this evening, we may not- it may not actually happen. 

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Or you could just send an email to the team when you do 

have the confirmation and everything, and then Cindy will 

circulate it. Cindy, is that correct? You guys would 

circulate it out to us?

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Yes. I would then send it on to you. And John, if you can 

obtain the person's bio, you can send it to me. 

MR. WHITELAW: 

That would be great. I just wanted to just sort of see 

the mechanics of what you want me to do on my end now. 

And then I'll send you something, and we can deal with it 

as [inaudible] item of business tomorrow morning. Does 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

130

that work for you?

MS. ABERNATHY: 

And John, it will be an official you're going to request 

an alternate nominee?

MR. WHITELAW: 

Yeah, I will do that. Yes. Wonderful. Thank you so much.

MS. JEFFRIES: 

Alright. Thank you so much. With that, I- we have 

concluded today's session. We will see you all tomorrow. 

Have a great evening.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

131

Zoom Chat Transcript

Student Loan Debt Relief Committee - Session 1, Day 1, 

Afternoon, October 10, 2023

*Chat was copied as presented, as a result minor typos or 

grammatical errors may be present.

From P-Angelika Williams- Private Nonprofit Institutions 

to Everyone:

I was able to open the documents.

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

I just want to make sure the chat is working. I could 

not see messages towards the end, before break. Can 

someone send a test message?

From (P) Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

I can see your message!

From (P) Richard Haase - Graduate Borrowers to 

Everyone:

Can you see this Jalil?

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

Yes. Thank you both

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

To clarify: we cannot go from 60 months to 30 months 

because it is a policy in an existing program?
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

132

From A - Jordan Nellums - Currently Enrolled 

Postsecondary Education to Everyone:

Serving as Primary for Currently Enrolled 

Postsecondary Education Students while Jada logs back in.

From (P) Richard Haase - Graduate Borrowers to 

Everyone:

I support those ideas

From (P) Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

I second that!!

From A-Sarah Butts, 4 year borrowers to Everyone:

I also support those ideas.

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Assistance Orgs. to 

Everyone:

I also support the idea of reallocating payments 

applied to interest to the principal originally borrowed

From A - India Heckstall, Civil Rights Organizations to 

Everyone:

I also support those ideas!

From P- Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone:

I support Ashley's analysis that there is not enough 

information regarding negative amortization or 

capitalizing interest available to borrowers

From (P) Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

I am back on as primary!

From P- Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone:
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

133

I agree with Richard that student loan statements 

often lack the type of detail that folks need to 

understand their financial situation

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

Now Serving as Primary for Graduate Borrower

From A-Carol Peterson HBCU Langston University to 

Everyone:

Yes. Yes. Yes. to all the comments.

From A-Sarah Butts, 4 year borrowers to Everyone:

Agree with the points that Kyra is making.

From P-Yael Shavit-State AGs to Everyone:

Agree with Kyra.

From (P) Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

Yes Kyra!!

From (A) Michael Jones (he/him/his) Veterans to 

Everyone:

I agree 100%

From P - Ashley Pizzuti - 2yr Borrower to Everyone:

I personally have never been able to get a mortgage 

due to my partners and my debt to income ratio due to 

student loans.

From P- Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone:

I have also spoken with many borrowers who have debt 

to income ratios that cause barriers to other financial 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

134

goals - even folks who are paying, can pay, are negatively 

impacted by increasing balances.

From P - Ashley Pizzuti - 2yr Borrower to Everyone:

Despite being able to actually being able to afford 

it.

From P-Sher Gammage-4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

I, too, support Ashley's analysis and both Kyra and 

Vincent's ideas

From P - Scott Buchanan - FFEL, Servicers, GAs to 

Everyone:

There has been discussion of the government 

supposedly making profits off student loans, so

negotiators could benefit for actual financial projects of 

current subsidy costs including projected profit and loss 

on Stafford and Grad PLUS loans.

