Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24 

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 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

 OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

 NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING 

STUDENT DEBT RELIEF COMMITTEE 

 SESSION 4, DAY 1, MORNING

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

On the 22nd day of February, 2024, the

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

to 12:00 p.m.
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P R O C E E D I N G S

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning and 

welcome back. For those of you who don't remember my 

name, it's Cindy Jeffries, and those listening from the 

public who are joining us for the first time. I'm a 

Federal mediator with FMCS, and I'll be your facilitator 

for the morning session. It's my distinct pleasure to 

welcome you all back to session four of the United States 

Department’s negotiated rulemaking Student Debt Relief 

Committee. At this time, I'd like to welcome back the 

Federal negotiator, Tamy Abernathy, and turn it over to 

her. Tamy?

MS. ABERNATHY: Thank you, Cindy. Good 

morning and welcome to this session of negotiations 

relating to student debt relief, specifically the 

proposed regulations on the Secretary's authority to 

waive student loan debt based on a borrower's hardship. 

Before we get started, please join me in welcoming 

Undersecretary James Kvaal to provide our opening 

remarks. Undersecretary Kvaal?

MR. KVAAL: Thanks, Tamy. Thanks, 

Cindy. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. Good morning. 

Appreciate your coming back for this fourth round of 

rulemaking as we try to do everything we can to deliver 

student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible, as 
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quickly as possible. And as the Secretary has said 

repeatedly, President Biden and the Biden-Harris 

administration is not going to leave any stone unturned 

in our work to provide relief to borrowers. Seven and a 

half million borrowers are now enrolled in the SAVE Plan, 

the most affordable plan in history, and President Biden 

announced yesterday that 153,000 borrowers have now 

earned loan forgiveness under the SAVE Plan. Including 

these borrowers, nearly 3.9 million people have now been 

identified for loan relief due to the actions of this 

administration, including public servants, borrowers with 

disabilities and borrowers who were ripped off by forprofit colleges. But we're not done yet. We know that 

despite all of these efforts, there are still people who 

need help with their student loans, and they're not 

getting it. This committee has helped us draft four 

additional plans to offer relief to struggling borrowers. 

And thank you for that work. And today, we continue 

turning over another stone with a focus on borrowers 

experiencing hardship. Our goal here is to advance a 

regulatory proposal that focuses on the Secretary's 

existing and longstanding waiver authority to clarify how 

the Department will consistently and transparently 

deliver relief to borrowers. The proposal the committee 

will consider today outlines a few new ways to help 
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borrowers who are struggling to make payments on their 

loans, in other words, delivering relief to borrowers 

facing hardship. One way we can provide critical 

breathing room to these borrowers is to identify factors 

that may affect a borrower's ability to repay their loans 

and show hardship, including a borrower's total student 

loan balance, how much they have to pay compared to their 

income, and whether a borrower has a student loan debt 

that interferes with paying for basic needs, like getting 

food on the table and access to health care for their 

families. This proposal would also allow the Department 

to provide automatic relief to borrowers who are likely 

to be in default within two years. This is critical. A 

big reason the president has been pushing for student 

debt relief is to address the fact that before the 

pandemic, millions of borrowers struggled to repay their 

loans. By and large, borrowers who are struggling are 

people who have been failed by broken policies, and our 

student loan default system drives borrowers who are 

already facing financial hardships into a deeper hole. 

Today's proposal also leaves open paths for additional 

ideas on individualized relief or other automatic 

processes. And it was developed after careful 

consideration of the ideas suggested by members of this 

committee. So thank you. In addition to the negotiator's 
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feedback, we hope members of the public will watch the 

session and we welcome them to register to provide public 

testimony. And as always, there will be a later 

opportunity to submit written comments on the draft 

rules. I mentioned earlier that this committee has 

already discussed four other proposals for student debt 

relief. We took final consensus checks on those items in 

our December session, so we won't be discussing them 

today. But as a reminder, those categories are borrowers 

whose outstanding loan balances are more than they 

originally borrowed. Borrowers with loans that are older 

than 20 or 25 years. Borrowers who have been taken 

advantage of by career training programs that left them 

with high debt and no credential, or who attended schools 

with unacceptably high default rates. And borrowers who 

are otherwise eligible for loan forgiveness but haven't 

yet applied for relief. I want to thank the negotiators 

for all the work they put in thus far and for joining us 

in this additional session. And I want to thank the staff 

of the Department, who have been working very hard for 

many months now to go through these proposals, the 

feedback we've received from the committee and at other 

steps of this process, and all the background work to 

make these rulemaking sessions successful. Your work 

hasn't gone unnoticed, and I appreciate everything you've 
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done and your commitment to providing relief to students. 

So thanks, everybody. And on behalf of the Department, I 

look forward to some productive conversations today. 

Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 

Undersecretary. We appreciate your presence and your 

comments. At this point in time, we're going to take 

official roll call of record. And so when I call your 

name if you will just indicate your presence. For civil 

rights organizations, Wisdom Cole.

MR. COLE: Here.

MS. JEFFRIES: India Heckstall.

MS. HECKSTALL: Here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you both. Legal 

assistance organizations that represent students or 

borrowers. Kyra Taylor is the primary, but she's unable 

to attend today or tomorrow. So in her absence, Scott 

Waterman, the alternate, will preside at the table. 

Scott?

MR. WATERMAN: I'm here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. State 

officials, including state higher education, executive 

officers, state authorizing agencies and state regulators 

of institutions of higher education, Lane Thompson.

MS. THOMPSON: Here. Good morning.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, Lane. And her 

alternate Amber Gallup will not be joining us for either 

day. State Attorney General's, Yael Shavit.

MS. SHAVIT: Here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi. And the alternate 

slot in that continues to be vacant. Public institutions 

of higher education, including two-year and four-year 

institutions, Melissa Kunes.

MS. KUNES: I am here. Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. J.D. 

LaRock. It doesn't look like he is able to join us. 

Private nonprofit institutions of higher education, 

Angelika Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Good morning. I'm here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi. She's the primary, 

and she's joined by her alternate, Susan Teerink.

MS. TEERINK: I'm here. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: You're welcome. Welcome 

to you both. Proprietary institutions, the primary is 

Kathleen Dwyer.

MS. DWYER: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. And 

alternate, Belen Gonzalez. Belen was here, but it looks 

like she's left. Historically Black colleges and 

universities, tribal colleges and universities, and 
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minority-serving institutions, institutions of higher 

education eligible to receive Federal assistance under 

Title III, parts A and F, and Title V of the HEA. Sandra 

Boham is primary, and she is not able to join today or 

tomorrow. So Carol Peterson, the alternate, will be 

presiding at the table. Carol?

MS. PETERSON: Good morning. I'm here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Federal 

Family Education Loans, or FFEL lenders services or 

guarantee agencies. Scott Buchanan is primary. Scott, are 

you with us?

MR. BUCHANAN: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. And 

Benjamin Lee, his alternate is not able to attend today 

or tomorrow. Student loan borrowers who attended programs 

of two years or less, primary Ashley Pizzuti.

MS. PIZZUTI: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. And David 

Ramirez, her alternate is tentative. Are you here, David? 

Okay. He may join later on. Student loan borrowers who 

attended four-year programs, the primary Sherri Gammage 

is unable to attend, so the alternate Sarah Christa Butts 

will preside at the table in her absence. Sarah?

MS. BUTTS: Present. Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Student 
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loan borrowers who attended graduate programs, Richard 

Haase is primary.

MR. HAASE: Good morning. And 

actually, for today and tomorrow, Jalil Bishop and I will 

be switching. I'll be the alternate, and he will be 

primary.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Alright. But just 

make a note that when it comes to consensus taking 

tomorrow, if you are present, you are the one that 

partakes in that. Okay.

MR. HAASE: Okay.

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright. Thanks. And 

Dr. Jalil Bishop.

DR. BISHOP: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. Currently 

enrolled postsecondary education students, Jada Sanford 

is unable to attend, so Jordan Nellums the alternate will 

be presiding. Jordan?

MR. NELLUMS: Good morning. Here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. U.S. 

Military service members, veterans or groups representing 

them, the primary is Vincent Andrews.

