Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

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 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING 

STUDENT DEBT RELIEF COMMITTEE

SESSION 2, DAY 1, MORNING

NOVEMBER 6, 2023

On the 6th day of November 2023, the

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

to 12:00 p.m.
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

P R O C E E D I N G S

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning to our 

esteemed negotiators, the Department of Education, as 

well as the colleagues that are listening in on the 

public observation link. My name is Commissioner Cindy 

Jeffries, and I am a federal facilitator mediator with 

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. So, it's my 

distinct pleasure to welcome you all to the United States 

Department of Education's negotiating rulemaking table 2 

through which the student loan debt relief committee will 

prepare proposed regulations authorized under Title IV of 

the Higher Education Act of 1965 as amended pertaining to 

expanding the Secretary's waiver authority. So, we have a 

very, robust agenda today. I'm going to jump right into 

it and do roll call. In today's roll call, you just need 

to indicate your presence when I call your name. Okay? So 

first up, we have, for civil rights organizations, Wisdom 

Cole as the primary.

MR. COLE: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. And India 

Heckstall as the alternate.

MS. HECKSTALL: Here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Legal 

assistance organizations that represent students or 

borrowers, Kyra Taylor is the primary.
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MS. TAYLOR: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: And Scott Waterman is 

the alternate.

MR. WATERMAN: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good. State officials, 

including state higher education executive officers, 

state authorizing agencies, and state regulators of 

institutions on higher education, Lane Thompson as 

primary.

MS. THOMPSON: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. And Amber Gallup 

as alternate.

MS. GALLUP: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. State attorneys 

general, Yael Shavit as primary.

MS. SHAVIT: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: And Josh Devine as 

alternate.

MR. DEVINE: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Public 

institutions of higher education including two-year and 

four-year institutions, Melissa Kunes as primary.

MS. KUNES: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: And J.D. LaRock as 

alternate. Okay, J.D. is absent at this point. Private 
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nonprofit institutions of higher education, Angelika 

Williams. I'm sorry, as primary.

MS. WILLIAMS: You had it right the 

first time.

MS. JEFFRIES: Oh, okay. Thank you.

MS. WILLIAMS: No problem.

MS. JEFFRIES: And Susan Teerink as 

alternate.

MS. TEERINK: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Next up, we have 

pri- oh, I'm having a hard time on this Monday morning. 

Proprietary institutions, Kathleen Dwyer as primary.

MS. DWYER: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: And Belen Gonzales is 

alternate.

MS. GONZALEZ: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Historically, 

Black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and 

universities and minority serving institutions of higher 

education are eligible to receive Federal assistance 

under Title III parts (a) and (f) and Title VI of the 

HEA, Sandra Boham as primary.

MS. BOHAM: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: And Carol Peterson as 

alternate. Carol, are you present?
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MS. PETERSON: I'm present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Great. Thanks. 

Federal family education loan, fellow lenders, servicers, 

or guarantee agencies, Scott Buchanan as primary.

MR. BUCHANAN: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Benjamin Lee as 

alternate.

MR. LEE: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Student loan borrowers 

who attended programs of two-years or less, Ashley 

Pizzuti as primary. Ashley, are you with us? Okay. David 

Ramirez as alternate.

MR. RAMIREZ: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. David, you'll be 

sitting at the table until Ashley joins us if she does, 

okay? Student loan borrowers who attended four-year 

programs, Sherri Gammage as primary.

MS. GAMMAGE: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. And Sarah Christa 

Butts as alternate.

MS. BUTTS: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Student loan 

borrowers who attended graduate programs, Richard Haase 

as primary.

MR. HAASE: Present.
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MS. JEFFRIES: And Dr. Jalil Bishop as 

alternate.

DR. BISHOP: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Currently enrolled 

postsecondary education students, Jada Sanford, primary.

MS. SANFORD: Here.

MS. JEFFRIES: And Jordan Nellums, 

alternate.

MR. NELLUMS: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: U.S. Military service 

members, veterans, or groups representing them. I 

received an email last night from the primary Michael 

Jones, who is no longer able to serve on the committee, 

he sends his deepest regrets. So, Vincent Andrews will be 

stepping into the primary role for that, Vincent?

MR. ANDREWS: Yes, present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. And the alternate 

role will remain vacant at this point in time. Consumer 

advocates Jessica Ranucci is primary.

MS. RANUCCI: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Ed Boltz 

is the alternate.

MR. BOLTZ: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Individuals with 

disabilities or groups representing them, John Whitelaw 
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is primary.

MR. WHITELAW: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: And I think this is the 

first time I have announced your alternate, so I'm 

probably not gonna pronounce the first name correctly, 

but I'm gonna give it a try. I'm gonna say Waukecha 

Wilkerson as alternate.

MS. WILKERSON: Waukecha Wilkerson, 

present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Waukecha, thank you 

very much. And last but not least, Tamy Abernathy from 

the Department of Education.

MS. ABERNATHY: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Did I miss anyone 

this morning in roll call?

MS. ABERNATHY: I do believe you 

missed our OGC.

MS. JEFFRIES: Oh, they're not on 

here.

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes. Soren is on the 

list.

MS. JEFFRIES: They're not on my list. 

I gotta fix that. We have Brian Siegel and Brian, are you 

with us? Brian?

MR. SIEGEL: Yes, I am here, present.
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MS. JEFFRIES: There you are. Alright. 

And Soren Lagaard.

MR. LAGAARD: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Toby Merrill.

MS. MERRILL: Present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Anyone else, 

Tamy, did I miss one?

MS. ABERNATHY: Well, just say hello 

to Ben. I'm sure he's there as well.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. And Ben Miller 

deputy Under Secretary of the under-Secretary’s office. 

Ben?

MR. MILLER: Morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you very 

much. We'll update that list a little better. Alright. 

So, moving along, just some follow-up administrative 

business. Okay? As we move through the regulatory text 

that's before us today and tomorrow as well as the 

discussion on hardship, just a reminder to please keep 

your questions and data requests to the topic of 

expanding the Secretary's waiver authority. I want to 

make note that public comment periods, which were 

expanded to 1 hour starting today, are completely full as 

well as the wait list for both days. There will be 

another opportunity for public comment opportunity at the 
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next table in December. Kyra, you have your hand up.

MS. TAYLOR: I do. I just want to 

raise that the public is currently not able to watch. 

Many folks have not received the link for day one, and so 

I'm still hearing from borrowers and colleagues that they 

are not able to view the negotiations happening 

currently.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. The link is on 

the Department's website.

MS. TAYLOR: But when they register, 

they're not receiving the link to watch it.

MS. JEFFRIES: Oh, that's what's going 

on? Okay. Alright. That we can work with the technical 

Department on, okay, from the Department to try to 

correct that if there is a correction to it. But anytime 

that they can't- they don't receive it, they can always 

go on to the website and grab it.

MR. FRANCZAK: Cindy, looks like IT 

indicated another link was sent at 10:07 AM EST. So, if 

folks log back to that site and log through, they should 

be okay this time.

MR. ROBERTS: And feel free to- you 

can direct message me if the link is still not working 

after that and I can communicate that to the IT folks?

MS. JEFFRIES: Brady will be our 
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technical person from FMCS today. So, any of these 

technical problems, you can private message him in the 

chat, and he'll get right on them for us. Okay? We're 

gonna ask that as we move through this that we have a 

flow that will be happening this morning. I will be 

addressing- announcing the topic, Tamy and or others will 

be presenting an overview of them. We ask that you hold 

your questions for the discussion period that will 

immediately follow that when we open the floor for 

discussion. Again, according to protocols, you are 

limited to three minutes, and we ask that those are used 

to deliver new questions, etc., and ask that time not be 

used to reiterate previous positions statements, 

discussions, or questions, or to act in support of a 

comment that's already been made. You may certainly 

express your support of anyone's comments, in the chat 

for the day. That's all the administrative business I 

have for the Department, do you have any additional 

administrative stuff you want to talk about before we go 

into the follow-up from last session? Okay. So, let's 

forge ahead here and ask if we can have some follow-up 

from last session.

MS. ABERNATHY: Cindy, I'm assuming 

you're turning this over to me, correct?

MS. JEFFRIES: I am, Tamy. If you're 
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going to do the follow-up for us.

MS. ABERNATHY: I'm going to do the 

follow-up. Good morning, negotiators. It is a delight to 

see you virtually again, and welcome again to the second 

session of negotiated rulemaking on student debt relief. 