From P - Wisdom Cole, Civil Rights Organization to 

Everyone:

Switching with India Heckstall

From (P) Richard Haase - Graduate Borrowers to 

Everyone:

Back on as primary

From (P) Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

Jordan Nellums is taking over

From P - Kathleen Dwyer - Proprietary Institutions to 

Everyone:
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

135

Question in the chat as requested: It would be 

compelling to understand and visualize what percent of 

borrowers have seen their balance grow as a result of the 

interest capitalization, and how their current capitalized 

balance compares to their original balance.

From A-Sarah Butts, 4 year borrowers to Everyone:

Agree with Richard. We should not charge exorbitant 

interest and should see higher education as a public good.

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

@Kathleen...these charts show %s of people who owe more 

than they borrowed and how that is increasingly growing 

for each borrower cohort: 

https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/crisis-of-nonrepayment/

From P - Kathleen Dwyer - Proprietary Institutions to 

Everyone:

A-Jalil, thank you

From P- Jessica Ranucci (Consumer Advocates) to 

Everyone:

+1 to Yael

From (A) Edward Boltz (Consumer Advocate: NACBA/NASLL) 

to Everyone:

I would like to note that student borrowers who 

faced other extreme financial distress and resorted to 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

136

filing bankruptcy, were until recently explicitly 

excluded (in contravention of federal law) from enrolling 

or remaining enrolled in any IDR payment plan. This often 

left them facing up to five years of accrued student loans 

following their bankruptcy case, often exceeding and 

erasing any relief they received regarding their other 

debts.

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

“An extra $6,000 a year in Pell grants for four years 

would entirely replace the PLUS loans of about threequarters of parents who borrowed with incomes below the 

poverty level (including 85 percent of low-income Black 

PLUS borrowers).” 4

From P- Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone:

Agree with Kyra - elders with growing balances is a 

big issue

From (P) Richard Haase - Graduate Borrowers to 

Everyone:

agreed!

From (P) Richard Haase - Graduate Borrowers to 

Everyone:

Stunned by how many people 62+ carrying student loans

From P - Ashley Pizzuti - 2yr Borrower to Everyone:

I believe they have a higher interest rates as well.
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

137

From P-Vincent Andrews-Military & Veteran Groups to 

Everyone:

Individuals on PSLF or other forgiveness plans 

traditionally have lower salaries, and part of these 

ballooning balances can be attributed to the fact that 

individuals are sacrificing large financial gains in order 

to stick to these plans that may or may not necessarily 

guarantee that their loans will ever be forgiven.

From P - Melissa Kunes - Public 2 & 4 Yr Institutions to 

Everyone:

Many elders paying Parent PLUS are now in retirement 

with lesser incomes. They should also be allowed payment 

opportunities such as the SAVE plan.

From P-Sher Gammage-4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

I would like to request from the DOE data on the 

number of borrowers over the age of 62 who are carrying 

student loan debt and have been doing so for 15 plus years

From (P) Richard Haase - Graduate Borrowers to 

Everyone:

I’d like to thank the department for giving us this 

opportunity.

From A-Carol Peterson HBCU Langston University to 

Everyone:

I want to mention that those students that are 

incarcerated are also affected by these issues and unable 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

138

to communicate with the Lenders.

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Assistance Orgs. to 

Everyone:

Additionally, the Department and student loan 

servicer should have much of the interest and interest 

capitalization information for borrowers. 26 CFR 1.6050S 

requires that lenders report student loan interest on 1098 

tax form, including payments that went towards capitalized 

interest and loan origination fees (at least as to loans 

issued after Sept. 1, 2004).

From A-Sarah Butts, 4 year borrowers to Everyone:

The Department should look at the full picture of 

borrowers throughout their life cycle. Some borrowers who 

were Pell eligible, for example, are now borrowing Parent 

Plus loans. Maybe we can provide relief for some of these 

borrowers who are paying their loans and their children's 

loans.