MR. ANDREWS: Yeah. Here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi. And the alternate 

is vacant. Consumer advocates, Jessica Ranucci as 
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primary.

MS. RANUCCI: Good morning.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. And Ed 

Boltz as alternate.

MR. BOLTZ: Good morning. I'm present.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. And 

individuals with disabilities or groups representing 

them, John Whitelaw is primary. John?

MR. WHITELAW: Good morning, friends 

and colleagues.

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. And 

Waukecha Wilkerson, the alternate is unable to attend. 

And of course, we have our Federal negotiator, Tamy 

Abernathy.

MS. ABERNATHY: Here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Welcome back again, 

Tamy.

MS. ABERNATHY: Thank you, Cindy.

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright. So non-voting 

members present today from OGC are Brian Siegel, Toby 

Merrill, Genzie Torres, and Soren Legaard. They will be 

assisting off and on. The rest of the FMCS team that is 

present with me today is Mike Franczak, Brady Roberts, 

and John Weathers. We will- now we're going to address 

the process for the next two days, and then we'll be 
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turning it over to Tamy for her comments and to get us 

started. So first, let me remind you all to adhere to the 

naming convention, please. P for primary, A for 

alternate, followed by your name, and lastly, the 

constituency you are representing. Note on the chat 

feature. It will remain enabled during our sessions 

together. Please know that all messages sent out to the 

full group are subject to an ongoing transcript that will 

be posted publicly on the OPE site after the 

negotiations. I want to remind everyone that the 

protocols that you agreed to in the first three sessions 

are still in effect for this session and will be adhered 

to. These two days will solely be focused on the topic of 

hardship, which the Department has provided all of you 

with proposed regulatory text. We will not be reopening 

any previous issues or regulatory text that were 

discussed, and consensus was taken on during the first 

three sessions. If the primary for a constituency group 

is unable to attend this session, the alternate will 

serve in the absence for the purpose of consensus, which 

will be held on day two of this session. If both the 

primary and alternate are unable to attend, it will not 

hold up consensus. As many of your proposed changes, 

suggestions, and questions should be asked at the table 

or presented at the table to the extent possible. The 
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Department will address what they can, but no expectation 

of a response should be assumed. The Department may 

accept written proposals, data requests, and questions. 

Given this session is two back-to-back days, the 

Department will consider what they can at the end of 

today and before the start of tomorrow's sessions. There 

will be a public comment period at the end of today's 

session, and we have reserved one hour from 3:00 to 4:00 

Eastern Time for public comment. At that time, registered 

individuals will be admitted one at a time at their 

scheduled time into our Zoom.gov meeting from the waiting 

room and permitted three minutes to speak. They will be 

removed from the session when the remarks or time are 

completed. The Department has posted the registration 

link for that on their website. There will be a different 

link for the afternoon session, which we will announce 

again just before lunch break. Now I'm going to turn it 

over to Tamy to begin review and discussion on the 

proposed regulatory text regarding hardship and any 

additional opening comments she'd like to make. Tamy?

MS. ABERNATHY: Thank you again, 

Cindy. I do want to make one clarifying statement from 

the remarks that you made. Because this is only a two 

session- a fourth session for our rulemaking, we will not 

be filling data requests. So we ask that you respect that 
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there's no way that we'd be able to get anything 

fulfilled before we have to end our negotiations. So I 

want to take a few minutes to further explain the process 

for the next few days. We will review and discuss the 

proposed regulatory text today and tomorrow. And while 

the Department may consider changes, you may suggest the 

proposed regulations, we may need additional time to 

consider your suggestions. And as with our prior 

sessions, we just cannot guarantee we will accept those 

suggested changes. This is the final negotiated 

rulemaking session on student debt relief. Since we are 

only discussing one section, we're not going to do 

temperature checks. We are going to ask for final 

consensus on this section of the proposed regulatory text 

overall and not on individual pieces by the end of 

tomorrow's session. During this session, we're not going 

to discuss the other items that we took final consensus 

checks on in December. Our screen sharers will now share 

our section 30.91. Most of the regulatory text sections 

we discussed in our prior sessions were within newly 

proposed subpart (g) of 34, Code of Federal Regulations, 

part 30 and covered section 30.80 through section 30.90. 

This language will be included in subpart (g) proposed 

new section 30.91. We're going to start with an overview 

of the proposed regulatory text. We appreciate all the 
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white papers, information, and proposals for the hardship 

category that many of you provided last session. This is 

a very complex topic, and we thank you for the input that 

you did provide to us. The Department's regulatory 

proposal focuses on our existing and long-standing waiver 

authority to clarify how the Department will consistently 

and transparently deliver relief to as many borrowers as 

possible, as quickly as possible. With the focus in this 

session on borrowers who have experienced or are 

experiencing hardship. This proposed regulatory text 

defines the conditions that may be considered as hardship 

for purposes of debt relief. The regulations also 

identify the factors that may indicate hardship. Once 

finalized, the regulatory text would provide the 

Department with the structure to offer multiple pathways 

to relief. The proposed text outlines an automatic 

pathway for relief for borrowers at heightened risk of 

default using such factors. It also describes the pathway 

for relief through an application. However, important 

questions remain with respect to administrative capacity 

and how the factors could be considered for determining 

relief for specific borrowers who apply. We are seeking 

input from you and through the public comment process. As 

a reminder, because this language is within subpart (g)

of part 30, this proposed regulatory language applies to 
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Department held loans, including Direct Loans, Federal 

Family Education Loans, FFEL loans, Perkins Loans, and 

Health Education Assistance Loans or HEAL loans. This 

language does not cover FFEL loans held by lenders, 

institutional-held Perkins Loans, and HEAL Loans in 

repayment. Let's first look at the overall structure of 

the text and how each paragraph relates to the others. 

Broadly speaking, paragraph (a) would set a standard for 

student debt relief based on borrower hardship. Paragraph 

B lays out a list of non-exclusive, relevant factors that 

the Secretary may use in determining whether a borrower 

has or is experiencing hardship. Paragraphs (c) and (d)

describe how the Department will deliver the relief. At 

this time, I'd like the screen sharer to share paragraph 

(a) of the text, please. The Department proposes two 

standards for determining hardship. First, we would 

determine if a borrower is experiencing or has 

experienced hardship based on whether such hardship is 

likely to impair the borrower's ability to fully repay 

the Federal Government. This may be determined by 

considering the factors enumerated in paragraph (b), as 

well as any other factors the Secretary determines 

relevant. The factors laid out in paragraph (b) may 

impact whether a borrower is capable of fully repaying 

off their debt over the life of the loan without some 
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form of debt relief. Second, the Department would 

determine hardship based on whether the costs of 

enforcing the full amount of the debt are not justified 

by the expected benefits of continued collection of the 

entire debt. This is an independent standard for relief. 

A borrower may be eligible for relief under this 

standard, even if the borrower is not eligible for relief 

based on their inability to fully repay. The Secretary 

may determine the costs and benefits of collection by 

considering the factors enumerated in paragraph (b), as 

well as any other factors the Secretary determines are 

relevant to showing hardship. The regulatory text does 

not define costs, and the concept broadly includes a 

number of ways of thinking about costs. For example, the 

Secretary could consider costs beyond costs to the 

Government. Once finalized, these regulations would 

specify clear standards for the Department's 

consideration of student debt forgiveness based on 

borrower hardship. These standards are distinct from the 

Federal Claims Collection Standards, or FCCS, because the 

FCCS are not specific to the kind of relief that would be 

provided by the proposed text. These standards draw on 

principles the Government commonly considers in deciding 

whether to forgive outstanding debts. In this case, 

however, these standards specifically apply to student 
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loans, not any other type of debt owed to the Department. 

The standards would not only allow automatic relief as 

described in paragraph (c) but would also provide the 

Department with the ability to establish pathways to 

relief based on the factors in paragraph (b) through an 

automatic process or an application-based process in the 

future. I'd like to turn it over to FMCS now to open up 

the discussion and answer any questions on paragraph (a). 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Tamy. 