Last week we posted publicly and sent proposed regulatory 

text to you. The Department focused on developing 

regulations that provided greater specificity around the 

Secretary's waiver authority, not expanding, but greater 

specificity around authority. We look forward to our 

conversation over the next two days of any meeting 

requests separate from table conversations. Also, if you 

have any proposals for changes to the proposed amendatory 

text, we ask that you make those in track changes or what 

we refer to as red lines, which is in the version of Word 

that we're using. It keeps it so that we know what the 

changes are and send them through FMCS as well. As a 

reminder, anything you submit will be publicly posted on 

the negotiated rulemaking website as they are part of 

these negotiations. As Cindy mentioned, we have a packed 

agenda today, so let us get started by cleaning up old 

business items. I have a few updates from our last 

meeting. During the last session, we mentioned that we'd 

provide responses to the questions you placed in the 

chat. We have responded to some of those questions 
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already, and there are two specific questions that we are 

answering this morning. It was asked if there was an 

existing definition of reasonable as used in the FCCS 

standards. There is no statutory or regulatory definition 

for reasonable in the Federal claims collection 

standards. The Department is interested in exploring with 

the committee what reasonable could mean in a specific 

context of borrowers repaying Federal student loans. It 

was also asked what authority the Department has to 

forgive older loans and Perkins loans not held by the 

Department. The Department believes we have the authority 

to do this under the same authority used to waive the 

other types of loans as we compose in 682.403. When we 

discuss this later today, we are very interested in 

hearing your thoughts around this, particularly our 

fellow constituents. You should have received the data 

request submitted by Sher for older borrowers and Wisdom, 

parent borrowers this morning. These will also be posted 

on our website if it has not already been posted. We 

wanted to let you know for the protocols, we are still 

compiling the data Kyra requested on defaulted borrowers, 

and we'll be sending it to you and sharing it with the 

committee later this week. FMCS will share the defaulted 

data with the negotiators when ready and will be posted 

on the website. In case you missed that the first time, I 
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just wanted to repeat that. We're happy to follow-up with 

clarifying questions, but since these do not specifically 

or explicitly relate to the regulatory text we are 

discussing, we do not plan to walk through them here. 

Going forward, the Department will make every effort to 

respond to your questions during the session. However, 

there may be instances where we will not be able to 

discuss further, and we'll have to circle back to you at 

a later date. Our hope is that your questions will be 

focused on these negotiations, which is specifying the 

conditions under which the Secretary will exercise his 

waiver authority related to student loan debt. We are 

unable to focus on things not related to the issues and 

the topics we are discussing in these negotiations. We 

hope to respond to relevant items during the sessions 

where feasible and possible. However, it may not be 

possible for us to respond effectively to some of your 

questions until we've had a chance to consider them 

thoroughly. In those cases, we'll need additional time to 

consider. I also want to mention that as a part of these 

negotiations, if you have proposals or items that you 

wish for us to consider to please circulate them. We'll 

try to get to them. We have a packed agenda getting 

through the reg text today. If possible, we'll try to get 

through some of those tomorrow or we'll circle back at a 
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later date. Cindy, we'll turn it back to you for any 

additional comments and to introduce the first session 

for discussion.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thanks. Josh, you 

have your hand up.

MR. DEVINE: Yes, thank you. Good 

morning. Thanks, Massachusetts, for yielding the floor 

for just a few minutes. I want to make some comments that 

are a little bit broader than the specific regulatory 

text at issue today. I know time is brief, so I'll just 

cut to the chase. I'm a litigation attorney and was not 

able to attend all the last session due to preexisting 

conflicts. But in the last few weeks, several

constituents have reached out to provide feedback to me 

stating that there are several issues from the first 

session that they have concerns about. First is that the 

tenor of the conversation has reinforced their concerns

but not all the interests are currently represented at 

the table. So, for example, last year or earlier this 

year, oral arguments in the student loan cases, the Chief 

Justice and Justice Alito asked questions about the 

fairness of the Department's previous student loan 

program. Namely, was it fair to individuals who have 

already paid off their loans after years of frugality? 

And was it fair to individuals who have elected not to go 
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to college in the first place? Based on the tenor of the 

conversations last month, there have been constituents 

who have raised concerns to me that those groups are not 

well represented here. For example, the Department chose 

as a representative, somebody from the Massachusetts 

attorney general's office as a primary negotiator. Now 

there's nothing wrong with that. It's a valuable 

perspective, but Massachusetts is a state with the 

highest percentage of adults who have college degrees. 

Missouri, which I represent, has a very different 

economy. 70% of adults in Missouri do not have bachelor's 

degrees. So, our constituents are very concerned with the 

questions the Chief Justice and Justice Alito raised. So,

I've been asked by communities of interest to put in a 

formal request to also be made a primary negotiator for 

those purposes. Second, these constituents have also said 

they've expressed concern that there's been insufficient 

attention paid to legal authority the Department has 

invoked. So, the Department has invoked the Higher 

Education Act, which states that the Secretary can quote

waive certain student loan requirements, but the HEROES 

Act, the statute used by the Department last year include 

the same term, which the Supreme court found to be 

insufficient for the program last year. Two years ago, 

the principal deputy general counsel of the Department 
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similarly concluded that the Higher Education Act does 

not support any kind of substantial student loan 

reduction program. So, I haven't come to any firm 

conclusion either way, but constituents have reached out 

and said they would like to see some more in-depth 

discussion about this issue. Third and finally, 

constituents have expressed concern that the rulemaking 

process might have the unintentional side effect of 

making colleges more expensive in the long term. That's 

because the discussion has focused on debt forgiveness on 

the back end and not very much on cost control on the 

front end. They would like the Department to seriously 

consider measures that place direct accountability on 

colleges for the debt loans of their students. That's all 

I've got today, so I'll yield the floor. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Josh. The 

Department, do you have any immediate response, or do you 

want to take all this under consideration as Josh 

indicated they would like you to do?

MS. ABERNATHY: What I'd like to do, 

Cindy, if it's possible, is let's move forward with our 

discussions for right now and after lunch, we will circle 

back with any additional information on that. Thank you 

for your comments.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Okay. So, 
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Yael is back as the primary. I'm going to ask all 

alternates to turn your cameras off at this time unless 

you are sitting at the table in the primary's place. 

Okay. Yael, do you have a comment?

MS. SHAVIT: Thanks. And I'll make 

this quick, but I do want to make a quick comment and 

note that both as a result of my selection as negotiator 

for this rulemaking and generally, sorry, representing 

the constituency of state AGs and in the course of my 

consistent work on behalf of student loan borrowers as an 

assistant attorney general, I'm in contact about these 

issues with many other state attorneys general's offices 

that fully support and share the positions that I've been 

taking in this rulemaking. And I want to note that our 

office started the first in the country's student loan 

assistance unit because of our commitment to helping 

student loan borrowers and the unfortunate necessity of 

this assistance. So, the views that I'm stating are 

informed by countless conversations with borrowers who've 

had their lives turned upside down due to insurmountable 

debt that continues to burden them because of the 

historic failures of our student loan system and the 

abuses of predatory schools. And I'll note predatory 

schools that offer low value education often to first

generation students in states across the country. I 
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continue to commend the Department's efforts to find 

avenues to provide much needed debt relief to students 

for whom it will make a world of difference, and I look 

forward to engaging in the detailed discussion of the 

Department's regulatory proposals.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. I appreciate that 

comment, Yael. There's a couple more administrative stuff 

that I want to cover. Just as reminders, that we want you 

to conform with the naming convention. I forgot to 

mention that with indicating, first, P or A for primary 

alternate. Your name, how you would like to be addressed, 

just a brief description or naming of the constituency 

group you are representing and that unless you're sitting 

at the main table, your cameras need to be off. Also, 

just a quick reminder, the chat is not confidential. It 

is subject to being transcribed and posted. So, we're 

good, on that. So, with that, I think we're going to move 

into the reg text itself. And I'm going to turn it back 

to Tamy for 34 CFR part 30, overview and discussion.

MS. ABERNATHY: Thank you, Cindy, and 

thank you negotiators for your previous comments. Our 

wonderful screen sharers will be placing a section of the 

reg text that we are reviewing on the screen for us. It 

looks like they're ready to go, so let's just get 

started. Part 30 is where the Department's general debt 
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collections regulations exist. We are making some small 

technical corrections to this section because these 

regulations have not been amended since the late 1980s 

and many references are out of date. For example, the 

reference to where the Federal claims collection standard 

regulations are in the Code of Federal Regulations has 

since changed. We have also added text about waiving the 

repayment of debt in subpart G. If the team would share 

the 30.62 document, please. We have also made conforming 

changes in three areas in this paragraph as well. I'm 

going to turn it over to Soren and ask the team to flag 

the 30.70 document for the reviewers or for the 

negotiators, excuse me.

MR. LAGAARD: Great. Thank you, Tamy. 

So, if we could get 30.70 up on our screen. I'll wait a 

second. Are we able to see 30.70?

MS. JEFFRIES: We're not seeing 

anything yet, Soren.

MR. LAGAARD: Okay. Well, I'll just 

proceed to note a couple of things and we can go back to 

it.

MS. JEFFRIES: There we go.