From P - Wisdom Cole, Civil Rights Organization to 

Everyone:

Data request from DOE on parent plus loans 

specifically on balance growth, who has Pell Grants, 

numbers of HBCUS and MSIs

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Assistance Orgs. to 

Everyone:

Tammy, I am also confused by what the Department is 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

139

saying. Is it the Department’s position that it will not 

completely cancel any borrowers’ debts and will only waive 

a portion of their debt?

From P- Jessica Ranucci (Consumer Advocates) to 

Everyone:

+1 to Kyra

From A-Carol Peterson HBCU Langston University to 

Everyone:

Default should not block someone from receiving Pell 

Grant.

From P-Vincent Andrews-Military & Veteran Groups to 

Everyone:

How much data has be conducted on the impact of how 

waivers will impact individual constituencies? What 

borrowers will benefit most from waivers?

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Assistance Orgs. to 

Everyone:

Thank you!

From A-Sarah Butts, 4 year borrowers to Everyone:

Agree with Sher.

From P-Vincent Andrews-Military & Veteran Groups to 

Everyone:

I also had questions regarding how "Public Service" 

is defined. There are numerous occupations that would 

easily be defined at public service if it wasn't for the 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

140

fact that they are funded by private institutions. A 

nurse, a teacher, a counselor shouldn't have the burden of 

having to research how an organization is funded if they 

change jobs but have otherwise always been considered a 

public servant from previous occupations.

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

The waive and compromise criteria states: “The debtor 

is unable to pay the full amount in a reasonable time, 

based on financial Information; The government is unable 

to collect the debt in full within a reasonable time by 

enforced collection proceedings”. This means debt should 

be waived for the following:

1. Grant a waiver for any borrower who has been in 

repayment for over 10 years.

2. Grant a waiver for any borrower who has a balance 

higher than what they originally borrowed, with emphasis 

on interest capitalization.

3. Grant a waiver to any who has been in repayment 

for 10 years or more and their income shows they have not 

made enough money to ever repay in full

4. Grant a waiver for any borrower who is receiving a 

Social Security check or above 65 yrs old and has been in 

repayment for over 10 years

5. Grant a waiver to include all student loans issued 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

141

or backed by the Dept of Edu in the above waivers

(E.g. Perkins, FFEL, Parent Plus, Consolidated Loans, 

etc)

From A-Sarah Butts, 4 year borrowers to Everyone:

The Department might consider cost of living. Right 

now, all borrowers are treated the same without regard to 

location. The cost of living impacts what borrowers can 

pay.

From (A) Michael Jones (he/him/his) Veterans to 

Everyone:

I think something else to keep in mind is that often 

times student loan borrowers don’t know exactly where to 

go at to repay student loans. Is there an automatic 

enrollment into a repayment program so borrowers don’t 

feel directionless?

From (A) Edward Boltz (Consumer Advocate: NACBA/NASLL) 

to Everyone:

I would like to comment regarding this question that 

the Department of Education does not allow third-party 

representatives of borrowers, specifically most private 

attorneys and arguably legal aid lawyers as well, to 

access the borrower's NSLDS file. This is actually in 

direct contravention of the STOP Act, but ED has 

deprioritized this adding an additional obstacle to 

borrower who need assistance in navigating the various 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

142

programs.

From P - Ashley Pizzuti - 2yr Borrower to Everyone:

What is the Department doing now for outreach?

From John S. Whitelaw (P - Students with Disabilities), 

(He/Him) to Everyone:

Access for borrowers' advocates is especially 

important for borrowers with disabilities as depending on 

the disability, they often have additional difficulties 

in advocating for themselves.

From P- Jessica Ranucci (Consumer Advocates) to 

Everyone:

Ed Boltz is subbing in to make a comment

From A-Sarah Butts, 4 year borrowers to Everyone:

Agree with Lane. If a borrower had some loans 

discharged under PSLF, and completed 10 + years of service 

already, forgive remaining balances.