If we could stop the screen share. Appreciate it. I want 

to give a thanks to everyone behind the scenes making all 

of this work for us. Our screen sharers, I believe this 

Vanessa Freeman today and all of the wonderful production 

team that's making the live broadcast work for us. So 

with that, let's open up for discussion on paragraph (a)

of the proposed regulatory text. Jessica Ranucci.

MS. RANUCCI: Good morning. I have a 

couple of specific things then I'll get back in line, but 

I just wanted to kick this off by saying that I strongly 

support the Department's proposal to extend its waiver 

authority to situations based on financial hardship. I 

think you heard loud and clear from the committee last 

time that this was really important to our 

constituencies. You know, personally, I will say we have, 

you know, many, many, many clients who experience 
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significant financial hardship and for whom regulations 

like this can be a critical benefit. People who, you 

know- or here in New York City have trouble affordingafford housing, afford food, and who are saddled with 

student loan debt. So I want to thank the Department. I 

think you heard us. I appreciate that you called us back 

here and that, you know, I hope that, you know, we're 

able to negotiate throughout the day. I think that you 

know, I have some feedback you'll hear from me. But just 

to start off on that note.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 

Jessica. Yael.

MS. SHAVIT: I want to also add my 

thanks. It was really heartening to see the neg reg 

scheduled and I'm really enthusiastic about what will be 

achieved over the course of the next couple of days. So 

really, many thanks to the Department for going through 

this process and bringing us back here. And I will also 

sort of get back in line for more specific points, but I 

do want to note that I support and think it's very 

important to take a broad approach to costs as you 

described, Tamy. I think that there are a lot of costs 

that the Department should take into consideration, 

including the impact of continuing to need to make 

efforts to repay debt on people based on the 
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circumstances that are- that the Department is informed 

of when people who are facing a hardship do in fact raise 

their hardship to the Department. And ensuring that the 

Department has the greatest flexibility to consider such 

costs, I think, is critical. So thank you for that 

clarification as well.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Yael. Jalil?

DR. BISHOP: Thank you. Again, I'll 

echo the sentiments and just express appreciation to 

Department for creating another session so that we can 

really have a discussion around hardship, which I think 

is kind of the cornerstone of this rulemaking process, 

that for us to be able to really use an evidence-based 

approach to identify and not leave borrowers behind but

try to create a broad approach to include borrowers who 

really are in need and who are experiencing hardship. 

Just appreciation there and, you know, appreciation to 

the advocates both in and off the committee who really 

helped to make this session happen. And I think one 

question I have for Department, if we could just- it 

would help me if you could voice over a little bit more 

what's meant by borrower's ability to fully repay? So 

does this mean if a borrower cannot repay within a 

certain amount of time, does it mean if a borrower is 

showing some type of indication that payment is unlikely? 
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But just trying- for me, it would be helpful if I could 

get a little more voice-over around a borrower's ability 

to fully repay and what we mean by fully.

MS. ABERNATHY: Thank you for asking 

that. The factors laid out in paragraph (b) can impact 

whether a borrower ultimately is capable of fully paying 

off their debt over the life of the loan without some 

form of debt relief. I think that some of our 

conversations will help us form and formulate new ideas 

as to how to identify the very things that you're 

mentioning, Jalil. And so I think as we go through the 

day and we go through the rest of the reg text, I think 

it will- we want to seek your input. We want to hear from 

you on this. We want to know what you think about certain 

things and giving us some ideas to where we could enhance 

what we're already trying to put at the table.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, both. 

Lane, you're next.

MS. THOMPSON: Yeah, I have a question 

and a comment. My comment is that I would like to see 

cost applied in a very broad manner, mostly to say that 

there's cost to communities, to states, to schools, to, 

you know, lots of institutions as well. So just kind of 

saying that I really appreciate that inclusion and that 

cost can mean a lot of things. My question is about 
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commercial FFEL loans. Right now, it's kind of front of 

mind with the one-time account adjustment that's going to 

be completed by July of this year. Really trying to get 

everybody into a Direct Loan right now. So I guess I'm 

just wondering, you know, with this specifically kind of 

how the Department imagines the Commercial FFEL Loans 

fitting in.

MS. ABERNATHY: As I mentioned, at 

this point, these are going to be Department held loans. 

So Commercial FFEL is not a Department held loan. So at 

this point in time, we are not considering FFEL or this 

hardship regulation.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Lane 

and Tamy. Angelika, you are next.

MS. WILLIAMS: Yes. I just have 

clarification from one of my first clarifying questions. 

Are we allowed to submit comments regarding paragraph 

(b)? 

MS. JEFFRIES: We're going to move to 

paragraph (b) next. We're going to take them paragraph by 

paragraph.

MS. WILLIAMS: Okay, no problem.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Alright, thank 

you. Jessica?

MS. RANUCCI: Hi. I just have one 
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minor comment to start, which is that I think the 

Department may want to consider using the word waiver 

rather than forgiveness in the title, just to be parallel 

with some of the other things in the regs. But that's 

your decision, not mine. Substantively, I think there's 

one group of borrowers that I'd like to make sure are 

included in here which are borrowers who have court 

judgments against them. Here in New York City, we see 

these borrowers, I know that they're common across the 

country. You know, I have clients who are facing 

homelessness and have a judgment from the Department. 

Those judgments can be a real hardship on people and 

often people get to the point of having a judgment 

against them because of the extreme hardship that they've 

experienced. That's led to that point, as you noted, the 

hardship that can come with default. I think, you know, 

having a judgment against you from the Department is 

often just bad luck in different geographic areas across 

the country are treated differently here in New York. 

People with low balances who live in Brooklyn, Queens and 

Staten Island can get sued on their student loans. 

Whereas if you happen to live in Manhattan, which is more 

expensive, you can't get sued unless you have a higher 

judgment amount. So I understand the legal framework for 

judgments can be complicated, and there may be external 
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reasons why people with judgments aren't always eligible 

for waiver. But I would propose that the Department not 

tie its hands here and just add into this language 

something along the lines of whether or not such loan has 

been reduced to judgment. That would just essentially 

preserve the Department's flexibility going forward to 

apply these financial hardship standards to loans with 

judgments. I think that that's a population that really 

experiences financial hardship, that often doesn't have 

eligibility for other forms of relief, and I can put that 

language in.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 

Jessica. Appreciate it. Other comments, questions, or 

suggestions for the Department on paragraph (a)? Wisdom.

MR. COLE: Good morning. I was 

wondering if as just a clarifying question, if folks were 

to consolidate their loans into direct, would they still 

be eligible?

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes. If they are a 

Direct Loan borrower, which would include consolidation, 

they would be- it would be included. Yes.

MR. COLE: Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. John 

Whitelaw.

MR. WHITELAW: Yes. And that sort of 
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hesitation of trying to, I think, quote correct 

something, my friend Jessica said, I think when she said 

financial hardship, she means hardship more generally not 

a narrow definition in terms of financial hardship. But 

that being said, I totally agree with her approach to 

that and that it's- and I do think I, you know, I want to 

express my appreciation for the Department for coming 

forward with this complicated process. But I do think 

it's important in terms of how we discuss it, to talk 

about hardship more generally than in a narrow financial 

hardship context, and that there are other things that 

are beyond a narrow version of what financial hardship 

means directly. And that I again, I encourage, just as 

the Department has indicated, I think earlier, that it's 

going to view the terms costs of enforcement broadly and 

beyond the quote, mere costs to the Government. I applaud 

that approach and encourage the Department to apply that 

approach to all of the various subparts that we're going 

to discuss today.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, John. Tamy, 

you had your hand up. Do you?

MS. ABERNATHY: I was simply just 

going to thank everybody, and I just decided that I would 

just do that when I started paragraph (b). Sorry.

MS. JEFFRIES: Oh, no worries, no 
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worries. Anyone else on paragraph (a)? Jalil.

DR. BISHOP: Just clarification. I 

want to make sure I understood this correctly. As we 

discuss paragraph (b), we'll be able to come back to 

touch on some of the items like cost or fully repay or 

benefits of continued collection. I just- that was my 

understanding from kind of Tamy's response to me is that 

when we get into section (b), we also can have a 

discussion around kind of how those two paragraphs 

interplay. So I just wanted to clarify that before we 

move to (b). 