MR. LAGAARD: Great. So, on 30.70, you 

will see we adjusted the language on the usage of the 

Federal claim collection standards from the Secretary 
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uses to the Secretary may use. And this is really a 

clarification. It's because the Federal Claims Collection 

Act allows agencies to use their own standards alongside 

the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Treasury 

Standards contained in the FCCS. This has been the 

Department's rule and also our general practice, and it 

conforms to the FCC regulations. This came up in the last 

meeting, so we wanted to address this. We'll also note 

here a mention of $100,000. As Tamy mentioned, we had a 

question and this $100,000 comes from the FCCS 

regulations, which, are not ours, and they've been 

unchanged since they were issued by the DOJ and the 

Treasury in 2000. And keep in mind that this threshold 

only applies if we are in fact using the Federal claims 

collection standards. However, as we've noted, the 

proposed regulations here, for the committee's 

consideration today do not rely on or use the FCCS 

standards to provide debt relief. I will turn it back now 

to, Cindy.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Tamy 

and Soren, for that overview. At this point, we're going 

to be opening up that section and that overview for 

discussion. So, the floor is open. Any questions, 

comments? Jessica Ranucci.

MS. RANUCCI: Hey. I just wanted to 
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speak in support of adding HEAL Loans in that last 

section. I think it's really important that HEAL Loans 

are considered along with other types of loans.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. Anyone 

else? Okay, seeing no further hands on that section. 

Tamy, I think it's back to you.

MS. ABERNATHY: Thank you, Cindy. We 

should have, subpart G, a brand-new subpart G up. Kinda 

toggle between to make sure it's up. Okay. So, let's get 

started. Thank you, team. As mentioned, new proposed 

regulatory text is now in subpart G. We believe that 

creating a new section that relates specifically to the 

waivers of Federal student loans is appropriate here. 

Proposed paragraph (a), is introductory text, which 

outlines the Secretary's authority to forgive some, or 

all Federal student loan debts owed and specifies which 

loan programs, Direct Loans or DL, Federal Family 

Education Loans or FFEL, Perkins Loans, and Health 

Education Assistance Loans or HEAL. This authority 

applies to loan debts that are held by the Department. We 

will have a separate discussion a bit later about the 

proposed regulations related to the commercial FFEL. 

Proposed paragraph (b) is how we address the concept we 

raised before about borrowers who owe more than they 

originally borrowed. We think this language provides 
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conciseness and clarity for this issue. The language 

says, that if borrowers owe more than their original 

balance, then they would have it restored to what they 

originally borrowed. For consolidation loans, we propose 

using the total balance dispersed for the original loans 

and then the total amount they currently owe. In other 

words, we have considered the original balances of the 

loans paid off consolidation and how the total amount of 

those loans compares to the borrower's total balance now. 

The goal here is to deliver relief for borrowers who do 

not benefit from the Department's recent actions that 

ended interest capitalization, where it is not required 

by statute, and not charging unpaid monthly interest, 

which is a provision found under the SAVE plan. We wanted 

something relatively straight forward in terms of 

calculating the benefit. While this is our proposed 

suggestion, we welcome your feedback and are open to 

other ideas to best target relief to people who would 

have benefited from SAVE had it been available. There are 

three areas with missing text. These are places where we 

want committee feedback on the proposed draft additional 

language. Let's first talk about the size of the benefit. 

This provision mentions that all or a portion of the 

amount by which the balance exceeds what the borrower 

originally took out. You'll notice this is in the comment 
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bubble in brackets in the text. Romanette 2, we stated 

that we are interested in thoughts for how to define this 

period such that the borrower would have likely paid off 

their in-school interest. If we do not forgive the entire 

excess balance, how much should we forgive and on what 

reasoning? The second area is about how long a borrower 

has to be in repayment in order to qualify for this 

benefit. Due to data limitations, we propose calculating 

this off the original principal balance instead of the 

balance owed upon entering repayment. But we are not 

looking to forgive interest that accumulated while 

borrowers were enrolled in school. By law, that interest 

accumulates on unsubsidized Stafford loans and parent 

loans. This proposed language is an attempt to capture a 

time in repayment that differentiates between interest 

that is coming from being in school and repayment 

struggles that we are addressing going forward. We 

believe this should be no more than a couple of years. 

However, we are interested in ideas about how long loans 

should have been in repayment. We did consider using the 

balance owed when the grace period ends due to address 

this issue, but we do not think the balance at that point

would be accurately captured, and so it is not 

operationally feasible. Here's one way to think of this 

period. A borrower with $10,000 unsubsidized loan at a 
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five percent interest rate for one year of college would 

enter repayment owing about $10,750. If they repaid that 

amount back on the 10-year standard plan, their balance, 

after making 11 payments, would fall below $10,000, the 

amount they originally borrowed. So that would suggest a 

standard along the lines of 11 months in repayment. The 

third area is other borrower eligibility requirements. We 

want to identify borrowers who are struggling from the 

accumulation of interest and provide a benefit that will 

truly help our borrowers. We are interested in ideas that 

are consistent with that policy rationale. That could, 

for example, mean setting eligibility requirements based 

upon income. We are interested in your ideas. Before we 

turned over to discussion, I wanted to also note that we 

considered a suggestion from one of you during the last 

session to remove the capitalizing event and then apply 

the payments. Because we think this is not 

administratively feasible, we will not be pursuing ideas 

based upon payment data. There are too many instances 

where loan consolidation would complicate the process. We 

think obtaining the necessary data on payment history 

would be prohibitively complicated. So, we are interested 

in ways to best approximate these issues without creating 

something that is too complicated to administer. Cindy, 

I'd like to turn it back to you for discussion.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Tamy. 

I appreciate it. So, let's open the floor up to the 

negotiators for questions, comments, surrounding the 

issues that were just overviewed by Tamy. Lane Thompson.

MS. THOMPSON: Hi. Thank you. I think 

I just have a clarifying question for the Department. I 

heard you just say Tamy that the possibility of removing 

the capitalizing event would be too administratively 

burdensome. Are you also saying that any consideration of 

the amount paid would be too burdensome overall? Because 

as I look at this, what I'm thinking is that there should 

be some language in here around how much money has been 

repaid? So, any clarification there would be helpful.

MS. ABERNATHY: Trying to find my mute 

button, sorry. We think going back in and recreating 

payment streams is very complicated.

MS. THOMPSON: Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Next up, we 

have Richard Haase from graduate borrowers.

MR. HAASE: Yeah. My question or 

concern was in a similar area. I worry that just looking 

at the amount in excess of the original balance the loan 

is not going to do enough to right the ship here. We all 

know, I think, from personal experience and also from the 

testimony of even people who spoke at the end of the last 
26

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

two sessions, that we have scenarios where people borrow 

80, $90,000, pay a $110,000, or whatever the number is 

towards their loans and find the entire balance is still 

there. So, I think that just removing whatever is sitting 

on top of the original principal and ignoring all of the 

hard work people did in good faith to try and drive their 

balances down. I mean, it's great to have these 

conversations, but I don't know that it's a big enough 

step towards what people need. People take out these 

loans and make payments that many of the people I've 

spoken with for 10, 15, 20, 23 years. And, if you know, 

our best crack at this is to basically leave them where 

they started 23 years ago, I think we might have missed 

the mark if I'm understanding correctly.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Next,

we have Vincent Andrews and followed by Jessica Ranucci.

MR. ANDREWS: Yeah. I'll echo that 

pretty much the same comment as Richard was the same 

things were coming to my head. The one thing that I 

thought about was perhaps reducing the amount would 

actually impact what their principle actually was. 

Because if you're, like Richard was saying, if you're 

only paying off the original interest it's just going to 

put those people right back in the same situation, and 

there's still these questions of affordability. So, I 
27

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

think if there is any sort of reduction to that capacity, 

it just needs to be considered there. It's gonna be 

lowered enough that their payments are gonna make an

impact on their principal and they could see that, to 

kind of move to where they wanna ideally be in not be put 

in a position where interest is just gonna undo 

everything that they're doing again. Because I imagine 

this won't be something that comes up again in the future 

for a lot of these people. And they pretty much would be 

left in a position where they have no other options after 

this one-time thing potentially happened.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Vincent. I 

wanna just reiterate that if you have ideas for 

consideration, you may put them in the chat. You also, as 

Tamy mentioned earlier, can submit proposed amendments to 

this proposal that they have. Remember to use the word 

format and the red-lined format as well and submit all 

proposals and requests for meetings, whatever, through 

FMCS, and we will get them to the Department. Okay. 

Jessica, you are next.

MS. RANUCCI: Thank you. A couple 

points. One, I strongly encourage the Department, to 

waive all of the interest. I believe this is the 

essentially the benefit that is forwarded to new 

borrowers under SAVE, and I think it's appropriate going 
28

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

backwards. Second, I understand the Department's position 

regarding the accrual of in-school interest or school for 

unsubsidized loans accrual of interest while borrowers 

are in school. I think that there's a point at which 

that's probably not a realistic concern for old loans, 

and I have some concern that wiring the monthly repayment 

history, particularly for old loans, would be, if the 

documentation is not there, that people may not get the 

benefit to which they're entitled. So, I would encourage 

the Department to, for example, have multiple prompts to 

this. For example, this could apply to all loans that are 

more than, say, seven years old, and then for the newer 

loans have some requirement about the monthly repayment 

when the records are more likely to be there, and there's 

a real possibility somebody's been in school the whole 

time. And finally, this is just a minor drafting thing, 

but going up to subsection (a), I think that probably, 

that last sentence should just say under the conditions 

described in these paragraphs and not have the words in 

that section, but that's just a minor dropped in point. 

Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 

Jessica. If you'd like to put any of that in the chat, 

please feel free to do so. Next, I believe up was, Kyra 

Taylor and then Yael.
29

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

MS. TAYLOR: I think it was Yael and 

then me. Sorry, Cindy.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. She didn't pop up 

until just now, so that's fine. We'll go ahead and go 

with Yael.

MS. SHAVIT: Okay. Thanks. I'm always 

happy to speak after Kyra. So, I agree with Richard's 

comment, and I won't belabor the point. I do think that 

forgiving debt only after the original balance for 

borrowers who've spent years in repayment is insufficient 

to address the circumstances, they're in and the systemic 

failures that contributed to those circumstances. If 

nothing else, I think the Department should generally 

waive all accrued interest under this provision. But to 

respond directly to the Department's question in the 

draft regarding the inclusion of the language, all or a 

portion of in, 30.80 (b). I would encourage the 

Department to give itself the flexibility to waive all 

accrued interest, and not to over define the section in a 

manner that will make it harder to do so. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. Kyra? 

Where did you go? Okay.

MS. TAYLOR: I also, as a general 

matter, we are supportive of the Department's proposal 

here to cancel interest and also to cancel capitalized 
30

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

interest to bring people back to their original 

principal. If I understand, Tamy, what you were saying 

correctly, the problem is reallocating payments, not 

being able to capture interest that has been capitalized. 

And so, we are very grateful that, the Department is 

considering providing retroactive relief that complements 

the forward looking solutions that it's already 

implemented. We also support the calls that have already 

been made, to reduce the original principal by payments 

made as well. That is important. In addition, we also, 

strongly support the calls to waive all interest, that 

has accrued as well. It makes more administrative sense, 

and it will also be easier for borrowers themselves to 

understand. The one thing I would like to raise here is 

25 years, is too long. It does not, oh, excuse me. I will 

stop there. I'm jumping ahead.

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright. Thank you, 

Kyra. I appreciate it. Any other questions, comments? 

Scott Buchanan.

MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah. I'll just offer 

this. I think since we're talking about sort of this 

section and particularly subsection (a), which is sort of 

a general definitional matter. I think it's important, 

and I think we've shared this as well with the Department 

that, we would look at the drafting of this to make sure 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

we're clear about which loans things are applicable here. 

I know sort of the definition of in general is sort ofwe understand the Department's intent here, but I think

it would be helpful for the Department to sort of revisit 

some of this drafting to make sure that it's clear to 

which loans each particular section herein is applicable. 

I know we'll get later to the section that sort of 

describes, you know, the distinction between FFEL and 

Direct Loans or those loans that are held by the 

Department. But again, I think there's some confusion in 

section (b) here. What loans are those applicable, 

especially when we define it as Federal consolidation 

loans or direct consolidation loans in the same 

paragraph. Further clarifying that would be useful to 

make sure we're- everyone understands what loans these 

provisions apply to.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Scott. I 

appreciate it. An announcement that Jalil Bishop is 

coming to the table comments. Jalil?

DR. BISHOP: Thank you. I think I have 

a similar question that would be really useful if the 

Department could provide an example of how consolidated 

loans would be, handled under this section, just a little 

bit more clarification. And then can the Department also 

provide clarification around, why at least 11 months, I 
32

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

believe it was, for how long a loan needs to be in 

repayment. Both those things would just help for 

clarification for me, at least.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Appreciate that. 

You wanna place that question in the comments? Okay. Any 

other, Angelika, you have your hand up?

MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, ma'am. I just 

wanted to, in this respect, advocate for waiving all 

portion of the capital interest intel. Because I want to

look at this from a graduate student perspective, where 

the interest of their loan is continuously compounding, 

being mindful that there are low-income borrowers and 

graduate programs and the interest capitalizing while 

they're still in school trying to pursue their graduate 

degree because they would like to become more competitive 

in the job market. I think this is probably one of my 

most unethical views of looking at this and having the 

interest continuously compound while they're trying to

pursue some type of avenue to have some economic 

stability.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Melissa, we 

appreciate your comments. Melissa Kunes.

MS. KUNES: Thank you. And I do 

understand and appreciate the concept of needing to 

reduce administrative burden on all of us. However, we
33

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

all come to the table here with the students best 

interests in mind. And so, to truly support our borrowers 

as we as schools have found in recent weeks, we are being 

asked to do certain reporting measures, certain 

supportive efforts to our students that will create 

administrative burdens on all of us, but we do recognize 

these are being implemented for the best interest of the 

students. So, I would like for the Department to revisit 

that concept. While it may be administratively burdensome 

in the short term, I do think long term, it would most 

benefit our students, and I think that's why we're all 

here. Thank you.

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

gonna call on Ben Miller from the Department. I 

understand he has some comments he'd like to make.

MR. MILLER: Yeah, just quickly on the 

two example pieces. So first, what we're saying with 

consolidation loans is we would look at the balance of 

the underlying loans rather than looking at the balance 

of the dispersed consolidation loan. But basically, 

otherwise, if we did that, like, let's say you've got a 

$20,000 loan and a $30,000 loan. You make some payments 

on them, you consolidate them together, if we just look 

at the balance of the consolidation loan, if there had 

been interest that had accumulated kind of prior to 
34

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

consolidated, you would otherwise not see that reflected 

in this policy. So, we're saying we go back to the 

balances of the underlying loans there. Then regarding

the 11 months, there was an illustrative example where 

basically what we were looking at if you take a period of 

time between disbursement and entering repayment and an 

interest rate, you can calculate essentially how much inschool interest a borrower has. Then if you assume that 

the borrower repays that loan on the 10-year standard 

plan, you can see basically how many months it takes them 

to have their outstanding balance dip back down to what 

their principal balance was. So, in the example we're 

giving, we're saying with a five percent interest rate 

and 18 months sort of from disbursement entering the 

payment year plus or six months grace period, to pay that 

balance back down to what you originally had in principal 

takes about 11 months. That was giving an example of how 

we would think about that question.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Ben. Richard?

MR. HAASE: I could be wrong here, and 

this might be part of what you're trying to propose, but 

just based on the description that was just offered, the 

idea of someone who's entering into loan repayment, being 

able to make their adequate payments, shave off all the 

interest and start tackling the principal within an 11-
35

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

month window is, like nothing I've ever heard of or 

experienced in the world of student loans. So, I'm not 

sure if that's part of what you guys are describing, but, 

you know, more often than not, we're finding 300 months 

of payments, and you still haven't started to take a dent 

at your principal.

MS. JEFFRIES: I appreciate that. 

Sherri Gammage, you're up next.

MS. GAMMAGE: I put this in the chat, 

but I have a question about this section and how to 

provide actionable relief for those on IRB. It sets them 

back to the amount originally initially borrowed. If it 

doesn't deduct payments made and I wonder is the 

Department thinking about these borrowers in this 

section? And if so, how will it provide true relief?

MS. ABERNATHY: Cindy, I can answer 

that. Borrowers who are on IDR still have credit towards 

forgiveness on IDR. So, this is just a separate provision

that we're talking about, forgiving the interest or 

waiving the interest that is accrued and going back to 

the principal balance.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Tamy. 

Jessica Ranucci.

MS. RANUCCI: Thanks. I just wanted to 

restate what I said earlier because I think I explained 
36

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

it so poorly that no one understood. Ben, I understand 

what you're saying about 11 months. For example, how 

long it might take for a borrower to be a repayment. My 

concern is that certain old loans may not have good 

records of repayment, and, obviously, in other programs, 

you've had to make certain assumptions about repayment 

history. I think that it would be reasonable for the 

Department to assume that a loan discharge or sorry a 

loan disbursed, for example, maybe eight years ago or 

seven years ago, would have almost certainly had 11 

months in repayment because it's very rare that a student 

would have been continuously enrolled or in grace for 

that many consecutive years. And so to only apply this

repayment counting requirement for a certain set of very 

new loans and for any loans that were originally 

disbursed that are pretty old to just essentially 

dispense with that requirement because they almost 

certainly would have been in repayment because I think 

that would make it more administratively simple precisely 

for the old loans for which the records are the most 

difficult to follow.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. Any 

other comments, questions? Kyra.

MS. TAYLOR: Can I ask the Department, 

to reiterate the question around borrower eligibility and 
37

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

whether or not they're thinking about imparting an income 

limit to the borrower eligibility for this provision? I 

would say that it's our position that there not be 

extensive borrower eligibility criteria here to simplify 

the administration of this provision.

MS. JEFFRIES: I'm not seeing if the 

Department has an immediate response to that question, 

Kyra. Could you please put it in the chat so that they 

can look at it and follow-up?

MS. ABERNATHY: Cindy?

MS. JEFFRIES: Yeah, go ahead.

MS. ABERNATHY: I'm sorry. We were 

asking for feedback on if there should be other borrower 

criteria. That's kind of the clarification. Does that 

help, Kyra? Great. I like it when I get a thumbs up.

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright. Sounds good. 

Thank you. Sherri Gammage?