From (A) Michael Jones (he/him/his) Veterans to 

Everyone:

Agree with Angelika. That’s what my last question was

From A-Sarah Butts, 4 year borrowers to Everyone:

PSLF should be predicated on public service and not 

the tax status of employers.

From P-Sher Gammage-4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

Agree, Sarah B!

From (P) Richard Haase - Graduate Borrowers to 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

143

Everyone:

I agree too!

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

Coming in as Primary for Graduate Borrower

From P - Kathleen Dwyer - Proprietary Institutions to 

Everyone:

Ashley, good question

From P-Sher Gammage-4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

Sarah Butts is coming in as Primary

From A-Sarah Butts, 4 year borrowers to Everyone:

I am coming in as Primary for 4 year borrowers.

From A - David Ramirez - Student Loan Borrowers - 2 Years 

or Less to Everyone:

I just want to mention that as a first generation 

student who has had to use it very recently studentaid.gov 

is very very difficult to navigate. Having to access it is 

a very daunting process.

From (A) Michael Jones (he/him/his) Veterans to 

Everyone:

^^^ I agree. The student aid.gov is extremely 

difficult to utilize.

From P - Ashley Pizzuti - 2yr Borrower to Everyone:

It’s overwhelming.

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Assistance Orgs. to 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

144

Everyone:

100% agreed re: the need for automation where 

possible

From P- Jessica Ranucci (Consumer Advocates) to 

Everyone:

+1, agree on automation

From (A) Michael Jones (he/him/his) Veterans to 

Everyone:

Yes automation!!

From P-Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

The same way people know they have to pay is the same 

they need to know about their options for relief

From P- Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone:

yes, automation anywhere possible is ideal!

From S-Sher Gammage-4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

+2 agree, ed.gov is not user friendly, automation 

would be a better strategy

From P-John S. Whitelaw (Students with Disabilities), 

(He/Him) to Everyone:

The experience with TPD shows that automation is 

absolutely essential to eligible folks getting discharges 

and other relief

From P - Ashley Pizzuti - 2yr Borrower to Everyone:

I know even though I’ve attended a closed school that 

is listed on Schedule C of Sweet v. Cardona have never 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

145

received an email of eligibility. I work with thousands in 

the same scope and I do not know one person who has 

received any information email or post about possible 

eligibility.

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Assistance Orgs. to 

Everyone: 

+1 agreed with ED that student loan attorneys need 

access to borrowers’ NSLDS data

From P- Jessica Ranucci (Consumer Advocates) to 

Everyone:

+1 agree

From P-Angelika Williams- Private Nonprofit Institutions 

to Everyone:

Agreed as reported by the institutions

From P- Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone:

+2 agree that more access to NSLDS data for advocates 

would be extremely valuable

From P-Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

Social Media was mentioned as a means that the 

department has taken to reach a specific borrower 

population and it seems that there is no significant 

social interaction with the public. If it is going to be 

mentioned as something that the department is doing, real 

resources and research need to be poured into it.

From P-Vincent Andrews-Military & Veteran Groups to 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

146

Everyone:

Yes because if you can identify individuals with 

Total and Permanent Disabilities they shouldn't be 

receiving a letter to opt in, but be automatically 

enrolled

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

Support everything John is saying! It has been an 

ongoing struggle to get my brother with a cognitive 

permanent disability his rightful discharge

From P-Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

I completely agree. Opt out instead of opt in would 

make a major difference

From P - Wisdom Cole, Civil Rights Organization to 

Everyone:

I agree with John

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

Exactly, Vincent.

From P - Ashley Pizzuti - 2yr Borrower to Everyone:

Can the department share the social media streams 

they are using so we have links to share these programs 

with the people we represent?

From A - David Ramirez - Student Loan Borrowers - 2 Years 

or Less to Everyone:
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

147

Is there data on how many borrowers did not enroll 

despite being notified of their eligibility for relief? 

What strategies does the Department use, if any, in 

following up with those individuals?