MS. ABERNATHY: Absolutely.

DR. BISHOP: Okay.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Alright. I don't 

see any further hands-on paragraph (a), Tamy. So you want 

to take us into paragraph (b)? 

MS. ABERNATHY: I would love to, 

Cindy. Thank you. If the screen sharers would put 

paragraph (b), section (b) up, that would be great. 

Excuse me, paragraph (b) up. I'm getting my sections in 

my paragraphs mixed up. Moving on to paragraph (b). This 

paragraph is a list of the non-exclusive factors that we 

believe could be relevant to determining hardship. We're 

interested in your feedback regarding these factors. 

These are factors are used alone or in combination with 
26

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

other factors to relate to showing hardship. Under these 

proposed regulations, the Secretary could consider the 

borrower's total debt balances owed on the eligible loans 

in providing relief to borrowers, which was a 

recommendation taken from our last session. This list 

also includes predictive factors, including many that the 

Department already has, such as time and repayment, loan 

status, degree attainment, repayment plan, institution 

attended, outstanding debt, Pell Grant recipient, income 

reported on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid 

or the FAFSA and completion status. There are also 

borrower-specific factors that the Department does not 

have that could also be used. This includes things 

brought up in prior negotiation sessions, such as 

borrower's disability or the cost burden from things like 

medical or dependent care. The ways in which the 

Department would use these factors are described in 

paragraphs (c) and (d), which will be discussed later. 

For now, we want to focus on whether this is the right 

list of factors or not. So with that in mind, we'll turn 

it back over to FMCS for discussion and questions on 

paragraphs (b), excuse me, (b). 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Tamy, 

for walking us through that. So we'll open the floor for 

discussion, questions, suggestions. Angelika? Thank you 
27

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

for leading us off.

MS. WILLIAMS: No problem. I apologize 

about earlier. It's still 7:00 here on the West Coast. So 

I'm catching up, I apologize. Yes. I just have questions 

about item number seven. It says receipt of a Pell Grant 

and other information from the FAFSA form. Now, one is 

referring to the result of the FAFSA, while one is- it 

appears to be referring to the data reported on the 

FAFSA. And we know that the FAFSA has also changed from 

prior to the current year that we were in. So really 

trying to get a hold on the reference of what other 

information is being referred to reported on the FAFSA as 

some elements may shift from year over year. And also 

wondering if students or the Department will have access 

to FAFSA information after the FAFSA year has closed. So 

one appears to be reporting to a- referring to (a)(2). So 

not sure if it's referring to me-based aid as a holistic 

point of view, whether the student has received FSEOG or 

other need-based aid. It appears to be referring to two 

different particular areas is what I'm seeing. And also 

the [inaudible] area may be of a concern when you're 

referring to the significant changes that recently 

happened to the FAFSA form.

MS. ABERNATHY: So first off, we're 

looking at Pell Grant recipients. So we haven't to my 
28

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

knowledge, and we'll have to discuss this, but we have 

not looked at need-based aid as far as FSEOG or Federal 

Work Study. We have not explored that option, but we do 

know that the data that we received when a borrower was 

in school, because more than likely, these borrowers are 

no longer in school because they're experiencing hardship 

because they're in repayment. And that would be something 

as if they were a Pell Grant recipient in the past. As 

far as data received on changes in FAFSA, you know, what 

we plan to do is use these factors in conjunction with 

each other to kind of get at the heart of where a 

borrower might be in their repayment or experiencing 

their hardship. So we might use a Pell Grant recipient, 

we might use additional information received from the 

borrower themselves. And it's meant to be again, not an 

all-inclusive list. So as far as the other questions 

we'll have to take the rest of your question back and 

come back with an answer when we've had a chance to 

digest it a little bit more. But I hope that at least 

answers part of your question.

MS. JEFFRIES: Angelika, anything you 

wanted to add?

MS. WILLIAMS: I'll just put more 

clarifying notes in the chat here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay.
29

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

MS. WILLIAMS: But yeah, Tamy did 

fulfill my comments.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thanks. I have a 

note here that Richard Haase is stepping in as primary 

for graduate borrowers, and he is in the queue. But 

before him is Ashley Pizzuti.

MS. PIZZUTI: Hi. Thank you. I just 

want some clarification about- I know it's going to bethe hardship is going to be around household income. Is 

the household debt also going to be considered? 

Especially for those married filing jointly. I know quite 

a few married couples who also have partners with student 

loan debt. Some of that debt is private. There's also 

medical debt. And other debts that should be weighed 

against that. Or is that only considering the actual 

person holding the student loan debt? So I just want some 

clarification regarding if debt- total household debt is 

going to be taken into consideration.

MS. ABERNATHY: I think one of the 

things that the Department is trying to do is to have a 

very broad stroke across what hardship means for each 

individual borrower. And while we have some ways of 

identifying certain things, we certainly will not know

borrower specific hardship issues until they explain it 

to us, until they show it to us. And that may be an 
30

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

application process. So it's the debt of the borrower. 

But we do also welcome thoughts on the non-student loan 

debt. So I think that if you have suggestions for that 

that would be helpful. We will detail the expenses of the 

household, childcare, health care and things like that. 

So I think we're trying to take that broad approach and 

look at it holistically.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. 

Richard.

MR. HAASE: Hi. Good morning. Yes. 

Actually, my question was and my comment were kind of 

related to that as well. I do appreciate identifying the 

factors that are substantiating hardship here that we've 

created room to recognize costs of things like housing 

and household income and how all these things factor in 

here. So I just wanted to clarify and again, thank the 

Department if we're now creating some of this breathing 

room to adjust for regionally- regional variations and 

cost of living because I know that's something that we've 

discussed in the past. So I am thankful that that's 

there. I did have one question here. I was curious if 

there was any discussion about borrowers who were harmed 

by servicer errors or anything like that if that came up 

in any of the hardship discussion. Because I don't see 

those people identified here.
31

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

MS. JEFFRIES: Not sure that Tamy has 

an immediate response to that.

MS. ABERNATHY: I do, I do.

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright.

MS. ABERNATHY: Trying to find my 

button. Sorry. When servicing errors are made, we fix 

them and we seek to hold our borrowers harmless. And we 

have addressed many historical servicer errors through 

the IDR account adjustment. So in this particular 

instance, we are looking at the hardship of the borrowers 

and all of those non-exhaustive lists of factors and 

other things in the reg text that we've proposed.

MR. HAASE: Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Scott 

Waterman.

MR. WATERMAN: Thank you. Question for 

Tamy. How do you define household?

MS. ABERNATHY: I think for the 

purposes of this proposed regulatory text, we probably 

will take that back. I don't know that we are going to 

define household any differently than we define it in 

other ways when we talk about the FAFSA and the household 

size. But I'd like to take that one back. So let us

circle back with you on that, Scott, if that's okay.

MS. JEFFRIES: Tamy. Would you like 
32

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

that in the chat?

MS. ABERNATHY: I would absolutely 

like that in the chat, Cindy. Thank you for suggesting 

that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright. Scott, can you 

take care of that for us? Thank you. Next up is Ed Boltz, 

who has come to the table in place of the primary. So, 

Ed. Ed you're on mute.

MR. BOLTZ: Thank you. I'm sorry about 

that. I wanted to follow up related to two of the recent 

things that were brought up. The first is, I'm very 

grateful, especially with the past things, you know, that 

the Department has said in regards to the consumer debt 

balances under (b)(6) here, that, you know, my hope and 

is that there's further clarification that borrowers who 

are getting other sorts of debt relief, whether that's 

through other programs, bankruptcy or elsewhere, that the 

fact that they're getting that relief is that the other 

debt balances will be used as of the date of, you know, 

when they're going in. Not that the fact that they're 

getting, whether it's a bankruptcy discharge of some 

debts or getting assistance from a, you know, regarding a 

mortgage deficiency from a housing finance authority, 

that those don't get held against them, where they have 

to choose between student loan relief and saving their 
33

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

home in many circumstances. And I also, in regards to the 

questions about servicer errors that were just brought 

up, I do want to again commend the Department for its 

work with the Department of Justice, wherein its student 

loan guidance for bankruptcy discharges. It fully 

recognized that a lot of the hardships that borrowers 

suffered were because servicers often put people into 

improper forbearances, rather than the appropriate Income 

Driven Repayment Plan over time, and hope that that can 

be reiterated as part of this hardship process, too. 