MS. GAMMAGE: And, Tamy, since you're 

looking for other borrower criteria, I want to add,

hanging loans, those that have been consolidated and 

still are hanging out. How is it, I have a question of 

how the Department looking about waiving interest on 

those loans? Are those loans included in that criteria?

MS. ABERNATHY: Sher, if you could put 

that in the chat, we’ll need to look at that. Thank you.
38

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Alright. One 

last final call for any comments on this section for 

discussion. Richard?

MR. HAASE: Just for clarification, 

because some of the things that are coming up now, I feel 

like are a little further along within the document. So, 

what should we be limiting our comments and requests on 

to right now? Are we only going down to-, you know, 

because I wasn't even looking at discussing borrower 

eligibility just yet. So, you know, is this part of what 

we're doing, and just kinda looking at the scope of what 

we should be discussing right now.

MS. ABERNATHY: Our intent was to 

discuss everything that we mentioned during the remarks 

with 30, the overarching cosmetic technical changes and 

then 30.62, 30.70, and then all of 30.80. And I think, we 

are going to get to the other provisions, many of you 

were talking about the length, and things like that, 25 

years and things like that. That is coming. I think it's 

the next topic, but our goal is to try to focus very 

narrowly on the sections for which we're discussing 

because, you know, we need to hear what your feedback is 

and we encourage you to make amendments, changes in red 

line and give us proposals if you guys think we're 

missing the mark, and we would certainly welcome your 
39

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

thoughts and your comments on that and any proposals you 

wanna send, please do so through FMCS. Does that help, 

Richard?

MR. HAASE: I think so. So, this would 

be an appropriate time for us to also discuss, language

that's further along here, like in, section (d), where we

give the Secretary the authority to waive the outstanding 

balance for people who have not enrolled in some of these 

forgiveness programs but otherwise meet the eligibility. 

So that's part of where we're at as well right now?

MS. ABERNATHY: No. I think that also 

comes next.

MR. HAASE: That is next call. Okay. 

Just making sure.

MS. ABERNATHY: Yeah. So, yeah, we've 

tried to section this off into the provisions for which 

we wanna cover for today, and that is the negative 

amortization, the length of time and then eligibility for 

certain provisions, but they did not apply for those 

provisions. Then we're looking at doing gainful-, you 

know, financial value tomorrow and discussing hardship 

tomorrow. Does that make sense? That’s a little bit 

better?

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. So having had 

that clarification, we are still, open to comments. As 
40

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

Tamy indicated, around the topics that were in the review 

and overviews. So, Amber.

MS. GALLUP: Hi. Just swapping in for 

the higher education. I'm curious whether borrowers who 

have faced defaults are included in this provision? Since 

a lot of default is for bad servicing.

MS. JEFFRIES: Not sure we have a 

quick response to that question, Amber. If you could 

please put that question in the comments for the 

Department to take a look at a later time. Once again, I 

wanna reiterate the naming convention. We need to see 

either a P or an A before everyone's name, so that we're 

able to identify who's speaking when and what their role

is and if they're stepping in for someone else. Kyra, you 

are up next.

MS. TAYLOR: I just want to respond to 

Amber's mention of defaulted borrowers. It's my reading 

of this provision that it would include defaulted 

borrowers. However, broadly there- we would hope that 

there are more provisions that would apply to borrowers 

in distress and particularly defaulted borrowers. Amber 

mentioned that many defaulted borrowers are in default in 

part because of servicing failures. That is absolutely 

right. We hear this from borrowers all the time. And we 

hope that the Department considers proposals for 
41

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

distressed and defaulted borrowers in particular. As I 

noted during the first session, many borrowers in 

distress can already have their loans be discharged under 

the Federal claims collection standards, yet the 

Department hasn't done so to date. And so, to the extent 

that the Department needs it, we will be submitting a 

proposal suggesting revisions to section 30.70, that 

simply codifies the authority that the Department already 

has.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Jessica.

MS. RANUCCI: Thank you. I also just 

wanted to respond to Amber's point about defaulted 

borrowers, I think it is very important to include 

defaulted borrowers, which they are here, but to 

encourage the Department perhaps to, change the 

requirement from a borrower who's quote unquote in 

repayment for a certain amount of months to a borrower 

who's, first entered repayment a certain number of months 

ago, which I understand is a framework that's used later 

on in the regulation. Many defaulted borrowers, in fact, 

will have paid, their in-school- the interest accrued 

during school through tax offset or garnishment, so I 

think they're similarly situated with respect to this 

provision. And by rather than counting repayment months, 

I think it would be more appropriate to count a gap since 
42

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

they first entered repayment that would affect those 

borrowers, who could barely deserve to be here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Any 

other questions? Comments? Okay. So, I'm going to now 

bring you into issue number two on this, which is the 

long time in repayment. Correct, Tamy?

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes, ma'am.

MS. JEFFRIES: And you're up next, 

Tamy.

MS. ABERNATHY: Wonderful. I'd like 

the team to share that section of the reg text, please. 

There we go. Wonderful. Thank you, guys. So, you can see 

in proposed paragraph two, our language for borrowers 

have been in repayment for a long time since first 

entering repayment. Here, we are in the time frame of no 

later than July 1, 2025, which we drafted this way to 

clearly emphasize that this is a one-time measure. As 

with our earlier discussion, we see this as fixing issues 

that more recent borrowers avoid to the Income Driven 

Repayment (IDR) Plans. We are proposing 300 months or 25 

years because essentially all borrowers have access to a 

25-year repayment time frame from an IDR Plan. That would 

include Parent PLUS borrowers who have to consolidate to 

gain access to the income contingent repayment. This also 

proposes including all the time after entering repayment, 
43

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

including default, forbearances, etc. Under proposed 

paragraph (c)(2), we propose how this works for 

consolidation loans as well. Before we turn it over to 

discussion, we wanted to mention an idea that we've heard 

from negotiators here about applying this policy to 

commercially held FFEL loans. We do not think such a 

policy would be appropriate. Waiving the balance of these 

outstanding loans would be providing forgiveness after 13 

years, but many borrowers have repayment plans that are 

longer than 13 years. We do not see a basis for an 

across-the-board waiver at 13 years when Congress 

authorized Income Based Repayment to last up to 25 years. 

Cindy.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Tamy. I 

appreciate it. So, at this point, we are gonna open up 

discussion, pertaining to long-term repayment and what 

Tamy just outlined for us. So, Kyra, you are up first.

MS. TAYLOR: Thanks, Cindy. So, first 

things first, we are thrilled that the Department is 

including time and default here, especially since time of 

default was excluded from the IDR account adjustment. And 

as I mentioned before, many borrowers in default are in 

default despite being eligible for a $0, IDR Plan, and 

despite calling their servicers asking for help and then 

being provided with the wrong information. So, we are 
44

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

very glad that is included here, because many of those 

borrowers watched their balances balloon when they could 

not get access to student loan relief. However, I would 

ask that the Department consider shortening the period so 

that it mirrors the IDR account adjustment and 

forgiveness periods under the other IDR plans. having a 

20-year repayment period for people who just borrowed 

loans for their undergraduate education and 25 years for 

Parent PLUS borrowers and borrowers who borrowed further, 

graduate school education. I also would ask the 

Department to consider applying the SAVE repayment time 

of 10 years for borrowers who originally borrowed a 

smaller balance, to all borrowers as well. As the 

Department noted in its recent final rule for the IDR 

plans, we know that borrowers with smaller balances are 

also more likely to be in default. And so, we would like 

to see those borrowers get relief.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Kyra. I 

appreciate it. Lane Thompson.

MS. THOMPSON: Thanks, Cindy. Two 

thoughts. One is regarding the one-time nature of this. 

While I understand that the SAVE Plan will likely avoid 

the large-scale nature of folks who have been in 

repayment for more than 25 years, I still have a concern 

that, due to poor record keeping that there will still be 
45

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

people who end up in repayment just for this very long 

time. So, I would really urge the Department to consider 

kind of taking off that one-time cap. I think that this 

is something that any loans that have been in repayment 

for 300 months, I mean, I can't think of other than a 

mortgage, I can't think of a lot of types of debt that 

require that kind of repayment period. And then the other 

thing I just kind of wanted to add here is that, by 

marking the start date for this as when somebody enters 

repayment, I think that's also missing the mark because 

as the Department already indicated today, it's a big 

administrative burden to figure out when payments were 

actually made and what those payments were, particularly 

if we're looking 25 years ago. So, I think it's more 

valuable to look at when loans were disbursed rather than 

when payment started because there are for example, one 

borrower who shows 25 years of grace period. No joke. 

Just an error, but that would be an example of somebody 

who might be missed under this proposed regulation as it 

stands. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. 

Jessica Ranucci.