From P-Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

@usedgov is the instagram I believe

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Assistance Orgs. to 

Everyone:

+1 to John. Plus, the statutory discharge eligibility 

and application information on studentaid.gov is often not 

provided in line with Plain Language principles (although, 

we do appreciate the improvements to studentaid.gov!). In 

addition, borrowers often do not know what kinds of loans 

they have and struggle to find that information on 

studentaid.gov (further limiting their ability to 

understand which programs they are eligible for)

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

@Ben Miller. Just a reminder to send the Parent Plus 

borrower discussion from prior negreg?

From P - Melissa Kunes - Public 2 & 4 Yr Institutions to 

Everyone:

Thanks Tamy and thanks John. Long term, since ED has 

access to multiple data base information - IRS, NSLDS, 

School of record, it would be great to further examine the 
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

148

possibility of automatically enrolling the borrower in the 

appropriate plan instead of asking borrowers to know which 

program best suites their repayment ability. OPT OUT 

instead of OPT IN is the way to go!

From P-Yael Shavit-State AGs to Everyone:

I agree with Jessica on this point.

From Valerie Lefor, Department of Education to 

Everyone:

Here is the Parent Plus discussion in the SAVE 

regulation: https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-

13112/p-256

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Assistance Orgs. to 

Everyone:

+1 Jessica

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

Second Melissa’s suggestion that programs should be 

opt out rather than opt in

From A-Sher Gammage-4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

I am ready to assume primary for 4 year borrowers

From P - Ashley Pizzuti - 2yr Borrower to Everyone:

Does the Department have a social media advertising 

budget to help target the information getting to the right 

people?

From A-Sher Gammage-4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

149

After Sarah finishes her comment

From (A) Edward Boltz (Consumer Advocate: NACBA/NASLL) 

to Everyone:

Additionally, while the Department, together with 

the CFPB and State AGs does a good job of warning against 

and identifying student loan rlef scams, it does not 

conversely help people find honest, competent and ethical 

assistance outside of the servicers

From (A) Edward Boltz (Consumer Advocate: NACBA/NASLL) 

to Everyone:

+1 Lane

From (A) Edward Boltz (Consumer Advocate: NACBA/NASLL) 

to Everyone:

That is something that could be done very easily

according to the Department

From P-Angelika Williams- Private Nonprofit Institutions 

to Everyone:

Can the exit counseling process formulate a process 

to direct a repayment plan for certain borrowers?

From P-Sher Gammage-4 Year Borrowers to Everyone: 

Could the department provide to servicers a list of 

job type who is eligible for PSLF

From P-Angelika Williams- Private Nonprofit Institutions 

to Everyone:

Elaborate: in connection with FAFSA data and income-
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

150

driven repayment plans

From P-Sher Gammage-4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

The problem is that it is based on employers, not the 

borrower's job and role, especially those who work in 

public service related fields

From P- Jessica Ranucci (Consumer Advocates) to 

Everyone:

+1 to Kyra's question. It would be helpful to hear 

clarity from the Department

From P-Vincent Andrews-Military & Veteran Groups to 

Everyone:

yes, Sher it should be a master list of occupations 

rather than specific employers

From A-Sarah Butts, 4 year borrowers to Everyone:

Strongly agree with Sher, PSLF should be predicated 

on public service and not the tax status of employers

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Student Borrower-Graduate 

to Everyone:

Coming on as primary

From P-Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

Coming on as primary as well

From P-Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

Is the expectation for information requested to be 

given to negotiators on a rolling basis as the DOE obtains 

it or is it administered at our next meeting?
Negotiated Rulemaking – 10/10/23

151

From P-Sher Gammage-4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

Great question Jada!

From A-Sarah Butts, 4 year borrowers to Everyone:

As we are discussing broad based cancellation, 

waiver, and/or other relief of student debt, it doesn't 

make sense not to do our best to optimize the existing 

programs (PSLF, IDR, etc.)

From (A) Michael Jones (he/him/his) Veterans to 

Everyone:

Taking over as primary now.