Because that goes to show, you know, that many people who 

didn't pay on their student loans or enroll in IDR 

programs did so not because of their own errors, but 

because of servicers and who, you know, and the despair 

that they were put into because of the servicer problems. 

But thank you for all of this good work.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Ed, I 

appreciate that. I just want to make a note that Jalil 

has come back to the table as primary. So next up is Lane 

Thompson.

MS. THOMPSON: Yeah. I also wanted to 

speak to the servicer error and malfeasance topic. I know 

this has been a big topic that I've been bringing to the 

table, but it's because I work directly with borrowers. 

And a lot of times the reason they end up with me is 
34

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

because they've exhausted every other possible route to 

address the issue. And generally that's because the issue 

is completely outside of their control. Meaning the 

hardship was that the servicer incorrectly copied and 

pasted the wrong social security number, or the servicer 

lost the last payment history prior to 2006 or the 

servicer. So I just really want to point out that 

borrowers are not being held harmless for servicer error. 

Borrowers are being expected to pay on loans that there 

is poor record keeping on. And I just really want to keep 

that front of mind. I think there's a lot of really 

excellent stuff covered here and hardship, and I want to 

make sure that we're really including those hardships 

that were 100% completely outside of people's control. So 

that's kind of why I bring up FFELP, the commercial loans 

as well, because folks didn't decide to take loans that 

aren't owned by the Department. Right. That had to do 

with the time period they took them out. So just really 

reiterating that there is a big issue with servicer 

error. It's not a one off that borrowers are held 

harmless. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Lane. I just 

want to welcome back Jessica Ranucci to the table as 

primary again. With that, next up is Yael Shavit.

MS. SHAVIT: Hi. Thank you. So I do 
35

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

also want to speak to servicing error and to two 

particular pieces of it. So first, while I do appreciate 

the efforts that the Department has made recently to 

address historical servicing failures, I think it's 

incontrovertible that there are many borrowers who are 

facing the burdens of debt that they would not be in 

right now were it not for historical servicing errors, 

and that the experience of borrowers writ large in this 

regard is not that they feel that they've been held 

harmless, or that practically they have been held 

harmless. And so I do think it is critical that the 

Department create space and take into consideration the 

consequences of servicing failures in its hardship 

standard. And one thing that I also want to make sure 

isn't lost in this discussion. I think when we talk about 

servicing error, it is often the case that like we go 

into our heads into a place where it seems like we're 

only talking about historical servicing error. There's 

absolutely no reason to think that there will not be 

significant servicing errors going forward. And while I 

think we all really hope that that doesn't happen, there 

are reasons to think right now that that is likely not 

going to be the case. Right. And you know, again, while 

everyone hopes that where there are servicing errors, it 

will be easy to fix them, I think it's critical, given 
36

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

how hard the Department has needed to work over the last 

few years, to try and address the historical failures to 

ensure that there's an avenue for the Department to deal 

with those in a manner that can be, you know, expedited 

and more straightforward when they do happen going 

forward. And so, again, I think when considering what 

hardship means and all of the relevant components here, 

servicing error needs to be part of that conversation 

internally for the Department. And again, that doesn't 

just mean correcting problems that happened in the past. 

That means creating avenues for addressing problems that 

arise in the future. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Sarah Butts?

MS. BUTTS: Good morning. Thank you 

for the opportunity to comment here. I'd like to 

encourage the Department to consider as a factor of 

public service workers who have provided often ten years 

or more of public service and may still have remaining 

loans. There are any number of reasons why that could 

occur, some of which are servicing errors. There are 

also, as we know, many public service professionals, 

including frontline health care workers who just simply 

don't qualify for forgiveness. And so we would like that 

to be a factor considered as part of hardship. Also, I 

ask that the Department consider it hardships from lost 
37

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

loved ones, particularly over the last few years during 

COVID-19, many students lost parents, grandparents and 

other family members who were contributing or could 

contribute to their higher education costs. And they are 

experiencing hardship. But it may not be apparent unless 

we look for that information. And then I did have one 

question, which is, are Parent PLUS borrowers considered 

at all through what's being proposed?

MS. JEFFRIES: Not sure. Tamy may have 

to get back to you on that, Sarah. Oh, she might have 

something.

MS. ABERNATHY: Direct loans. Yes. 

PLUS borrowers with Direct Loans, yes, are included in 

this. And I just wanted to say thank you for all of the 

suggestions and I know I'm not chiming in every single 

time that you guys are saying them. But I am writing them 

down and we have a whole team that's writing these down. 

We really appreciate the formative discussion and the 

suggestions that you're making, and we will certainly 

take them back and look at them very seriously.

MS. BUTTS: Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. John 

Whitelaw.

MR. WHITELAW: Yes. I just wanted to 

comment on the term household. And I would urge the 
38

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

Department to take a very broad approach to determining a 

household. And to note that different Government agencies 

take different positions on what is a household. But from 

my experience working with families, families are 

complicated. They are often people in households who may 

not even be technically in the blood sense related to 

other people in the household, but they are functioning 

as a household. And I would urge the Department to take a 

broad view and not pin that when they get to be talking 

about this, not necessarily as defining it in a 

regulation, but actually employing the test to be 

flexible in who is considered a member of the household. 

There are many families who raised children who are not 

related to them, not as part of any foster care system or 

anything official, but they are clearly part of a 

household. And I would just urge the Department if it's 

looking for either a regulatory or a subregulatory 

definition, to be very careful about defining it in a way 

that doesn't cover the expanse of families who live 

together in the United States. So I would just urge you 

to be very cautious about limiting that definition in a 

way that would remove your ability to count people when 

the circumstances suggest that it makes sense because

they are functioning as a household, regardless of their 

legal relationship.
39

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, John. Next 

up is Jalil.

DR. BISHOP: I have a clarifying 

question and then a comment. Tamy, for Parent PLUS 

borrowers, are you saying Parent PLUS borrowers who 

consolidate will be eligible, like the consolidation into 

a Direct Loan?

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes. Direct Loans are 

eligible. That is correct.

DR. BISHOP: Thank you. And then I 

think the, you know, looking through the 17 kind of 

factors of hardship, I think we have a good start here 

and possibly regulation that can really create the 

relief. And I would even argue kind of the justice 

approach that's needed around student debt when we 

understand how hardship is unequally spread across 

communities of color, low-income communities, women, and 

women of color. And so on. I think what is going to 

matter here is the technicalities of how this policy is 

implemented and how we're defining terms here. So, for 

example, if we are going to return to a 25-year window to 

determine someone's- the cost of enforcing full 

repayment, I think that can be really limiting for 

borrowers who need relief right now. I always like to 

remind us in these discussions that when someone takes 
40

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

out a student loan, that their goal of taking out that 

student loan wasn't simply to repay the loan, but it was 

to take out a student loan in order to have a thriving 

life, in order to build to have class mobility, to build 

to save for a home, to start a family, to build to 

contribute to retirement. And that when we're trying to 

understand the cost, we want to have that broad 

perspective of saying, what does it mean to keep people 

trapped in a student debt that's extracting from those 

original reasons why they took out the student debt? And 

I just ask us to keep a broad definition of how we 

understand cost, how we understand what it means to 

measure whether or not a borrower can fully repay. And 

then understand the larger cost to society by having 40 

million plus borrowers under this extracting debt, 

understanding the cost to our economic growth, to our 

growth of businesses, to the cost of communities of 

color, having generations, both parents and grandparents 

and young adults having their wealth and income extracted 

each month. All of these costs are things that I'm just 

strongly encouraging the Department to shape and how they 

implement this policy, because this can be great in the 

regulatory text, but can then implementation be really 

limited if we go back to sometimes narrow frames. And 

then to end, my last question is that we mentioned Pell 
41

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

Grant borrowers as an indication of hardship. But can we 

speak to Parent PLUS borrowers who took out a Parent PLUS 

Loan while their child received a Pell Grant?