MS. RANUCCI: Thanks. I just want to 

echo Lane's point that I understand that the definitions 

between a borrower who's been in repayment for a certain 
46

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

number of months, borrower who first entered repayment in 

a certain month, a loan that was dispersed to a certain 

month sort of capture the same rough universe of 

borrowers, but it really makes a difference at 

administrability, which definition is used here. And I

think I agree that the disbursement date or origination 

date would be the ideal way. But even between the two 

choices. I think that this reg sets out, which is a loan 

that first entered repayment 25 years ago versus a loan 

that has been in repayment for 300 months. That's a 

tremendous difference. I have seen a lot, like Lane, a 

lot of records that anyone would want to go scrutinize 

payments. What we're talking about, 1999, 2000, 2001 to 

see every single month and try and count months, I think 

that would be a tremendous administrative burden, and I 

think that the framework that's set out here in (c)(2) is 

a more appropriate way to go for just a certain date of 

entering repayment, and then I think that my point 

earlier was that the framework could be applied to 

subsection B above. I think we want to avoid any exercise 

that is continued counting of payments because I think 

that it's left with some headaches.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. Yael 

Shavit.

MS. SHAVIT: Thank you. I want to 
47

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

thank the Department for putting forward a proposal to 

address the needs of borrowers who've been in repayment 

for lengthy periods and join the comments that were made 

by Kyra, Lane, and Jessica. I also want to add to the 

encouragement that Lane gave for the Department to remove 

the buy no later language that would ultimately serve to 

make this a kind of one-time tool. By noting that while I

share the Department's hopes that the SAVE program does a 

lot to help borrowers who are presently in these 

situations avoiding these situations in the future. I 

imagine that people felt that way at different times 

about the PAYE program and the REPAYE program. And to the 

extent that, you know, servicer misconduct is one of the 

reasons that we have addressed or that we are in the 

situation that requires the Department to go through this 

regulatory process. I encourage the Department not to tie 

its own hands in the future. And if we're going through 

this process now of creating mechanisms by which the 

Department can choose to use its discretion to forgive 

the debt of people who've been in repayment and they have 

been burdened by these loans for longer than I'd 

anticipated that having a mechanism in place that could 

apply in the unfortunate event and hopefully unlikely 

event that we find ourselves in these situations in the 

future would save the Department from needing to go 
48

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

through these types of regulatory processes, 

unnecessarily again. So that's- I choose [inaudible].

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Yael. Jalil, 

can you hang on one second here for us? It looks like 

Tamy may have something to say.

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes. Yael, thank you 

for that. I'm not going to speak to that, but I am going 

to go back to a couple of things because I want to 

clarify something. I did mention that we don't want to

look at the commercial FFEL for 13 years, but we are 

looking at separate language, to discuss 25 years for 

commercial FFEL as well. I felt like I kinda left that 

hanging and wanted to make clarification. The other thing 

I wanted to mention is that the collapse for IDR is based 

on disbursement. So, we think the date of entering 

repayment is okay to use, and it's not the same as the 

grace period data. So, we just wanted to clarify that. We 

heard what you said and we just wanted to clarify.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Tamy. Okay. 

Jalil Bishop, thank you for your patience. And Jalil has 

come to the table in place of Richard Haase for graduate 

school borrowers.

DR. BISHOP: Thank you. I think that I 

really want to comment around how we can maybe expand 

some of the frames we're using, for these different 
49

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

categories. I think the idea has been already provided by 

the Department that they're trying to align this 

repayment period to IDR plans which have been authorized 

by Congress, but what has already been pointed out is 

that in the SAVE Plan, there has been this carve out that 

I agree with for those who have balances of 12,000 or 

less. Some of the evidence the Department has provided in 

the past is that those who have balances of 12,000 and 

less are more likely to experience default and other 

hardships. So, I'm wondering if that same logic of 

hardships can be applied to borrowers in this situation 

to bring them down from the 25-year repayment plan to put 

them on the 10-year carve out, due to whatever we decide 

is hardship or however we're defining as hardship 

categories or a hardship approach. But I think the 25 

years when the Department has acknowledged in this 

session that the standard repayment plan was 10 years, in 

itself is already revealing that borrowers are 

experiencing hardship. And I think we need to really 

wrestle with why we would have this moment of not only 

marking 25 years as a repayment, but then putting the no 

later than clause in there that ignores the long history 

of the Department loan service and loan servicer not 

being able to deliver relief in a given time. I would 

argue that if we're gonna do a no later than, then it 
50

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

actually should be something that falls more on the 

Department. That if the Department can't deliver relief 

by a certain date, then borrowers should be eligible for 

some type of relief or some type of regard for how, 

again, they're experiencing the hardship of bad servicing 

and ineffective or not implemented policies. So, again, I 

just want to highlight the fact that borrowers shouldn't 

have to carry the burden of something going wrong before 

July 2025, and that we really shouldn't be trapped by the 

25 years because we've already seen the Department carve 

out a 10-year repayment or 10-year cancellation clause 

for other groups of borrowers.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. We 

appreciate the comments. Tamy?

MS. ABERNATHY: Cindy, I need to make 

sure that I clearly articulated something. One of my 

teammates thinks that I did not say the right words. I 

wanna make sure that I'm on the official record of saying 

that the clause for IDR is not based on disbursement 

they're based on time and repayment. So please, let's 

make that clarification known.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Tamy, for 

that. I appreciate it. I'm not seeing any further hands. 

Oh, here we go, Kyra?

MS. TAYLOR: I would just like to note 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

that while we are broadly supportive of this proposal, 

one thing that is concerning to us that we'd like the 

Department to consider is that people who fall short of 

that 300 months or whatever the cutoff is, who have had 

time in default still will be no closer to cancellation 

under the IDR plans even though they were subject to the 

same servicing misconduct that gave rise to this 

provision. And so, we would encourage the Department to 

consider proposals that put people in default, in 

particular, closer to cancellation, especially since they 

are more likely to redefault in the future even if they 

took advantage of current proposals that would enable 

them to get out of default.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Kyra. Scott 

Buchanan.

MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah. I think one thing 

that's important in the context of this provision, 

probably several others, though, it sounds like, the 

Department has some meaningful revisions that they're 

gonna be sharing with us in terms of the draft regulation 

coming up here. But I think, you know, for all these 

provisions, you know whether we want more or less. I 

mean, for this package to work, it has to actually reach 

borrowers and that means that whatever these provisions 

look like they need to be scoped in such a way that they 
52

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

can survive judicial scrutiny. That's critical because 

otherwise we're just talking about what we'd like to see 

borrowers get that may not ever show up. And so, you 

know, for example, a 25-year period is in direct conflict 

with some of the statutory repayment plans in the HEA. 

And therefore, we have to be very thoughtful about does 

the regulation try to interfere with what Congress 

intended here, whether we like it or not? This is 

something we've got to look at. The Department, in 

addition, and the HEA have been very clear that 

consolidation loans are new loans. Right? The Department 

has asserted this repeatedly in past neg regs and other 

provisions. And so, in order to sort of peel back and 

look behind underlying loans is inconsistent not only 

with practice, but also with the Department's 

interpretation of law. And not only that, I mean, even on 

the issue of default. The HEA defines default as the 

period that is not in repayment. And so therefore to 

extend these things is particularly challenging. I don't 

know that we necessarily have an opinion on these things, 

but I think the Department has got to be very careful, in 

looking at the drafting of this to ensure that we don't 

get into the same position we got into last time or make 

a promise through the regulatory package that it doesn't 

survive and therefore can't provide any of these benefits 
53

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

to borrowers. It's scoping this carefully to make sure 

that it can reach borrowers is incredibly important, so 

just want to make that observation. Generally, I think 

that's particularly applicable to this provision, but 

again, it sounds like the Department has some regulatory 

text changes that they will see in short order.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Scott. I 

appreciate it. Lane Thompson.

MS. THOMPSON: Yeah, I kind of wanted 

to go back to what I said about the dispersal versus 

entering repayment. When I look at this provision, what 

I'm thinking about is who's not included in the one-time

account adjustment. Right? Because at least in theory, 

anybody who's been in repayment for 25 years is getting 

this account adjustment. Well, so who's being 

additionally included is defaulted borrowers, right? But 

what about those people who have missing loan histories? 

Those broken records, that data that's missing is 

impacting people hugely and I don't see that covered 

here. So I really just want to say that the fact that the 

IDR plans are based off of the repayment months doesn't 

actually address my concern about these borrowers because 

I want to see folks who are being left out of the onetime account adjustment just because nothing they did, it 

just happens that their records were kind of messy on the 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

other side. I'd really like to see them be included 

here, so I just wanted to reiterate that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Lane. Wisdom 

Cole, from civil rights.

MR. COLE: I was just making a comment 

to Tamy's point around the clause for IDR, then if they 

are not based on disbursement but based on repayment, 

then they should be automatically discharged.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. Yael 

Shavit, state AGs.

MS. SHAVIT: Thank you. I just want to 

briefly respond to Scott's comments to note that the 

Department is already empowered to cease collection of 

loans under a number of different circumstances. One of 

which is where there are questions around the legal 

enforceability of the debt. And as I discussed during the 

last session, we in the state AG community have had the 

somewhat unique experience of looking under the hood of 

the servicing systems and have made findings of 

widespread systemic violations by student loan servicers 

that have resulted in borrowers being steered into less 

advantageous repayment plans, into forbearance and 

deferment. And we've seen widespread systemic violations 

that have resulted in borrowers getting inaccurate 

information about loan consolidation. So, we think under 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

the Department's existing authorities that the 

Department's in a position to effectuate a lot of what 

they're trying to do here. Certainly, when we talk about 

the regulations the Department is proposing now and 

intends to propose, I think, in other contexts within 

this rulemaking, we think the Department is well within 

its legal authority to do so, based on a number of 

factors including the reality of the servicing system to 

date. I know that we're sort of veering away from 

discussion of the legal authority, but I do want to note 

this is something that we've thought about considerably, 

and we've seen the efforts to support it. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Jessica 

Ranucci, from consumer advocates.

MS. RANUCCI: Thanks. I echo 

everything that Yael said. I just wanted to respond 

briefly to two other points made by Scott. The first is 

that I strongly agree that it is confusing here to use 

the term repayment to refer- that's a term generally used 

in student loan servicing to mean one thing, and I think 

here it means something different. I think it makes sense 

for the Department to go the other way and use a date of 

entering repayment or some other certain date. But even 

if you're gonna keep this month counting, I would use a 

different term for it, so I agree with Scott there. But I 
56

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

would say that on the other hand, Scott, I just wanna 

respond briefly. I think there are many times that the 

Department sort of looks under the hood of a 

consolidation loan to look at the originally disbursed 

loans of which the consolidation loan is comprised and 

has the authority to treat the consolidation loan as a 

practice of those original loans. I'm thinking, for 

example, if a borrower attended a school that closed 

shortly after attendance, then further attended other 

institutions, consolidates those loans, they're still, 

for example, eligible for post school discharge of the 

underlying loan to the extent that the portion of the 

consolidation loan is comprised of a loan for the school 

for which they would be eligible. So, I think that is 

well within the Department's power and appropriate to do 

here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. 

Richard Haase, graduate borrowers.

MR. HAASE: Hi. Yeah. I just wanted to 

speak a little bit to the deadline and some of the clips 

and timelines that are here. I think we're all here 

together doing what we're doing right now because for the 

last 30, 40, 50 years, students have subsidized 

widespread system failure, within the loan industry, and 

they did this all just on a path towards trying to make 
57

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

their lives better. We recognize that it hasn't worked. 

Right? And that people, Americans, have been harmed by 

the process as a result. And I don't understand why armed 

with the knowledge that we have right now, we would put 

an expiration date on the Department's capacity to 

prevent this from happening again in the future. So, I 

think that the no later than July 1, to me, I feel like 

if we recognize that there's something wrong, that we 

need to make sure that we don't handcuff ourselves in the 

ability to prevent it from happening again in the future. 

And in terms of the number of payments required, whether 

it's 20, 25 years, I still think looking at a system that 

applies payments that have been made towards interest to 

be used to subtract off of the principal, also creates 

kind of a natural sliding scale that right sizes the 

amount of forgiveness in proportion to how long people 

have been making payments. So, I feel like this creates 

another opportunity to entertain something like that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Jessica.

MS. RANUCCI: I'll be very brief. 

Nobody has said so far, I think that there would be 

important systemic effects on the student loan servicing 

system of getting these old loans off the books. I think 

that would allow servicers to devote more resources to 

loans that are more recent and less likely to be repaid, 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

and I think that would have a beneficial effect on the 

student loan system as a whole.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. David 

Ramirez.

MR. RAMIREZ: Yes, I just want to 

reiterate, I think it's imperative that we don't limit 

the Department's ability to provide relief for borrowers 

and so I would strongly encourage reconsidering the July 

1, 2025, cutoff date. I believe I'm the only 

undergraduate student here on this committee, and so I've 

also heard from a lot of my peers about their worry that 

we're not solving a systemic issue. We're just delaying, 

what we can do for borrowers systemically, so just want 

to elevate that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. David 

is acting in place of Angela Pizzuti the primary for that 

group who is not been able to join us yet. Okay, I'm not 

seeing any more hands or comments. Lane Thompson.

MS. THOMPSON: Hi. Sorry to get in 

there at the last minute, but I just thought since we 

have him on the call if Scott would be at all interested 

in speaking to or maybe we have the alternate now, but if 

anybody from the FFEL side would be interested in 

speaking to whether or not there would be a benefit for 

servicers to have less loans on their caseload. Because 
59

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

something I'm working with the servicers that we license 

and they're very overwhelmed that there's too much being 

of them. So, I'm just curious to hear if getting rid of 

some of these older loans, particularly ones with messy 

history might actually benefit servicers as well.

MR. LEE: I'm currently at the table, 

so I think I can answer, and Scott can jump in if he 

wants to tap me on the shoulder. I don't think I've heard 

that from any servicers that there would be some sort of 

inherent benefit. That doesn't mean that there absolutely

wouldn't be. I just haven't heard one way or another. 

It's not something folks have sort of discussed. And I do 

wanna reframe, I think, what Scott was getting at, which 

is more that we need to ground what we're doing within 

the HEA. While the operational concerns are definitely 

worth talking about, I think that was really his major 

point was that this has to be able to survive, possible 

judicial scrutiny.

MS. JEFFRIES: Does that answer your 

question, Lane? Okay. Great. Thank you. Jalil Bishop.

DR. BISHOP: Sorry. I think this is an 

important point. I think that we have seen loan servicers 

and folks who are representing loan servicers make 

comments about just lack of resources. We know just in 

recent media articles that we have seen comments from 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

loan servicers, from some representatives even on this 

call, that there's not enough IT support, that they are 

running ragged, to use the words, to put a band aid 

around these problems. That the idea is that they are 

able to meet even the current regulations and relief 

that's been offered to borrowers is something that seems 

really limited for them. I do think that while the 

comment was made that we have not heard this from any 

servicers, representatives of servicers associations are 

making public comments that are saying, we don't have the 

resources. We're not able to deliver relief under just 

the current policies. I do think we should take this into 

consideration. Would servicers bill to actually meet the 

requirements of their contract and service borrowers if 

they have less accounts to service? And based on what 

they're saying publicly, right now the number of accounts 

and the relief policies that are already on the books are 

too burdensome for them. So, I just want that to be on 

record that we do have public statements where loan 

servicers are suggesting they are not able to meet the 

duties of their job and the current relief policies.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. I 

appreciate it. I wanna just make note here for the record 

that Sarah Butts has stepped in, in place of Sherri 

Gammage for four-year borrowers. So, Wisdom Cole.
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

MR. COLE: I just wanted to bring up 

the relationship to the date, using IDR timed to credit 

folks who missed the cutoff. I think that's gonna be 

really valuable. That way there's no clip of winners or 

losers.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Wisdom. 

Benjamin Lee.

MR. LEE: Yeah. I just wanted to 

respond that I think the quotes that Jalil was talking 

about have a lot more to do with the sort of compounding 

one-time very quick initiatives that the Department has 

rolled out in part as a response to the pandemic as well 

as FSA being flat funded. I don't think any of the issues

that we're seeing in the student loan servicing space 

have to do with old loans somehow weighing the system 

down. But that's just my understanding.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Benjamin. 

Anyone else? I'm not seeing any other hands. Are there 

any comments right now at this point from the Department? 

Okay. Seeing none, we are at a point where, I don't think 

it is prudent to move to the next topic because we don't 

want to break for lunch in the middle of that, okay? To 

break people's train of thoughts. So, unless hearing any 

objections, I think we would break for lunch from now and 

resume at 1 PM. Any objections? Jessica?
62

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

MS. RANUCCI: I don't know if others 

feel this way, but I have a lot of questions about the 

next section and I was just wondering if you're not 

ready, that's fine. But if the Department could do their 

intro at least so we could think about it over the lunch 

break. But if you're not ready to do your intro, that's 

fine we can do it after.

MS. ABERNATHY: I think we're going to 

have time this afternoon, Jessica. If that's okay, we'll 

go ahead and break and then we'll circle back. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. So, let's go 

ahead and end this morning's session. And I would like 

all negotiators to return back here no later than quarter 

to 1 so we can get ready to go live at 1. Okay? Have a 

great lunch and see you in a bit.
63

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

Zoom Chat Transcript

Student Loan Debt Relief Committee - Session 2, Day 1, Morning, November 6, 

2023

*Chat was copied as presented, as a result minor typos or grammatical errors 

may be present.

From ETVP 1 to Everyone:

Another link was sent at 10:07 AM ET.

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Aid Organizations to Everyone:

Thank you!

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Aid Organizations to Everyone:

Unfortunately the link is still not working

From P-Yael Shavit-State AGs to Everyone:

Josh Divine will be stepping in for State AGs briefly.

From P-Yael Shavit-State AGs to Everyone:

I will be coming back for State AGs

From P - Lane Thompson - state agencies to Everyone:

I want to echo Yael - I facilitate a group of other student loan 

ombuds and am bringing perspectives from across the country

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Aid Organizations to Everyone:

Agreed that HEAL loans should be included here

From A- Susan Teerink - Private non-profit 

institutions to Everyone:

Replying to "Agreed that HEAL loa..." 