MR. WEATHERS: Jalil, you have 30 

seconds left.

DR. BISHOP: We know from the data 

that 59% of Parent PLUS borrowers since 2000 received a 

Parent PLUS Loan when they took out the Pell- when their 

student took out a Pell Grant. So can we include them in 

this Pell Grant hardship factor?

MS. ABERNATHY: So I first want to 

clarify something. When you ask the question about if a 

FFEL PLUS Loan borrower consolidated into the Direct Loan 

program, would they be eligible for if they were 

experiencing hardship? I also wanted to just clarify that 

an unconsolidated Parent PLUS Loan would be eligible 

already. So I just wanted to make sure that we completely 

clarified that. I didn't want to have any confusion 

around that. The other thing is these are amazing 

suggestions that you guys are giving us so much to think 

about. It would be really helpful if you had some 

proposed regulatory language that you could put in the 

chat for us if you have some suggestions on text. It's 

not that we want a whole list of huge proposals, but if 

you have an idea of, you know, how to define household or 
42

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

some of the things that you've been mentioning, and you 

have a few words to help us take back and look at, that 

would be super helpful.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Tamy. And I 

just want to reinforce that you know, given the short 

turnaround here, the sooner the Department can get those 

types of proposed regulatory texts. Doesn't have to be, 

like, detailed. But like Tamy said, if you have an idea 

of how to define household in a few words, put it, you 

know, put it in the chat, get it to them as soon as 

possible. Okay. And that's why I said in the beginning, 

if you have suggestions on regulatory texts, let's try to 

get them out there today and then so that they can be in 

the brain going into recess today. Alright. Jessica. 

Tamy, did you have something else or?

MS. ABERNATHY: I do. I also want to 

remind everybody that paragraph 17 says that the 

Secretary may consider any other indicators of hardship. 

So we are using those very broad strokes that all of you 

are mentioning to us. And I just wanted to point that to 

your attention.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Tamy. Jessica 

Ranucci for consumer advocates. I think you're on mute, 

Jessica.

MS. RANUCCI: Sorry. Again, I just 
43

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

want to, you know, state my strong support for what the 

Department is trying to do here. I really appreciate that 

you have taken into account what we've put forth in terms 

of a financial hardship that millions of Americans are 

facing and how urgently this relief is needed. I think I 

would just encourage at a high level the Department to 

try its best to make sure that borrowers are not going to 

fall into sort of like an accidental pitfall, I would 

say, in accessing this relief, you know, whether that be 

their servicer made a mistake or that, you know, they 

weren't aware of the value that could be had of 

consolidating their commercially held FFEL or HEAL Loans. 

And I think there's- I have a couple minor tweaks to the 

language to that. And I would look at, you know, (9) and 

(10). I think in my work, I often will see a student who 

attends one program that, you know, maybe at a school 

that closed, for example, or a program that didn't work 

out and then is funneled into another similar program 

ends up leaving, you know, we'll often see students in 

like a cascade of school closures. And so I think it 

would be really- I wouldn't want that student to somehow 

not get relief to which they would otherwise be entitled 

just because they tried a second school and then left 

after a week because it didn't work out, for example. So 

I want to put some language in the chat that's just an 
44

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

attempt to clarify that I think the Department should 

take into any school or program-related factors should 

take into consideration, like any attendance at any 

program. And you shouldn't, you know, just because you 

went to one program shouldn't exclude you from relief 

that was related to another program if that makes sense. 

But the overall point is just, you know, I appreciate 

what you're doing here. And I think I'd like to make sure 

there aren't sort of accidental pitfalls.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 

Jessica, appreciate that. Lane?

MS. THOMPSON: Yeah. I have maybe a 

question and a suggestion around disability. My question 

is there's already a total and permanent disability 

discharge. So I guess my question is kind of what is the 

Department thinking in terms of how disability might look 

like a hardship other than total and permanent?

MS. ABERNATHY: So we're looking at it 

very broadly and we would have to look at it on a, you 

know, a case-by-case basis and what the borrower presents 

to us through an application process, because we 

obviously wouldn't have those pieces of information that 

we could pull from. So when the borrower reaches out to 

us and reports it to us, and maybe they have issues that 

don't reach to the level of the total and permanent 
45

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

disability, we're going to look at that. And as we build 

this hardship path to forgiveness, we're going to look at 

all of those different factors as the borrowers present 

that information to us, and we're going to take 

everything into consideration at that time. So it would 

be we're not looking to narrowly define every piece of 

what a hardship could be because hardship is different 

for everybody. And I think if we try to narrowly define a 

hardship, then we will most definitely miss. And we don't 

want to do that to ourselves. We don't want to regulate 

ourselves into a very narrow path. The whole purpose of 

what we're trying to do in 30.91 is to have these broad 

strokes pathways to relief for borrowers who are 

experiencing hardship. We're looking at the information 

we do have on our systems past, you know, schools, debt 

level, Pell Grant recipient, indicators of low-income 

borrowers, things like that that can help us make 

informed decisions and additional information provided by 

our borrowers to help us meet them where they are in 

their respective situations.

MS. THOMPSON: Great. So my suggestion 

on that same note is that I would really encourage the 

Department to allow doctors, medical professionals to 

write a letter saying this is the disability rather than 

having to fill out a form. The forms that currently 
46

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

exist, doctors tend to really not like. So I just want to 

put that out there that it would be great if there's any 

space for like just a wider net on what's acceptable to 

document disabilities. Yeah. Just to clarify that 

doctors, for some reason, they really do not like filling 

out those forms. And they would, in a lot of cases,

prefer to write their own letter. And kind of, you know, 

not say things like, when will this disability end, for 

example. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Lane. 

Appreciate it. Jalil?

DR. BISHOP: I just want to come back 

to uplift the idea that for I think particularly for a 

Parent PLUS borrowers I know that the Department received 

a letter from a group of Senators this week advocating 

for Parent PLUS borrowers to be more explicitly included 

in regulatory texts. And I think as some of the 

negotiators are already asked for clarification, if 

borrowers are going to see this regulatory text, it's 

important for them to see themselves in the text so that 

they know that they're a part of intended relief. So I 

think something that explicitly can call out that Parent 

PLUS Loans are included in this text will be important if 

we want to reach those borrowers who have been excluded 

from other regulatory relief, such as the SAVE Plan. I 
47

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

think it's important to have them explicitly called out 

and named here so that they know that this is not another 

moment when their type of loan is excluded from relief.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jalil. And I 

would encourage you to if you have a few words of 

regulatory text on that to put it in the chat. Okay. 

Thank you. John Whitelaw.

MR. WHITELAW: Thank you. I just 

wanted to provide some clarification, perhaps to answer 

in part, Lane's questions. The standard for TPD is quite 

onerous. And there are people who are disabled in every 

real sense, but for various reasons, including ones 

you've mentioned, not being able to qualify for TPD. And 

I want to and I think putting disability in as long as 

folks understand that that means the entire point of the 

hardship exception is to grant hardship to people who 

don't otherwise qualify for forgiveness. And I'm assuming 

by just putting the terms disability, the Department 

isn't restricting it to a specific form or any specific 

way of proving disability. I do think it's incredibly 

important to keep it in as an either complete or partial 

basis for forgiveness outside TPD, because for reasons 

that I am not going to, like, bore you all with the 

intimate details of being disabled and qualifying for TPD 

are two very different things. And I again, I think it is 
48

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

important and the Department has recognized this, that 

having disability as a separate category or, you know, 

something that folks can talk about separate and apart 

from whether they make TPD is important. And I don't want 

the Department to try to narrowly define disability or 

how you show it. And though I do agree with Lane, which I 

think is not a subject for today's discussion, but I 

completely agree with Lane that the current TPD doctor 

forms are a hot mess. But I also acknowledge and 

recognize that fixing that problem is a subregulatory 

matter that is not appropriate- not for this today's 

discussion but is one where there could be fruitful 

discussion between disability advocates and the 

Department about how to come up with a form that works 

better, both for the Department and for individuals with 

disabilities. Thank you.

MS. THOMPSON: Can I clarify that I 

wasn't- I didn't mean that we should change the TPD. 

That's not what I was saying. I was saying that when 

we're looking at disability here, I'm hoping we can do it 

differently than how it's been done previously.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you both 

for that great conversation and clarity. Melissa Kunes.

MS. KUNES: Thank you. I have a few 

comments and a suggestion. First of all, I do want to add 
49

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my thanks to the Department for organizing this 

conversation today regarding hardship. I think it was 

very necessary and I'm glad you listened to the proposals 

of the participants here. So again, my thanks. 

Secondarily, I will agree that the language of the 

proposed regulation to include parents would be very 

important because as I read the text today, the title 

says waiver of Federal student loan debt. So when it was 

clarified that this does include Parent PLUS borrowers, I 

was pleasantly surprised. So thank you for that. 

Otherwise, I would not have thought to ask. So I'm glad 

that we are talking about Parent PLUS borrowers in this 

mix all and to include more information on the disability 

concept. I am all for writing regulations that are very 

broad-based, open-ended, and wide to interpretation 

because that does give the interpreters the ability to 

add flexibility to how they interpret this. So I'm not 

necessarily a fan of very nuanced regulations for that 

purpose. However, I will ask that in this context when 

we're talking about disability applying it to Parent PLUS 

borrowers, can we implicitly include that a Parent PLUS 

borrower who has a student for whom they've borrowed the 

PLUS Loan becomes disabled and unable to put their 

education to work, be considered as a part of a waiver 

authority? Thank you.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Melissa. 

Again, I would encourage you to put some consolidated 

regulatory text proposal language around that for the 

Department to consider. I show one more hand. And then I 

think we're gonna take a 15-minute break before we 

continue with discussion and moving on to other 

paragraphs. So, Wisdom, you are up.

MR. COLE: Definitely. I just want to 

agree with my colleagues around the table. Just around 

the work done by the Department, by the Secretary, to 

really bring this session together. I definitely want to 

second the broad definitions around disability. I added 

some regulatory or some recommended text in the chat to 

check out as well. I just want to highlight three points 

that I think can really continue to strengthen this, 

particularly for communities of color for Black borrowers 

who are disproportionately impacted by the burden of 

student debt because they are coming in at a weaker 

economic base. The first being, you know, an explicit 

consideration of racial and economic disparities. 

Amending the criteria to explicitly include 

considerations of racial and economic disparities that 

affect the borrower's ability to repay the loan. This 

could involve incorporating metrics that reflect systemic 

disadvantages or barriers faced by borrowers of color. 
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The second being community and environmental factors 

adding criteria that accounts for borrowers living in

economically disadvantaged or high cost living areas. 

Recognizing that such environmental factors are 

significant impacts on one's financial stability and 

ability to repay debt. And the third being historical 

debt patterns, including a review of historical debt 

patterns and their impact on borrowers, acknowledging the 

past discriminatory lending practices, and disparities in 

wealth accumulation that can affect the current ability 

to manage debt. And I can definitely provide some text as 

well.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Wisdom. Ashley 

Pizzuti, I thought when I started to speak about where we 

were going to cut off, I had seen two hands, Wisdom, and 

yours. But my face overshadowed your box window. So if 

you still have a comment, please, let's have you state 

that.

MS. PIZZUTI: Great. First of all, I'm 

having some internet issues right now, so I was gonna 

maybe wait until after the break. But we'll go ahead and 

ask my question, and maybe we can just visit it after. I 

just wanted a little bit of clarification around the 

sector and level of institution attended. And what that 

really means in a broad stroke. Does that mean those for-
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profits? You know, what does that encompass?

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Not sure they 

have an immediate response on that. So if we could just 

put that in the chat, Ashley, that would be great. I 

can't say if they'll have a response when we come back or 

not but please.

MS. ABERNATHY: Cindy? It is the type 

of institution. So it could be proprietary nonprofit. So 

it's the type of institution that we're talking about.

MS. JEFFRIES: Does that answer your 

question, Ashley? I think she's. Oh.

MS. PIZZUTI: Yes. It does a little 

bit. Maybe we can get into that a little bit later on how 

that's going to be determined in creating hardship. Is it 

going to be the amount of Borrower Defense applications 

or, you know, lawsuits against the school? So I'm just 

wondering if we can touch on that. But I know this is 

kind of a loaded question. So, you know, if we need more 

time after the break, I'm happy to jump in after the

break for that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. So 

with that, I would like to call a 15-minute break. It's 

11:12. Let's resume at 11:30. To make it easy. And we'll 

move forward with our discussion in paragraph (c). See 

you at 11:30. If we could pause the live stream, I'd 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

appreciate it. Okay. Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed 

that well needed 15-minute break there for stretching and 

what have you. So with that, let's pick back up. Tamy?

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes, ma'am. We want to 

kind of circle back to what Ashley was saying about the 

type of institution. The Secretary is going to consider 

information available to him. And one way we consider 

hardship is the effect on a borrower's ability to 

successfully repay the debt in full. The sector of 

institution is helpful in understanding this ability 

because it's a predictive of a likelihood of default or 

delinquency. So that's how we anticipate using the sector 

information to help us define hardship that a borrower 

may be experiencing.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Sarah 

Butts?

MS. BUTTS: Thank you, Tamy. Can you 

give us an example of what a sector may be for this 

purpose?

MS. ABERNATHY: Proprietary. Not forprofit. Public. Four-year. Two-year. Community college. 

Technical college.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Tamy, 

I don't see any further hands. Do you want to move on to 

start paragraph (c) before lunch? We will break at noon 
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for lunch, so.

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes, ma'am. Let's do 

that. Will my lovely screen sharers please go ahead and

screen share paragraph (c)? Thank you so much. Under 

paragraph (c), the regulations would outline a model that 

could be used to predict the likelihood of default. The 

goal of this provision would be to provide automatic 

relief to one portion of the student borrower population 

that we know has experienced or is experiencing hardship. 

The proposed standard of 80% or greater likelihood of 

default in the next two years is intended to provide 

relief for those who are clearly experiencing hardship. 

Here's how the model would work. Based on the factors in 

paragraph (b) and any other factors identified by the 

Department, borrowers who are predicted to be at least 

80% likely to be in default at any point in the two years 

from the date in which the final regulation is effective, 

would be eligible for this relief. The development of the 

model is ongoing. The model uses appropriate statistical 

and machine learning techniques, historical data 

currently available to the Department, and with 

consideration of best practices used by other agencies 

and in research literature. The variables used in the 

model could include factors listed in the proposed 

regulatory text and paragraph (b), as well as other 
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factors already available to the Department that are not 

listed. Now I want to elaborate on the treatment of 

defaulted student loan borrowers under this paragraph. As 

a reminder, borrowers are not currently facing the 

consequences of default because of the Fresh Start 

Initiative. Fresh Start is a temporary initiative 

implemented by the Department that offers special 

benefits for borrowers with defaulted Federal student 

loans, including stopped collections, restored ability to 

rehabilitated defaulted loan, and to be reported in good 

standing to credit reporting agencies. All borrowers who 

were in default prior to the pandemic temporarily have 

the benefits of Fresh Start through September 2024. 

Borrowers must opt into Fresh Start to keep the benefits 

long-term. The main limiting principle of this proposed 

regulatory provision, however, is that borrowers must be 

predicted to default in the next two years. Excuse me. 

This means that borrowers who have opted into Fresh Start 

and are likely to be in default based on the hardship 

factors used by the Department's predictive model, would 

be eligible for the relief. The same applies for 

defaulted borrowers who do not opt into Fresh Start. If a 

borrower who defaulted prior to the pandemic does not opt 

into Fresh Start and is at least 80% likely to be in 

default in the next two years, under the Department's 
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model, they would be eligible for relief. Conversely, if 

a borrower is less than 80% likely to default in the next 

two years, but does default, that borrower would not be 

eligible for relief under this pathway to relief, though 

they may be eligible under other hardship relief 

described in this section. Another important point here 

is how this provision works with the on-ramp transition 

policy. The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 ended the 

student loan payment pause last fall. The Department 

created a temporary on-ramp period through September 

30th, 2024, to help borrowers successfully return to 

repayment. This on-ramp period protects borrowers from 

having a delinquency reported to credit reporting 

agencies. The clock to default will not begin until the 

end of the on-ramp period. It takes at least 270 days for 

a borrower to default on a loan, and that means that a 

borrower cannot default until 270 days after September 

30th, 2024. The predictive model is intended to identify 

borrowers who have a reasonably high likelihood of 

defaulting in the near future, meaning between the final 

rule's effective date and two years from that date. 