I agree HEAL loans should be inlcuded

From (P) Richard Haase - Graduate Borrowers to Everyone:

While I understand there’s administrative difficulty, I still 

support a solution that applies payments borrowers have made towards 

reducing what’s left of their principal

From P- Jessica Ranucci (Consumer Advocates) to Everyone:

To clarify, I am proposing strike the starred language from (a): 

under the conditions **described in this section** including but not 

limited to those described in paragraphs (b)-(g) of this section.

From A-Carol Peterson HBCU Langston University to Everyone:

I agree with Yael Shavit

From A- Jalil Bishop-Grad School Borrower to Everyone:

I agree with Yael arguing for interest capitalization to be 

waived coupled with retroactive relief to reduce principal by payments 

made

From John S. Whitelaw, (he/him) (P) disabilities to Everyone:

Echoing Yael and Kyra's comments.

From P - Wisdom Cole, Civil Rights to Everyone:

I agree with Yael

From P-Yael Shavit-State AGs to Everyone:

+1 to reducing principal by payments made

From P - Lane Thompson - state agencies to Everyone:

I agree with Yael and Kyra - waiving the interest would be the 

closest approximation to the benefits of the save plan

From A- Jalil Bishop-Grad School Borrower to Everyone:

Jalil coming in as primary
64

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

From P- Sandra Boham, HBCUs, TCCUs, and MSIs to Everyone:

I agree the interest capitalization should be waived

From John S. Whitelaw, (he/him) (P) disabilities to Everyone:

Reducing administrative complexity is of great 

importance. Separate and apart from substantive rules administrative 

burdens are particularly problematic for students with 

disabilities. The concept of bureaucratic disentitlement is real and 

harms vulnerable individuals.

From (A)-David Ramirez-2yrBorrowers to Everyone:

+1 I believe interest capitalization should be waived

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Aid Organizations to Everyone:

Replying to "Reducing administrat..."

+1, John.

From (P) Melissa Kunes-Public 2&4 Yr Schools to Everyone:

I believe it is necessary in order to accomplish the relief we 

are hoping to achieve for our borrowers that all interest be waived

and prior payments made should be applied to the principal.

From Sarah Butts, (she/her) A- 4 yr. borrowers to Everyone:

+1 on interest capitalization being waived.

From A- India Heckstall, Civil Rights Organizations to Everyone:

+1 to interest being waived and prior payments being applied to 

the principal

From Sarah Butts, (she/her) A- 4 yr. borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to interest being..." with ���

From (P) Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to interest being..." with ���

From A- Susan Teerink - Private non-profit 

institutions to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to interest being..." with ���

From A- Jalil Bishop-Grad School Borrower to Everyone:

Clarification questions:

1. How will 30.80 impact consolidated student loans, specifically 

consolidated Parent Plus loans? Please provide examples.

2. Why is it important to wait 11 months/have a period where 

students would have likely period off their in-school interest?

From P-Sherrie Gammage, 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

How will this section provide actionable relief for those on IBR 

if it sets them back to the amount originally initially borrowed if it 

does not deduct payments made? Is the department thinking of these 

borrowers in this section? And, if so, how will it provide true 

relief?

From A- Jalil Bishop-Grad School Borrower to Everyone:

Thank you, Ben

From P-Sherrie Gammage, 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

Thank you for this answer.

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Aid Organizations to Everyone:

+1 to Jessica’s point re: differentiating the standard for older 

loans that may be missing payment histories

From Sarah Butts, (she/her) A- 4 yr. borrowers to Everyone:
65

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

Reacted to "+1 to Jessica’s poin..." with ���

From P-Sherrie Gammage, 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to Jessica’s poin..." with ���

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Aid Organizations to Everyone:

To reiterate we strongly urge the Department not to impose other 

borrower eligibility criteria that will be used to exclude borrowers 

from receiving this relief

From P- Jessica Ranucci (Consumer Advocates) to Everyone:

+1 to Kyra

From (A)-David Ramirez-2yrBorrowers to Everyone:

+1 to Kyra

From A- Jalil Bishop-Grad School Borrower to Everyone:

Burdensome eligibility criteria, for both the borrower and the 

Dept, should not be attached to this borrower relief 

regulations/proposals

From P-Sherrie Gammage, 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

Is the department considering hanging loans in the criteria, 

especially those older consolidated loans missed in a consolidation 

from no fault of the borrower

From A- Susan Teerink - Private non-profit 

institutions to Everyone:

+1 Kyra

From P-Sherrie Gammage, 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 Kyra" with ���

From (A) Edward Boltz (NACBA/NASLL) to Everyone:

Borrowers who filed bankruptcy were also placed in 

default/administrative forbearance illegally being precluded from 

enrolling in any IDR since at least 2016 and, despite ED 

changes, still by many servicer's poor service

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Aid Organizations to Everyone:

+1 to entered repayment a certain number of months ago

From A - Amber Gallup- NM Adult Education Director to Everyone:

The question that I asked is that borrowers who faced default are 

included here. It sounds like the answer to that is that defaulted 

borrowers are included.

From P-Yael Shavit-State AGs to Everyone:

+ 1 to Jessica on changing language from "in repayment" to 

"entered repayment"

From (P) Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

Jordan Nellums will be taking over as primary

From (P) Richard Haase - Graduate Borrowers to Everyone:

+1 for looking at when loans were disbursed

From (A) Edward Boltz (NACBA/NASLL) to Everyone:

"entered repayment" also helps with the bankruptcy admin 

forbearance

From P-Sherrie Gammage, 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to ""entered repayment" ..." with ���

From A-Belen Gonzalez-Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

Thank you Lane!
66

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

From (P) Richard Haase - Graduate Borrowers to Everyone:

Jalil in as primary for Grad Borrowers

From Sarah Butts, (she/her) A- 4 yr. borrowers to Everyone:

+1 on looking at when loans were dispersed

From P - Wisdom Cole, Civil Rights to Everyone:

I agree with Yael, we must plan for the future as well

From Sarah Butts, (she/her) A- 4 yr. borrowers to Everyone:

+1 for Yael's comments re: giving the Department future authority 

to forgive loans

From (P) Melissa Kunes-Public 2&4 Yr Schools to Everyone:

Agree that should not limit this to a one time waiver authority.

From P-Sherrie Gammage, 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "Agree that should no..." with ���

From A- Susan Teerink - Private non-profit 

institutions to Everyone:

I agree that should not tie the Depts hands to offer only a one 

time waiver

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Aid Organizations to Everyone:

+1 to Yael’s comments re: providing ED with future authority to 

cancel loans in response to servicing failures

From A - Amber Gallup- NM Adult Education Director to Everyone:

I agree it makes sense to align this one-tie relief with the SAVE 

timeline. So 20 years for undergrad and 25 years for grad loans. 

Additionally, to prevent a cliffs there should be credits towards SAVE 

so a one month per month since first entered into repayment

From P-Yael Shavit-State AGs to Everyone:

I'll note that removing the temporal limitation will address 

Kyra's concern (which we share)

From A- Jalil Bishop-Grad School Borrower to Everyone:

SAVE carved out a 10 repayment plan for borrowers under $12k...we 

can extend this repayment timeframe to other categories of borrowers

From P - Scott Buchanan - FFEL, Servicers, GAs to Everyone:

Ben Lee is taking the seat for FFEL

From Sarah Butts, (she/her) A- 4 yr. borrowers to Everyone:

+1 for Yael's comments, re: reality of servicing system and 

failures

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Aid Organizations to Everyone:

+1 That the Department could use its existing authority to cancel 

the debts of borrowers now using its existing authority due to 

servicing errors that raise questions regarding the enforceability of 

the debt. And +1 that the Department has the authority to waive all or 

a portion of consolidation loans as well.

From Sarah Butts, (she/her) A- 4 yr. borrowers to Everyone:

Many borrowers were misguided and advised incorrectly by 

servicers regarding the need to consolidate. We should try to right 

these wrongs, including forgiving hanging loans.

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Aid Organizations to Everyone:

+1 that discharging old debts would have beneficial effects on 

the student loan system at large

From (P) Richard Haase - Graduate Borrowers to Everyone:
67

Negotiated Rulemaking – 11/6/23

+1 on righting those wrongs. I hear from people constantly who 

are being denied after doing everything they were told to do

From Sarah Butts, (she/her) A- 4 yr. borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 on righting those..." with ���

From (P) Jada Sanford - Currently Enrolled to Everyone:

+1 David, as an undergraduate, prolonging the issue is 

insufficient

From Sarah Butts, (she/her) A- 4 yr. borrowers to Everyone:

I am going to step in as primary for 4 year borrowers

From P-Sherrie Gammage, 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

Sarah Butts will step in as primary for 4 year borrowers

From A- Jalil Bishop-Grad School Borrower to Everyone:

Direct quote: 

“We don’t have money to add new IT people and the ones we have 

are running ragged trying to Band-Aid all these problems,” said Scott 

Buchanan, executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, a 

trade group for loan servicers. “I’m not making excuses. I’m just 

saying we need to figure out a solution. And the solution is for the 

government to make clear decisions, give enough time that’s reasonable 

for a partner to implement things, and also for Congress to give us 

enough staff and resources to do it.” 

(ED Note: Files are available on the Department of Education’s 2023-

2024 Neg Reg website)