Finally, this provision is written as an automatic and a 

one-time benefit. However, paragraph (d) is written as 

ongoing which we will discuss in later detail. We will 

discuss later in detail. However, borrowers who do not 
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receive automatic relief under paragraph (c) could apply 

for relief under paragraph (d) once the Secretary 

determines when and how to stand up an application. We'll 

turn it over to FMCS for discussion and questions on 

paragraph (c). 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Tamy, 

for that overview. So with that, the floor is open for 

discussion, comments, and suggested regulatory text. 

Jalil?

DR. BISHOP: Thank you, Tamy. Just a 

question to get some clarification. So for borrowers who 

have come out of default because of Fresh Start or other 

programs, can you just give me a little bit more 

clarification around kind of the lookback period? I'm 

trying to understand how this model is going to apply to 

borrowers who, you know, were in default until the Fresh 

Start program and, you know, likely would potentially go 

into default again or would be experiencing a large level 

of hardship. So just try to understand what the lookback 

period would be for a borrower who's out of default now 

because of Fresh Start.

MS. ABERNATHY: So a borrower that 

pursues Fresh Start could still be viewed as having a 

risk of defaulting in that period. Borrowers who have 

opted into Fresh Start and demonstrate indicators of 
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hardship, including those in paragraph (b) such that they 

are likely to be in default under the predictive model, 

would be eligible for relief. And if Fresh Start 

borrowers are likely to be in default under the 

Department's model, they will be eligible for relief.

DR. BISHOP: Okay. So for those of us 

who, you know, have spent the last couple of years 

helping borrowers, if we told a borrower to use Fresh 

Start to pull themselves out of default, they are now in 

one of the many different repayment plans, there still 

could be a possibility that they could get immediate 

relief if your model shows that they could be at risk of 

defaulting again. Is that a correct understanding?

MS. ABERNATHY: So yes, what you're 

saying is correct, but I want to make sure that we 

understand this is not based on a lookback period. It's 

based on if you're predicted to be in default. So we're 

not looking back anywhere. We're looking at the factors 

and the model that predicts whether or not you're likely 

to default within the two years.

DR. BISHOP: Okay. So then if a 

borrower comes out of- if a borrower went through Fresh 

Start, let's say they enrolled in SAVE or ICR, in theory, 

they could have a $0 payment and they in theory would not 

be in danger of default. But if they stayed in default, 
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they would get immediate relief? I'm trying to just 

understand, like if some folks could be excluded here 

because they use Fresh Start two months or, you know, a 

year or some months earlier from the immediate relief 

that's being offered here.

MS. ABERNATHY: I think I'd like to 

take that one back and come back because a borrower that 

pursues Fresh Start could still be viewed as having a 

risk of defaulting in that period.

DR. BISHOP: Okay.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Ed 

Boltz, you're next. Could you, there you are. Thank you.

MR. BOLTZ: Thank you. My question 

relates to again, as usual for me, for many borrowers may 

be in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy which lasts for as long as 

five years. During that time, historically, the 

Department and its servicers have put people into an 

administrative forbearance. Will this default provision 

allow people who are unable to pay anything during that 

extended period that is likely to extend even beyond the 

two years that the regulation is contemplating because 

they are in bankruptcy, allow for them to get the 

automatic hardship discharge because of that or will they 

be precluded because of their bankruptcy status? Thank 

you.
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MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Ed. I 

think Tamy needs a moment. Let's just take a second here.

MR. LEGAARD: We can get back to you 

on the bankruptcy question, Ed.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Soren, for 

stepping in.

MR. BOLTZ: I'll [inaudible] for 

Jessica again. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Ed. 

Scott Buchanan?

MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah, thanks. I think 

we all can agree, sort of, you know, we want regulatory 

benefits to actually reach borrowers, right? And this 

proposed regulation is incredibly vague, ambiguous, and 

untethered to statute in such a way that it actually does 

not obligate the Department to forgive, waive, or 

whatever you want to call it a single loan. But could 

also equally be sort of an arbitrarily massive expansion 

of authority beyond statute. It doesn't define any metric 

term or eligibility requirement. And this will lead to 

pretty much mass borrower confusion if this regulation 

moves forward, which can harm borrowers, the student loan 

program, and the [inaudible]. Ambiguity allows whipsawing 

policies and disparate borrower treatment depending upon 

political winds or administrations just as we saw with 
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borrower defense. Regulations should be definitive 

guidelines that borrowers and those who advise them can 

rely upon and plan around. So we urge the Department to 

reconsider this vaporous language and craft a proposal 

that can withstand judicial scrutiny and that borrowers 

can understand and actually rely upon. As such, I have 

three questions, I think, to propose to put to the 

Department. Can you give an example under this drafting 

of a specific borrower and their characteristics, who 

would get forgiveness? And can you give an example of a 

specific bar in their characteristics who would not get 

forgiveness under this regulation? The other question I 

would have is, you know, can you describe sort of the 

magical model here for considering those who are likely 

to default? What are the factors? What is the weighting 

of those factors that the Department would consider? So 

that borrowers could actually understand who might 

actually be eligible and who might not be eligible. And 

then a final question is a practical one. So how does the 

Department plan to staff for implementing this? We've 

seen other proposals that have taken years for the 

Department to implement. The Department is grossly 

understaffed for its current demands under the statute. 

And this expansion, which would require sort of assessing 

individual characteristics for potentially millions of 
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borrowers, would require staffing that is on an enormous 

scale. How does the Department plan to address that 

issue, given the fact that it is not in control of its 

own resources and staffing size?

MS. ABERNATHY: So Scott, the 

development of the model is ongoing and we are using 

appropriate statistical and machine learning techniques, 

and historical data currently available to the Department 

with consideration of best practices and some of the 

other things that are out in the industry at the moment. 

Forgive me. I'm so sorry. Excuse me y'all. The inputs 

into the model could also include predictive factors 

listed in the proposed regulatory text, paragraph (b), as 

well as other factors already available to the Department 

that are not necessarily listed. Additionally, the 

implementation details could be shared once we have final 

rules in place and we would consider workload carefully 

in whatever we do at the Department. Our language 

contains provisions that would allow for automatic relief 

for some borrowers, and we will continue to consider the 

best way to stand up an application process. Some of what 

you're asking us is, you know, we're ongoing in our 

development of what we're doing and what we're seeking 

your input on.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Yael, you 
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are up next.

MS. SHAVIT: Thank you. So a couple of 

points. First, with the caveat that, you know, I assume 

that more detail about the actual model that the 

Department would be using would be available at the time 

that there is a proposed rule on a final rule. But not 

speaking to, you know, without being able to obviously, 

to comment on the details of that, I'd like to just say 

that I think the exercise of identifying people who are 

in likelihood of default is very far from vague and in 

fact, quite specific, and a responsible effort for the 

Department to take in trying to identify those people who 

are at need of relief under this type of provision. So I 

disagree strongly with Scott's premise there. I'd also 

like to note that the Department typically drafts its 

regulations in “shall” as opposed to “may” language. So 

to Scott's point as well, there is nothing aberrational 

about the Department maintaining discretion in this kind 

of regulation. It is typical for the Department's 

practice. So I would like to commend the Department in 

generally speaking on endeavoring to do this. And I think 

it's both a constrained and appropriate use of the 

Department's authority. With that said, obviously, you 

know, it will be interesting to see what the predictive 

model ultimately looks like that the Department proposes, 
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and the one piece that I did want to ask questions about 

here is the 80% threshold that is identified here. It 

strikes me that where the Department has determined that 

somebody is more likely than not to default in the next 

two years, that is both a reasonable and adequate measure 

for when a person should get relief. And you know, and 

more than that, all of the commensurate things that go 

along with it, like, you know, the burden on the borrower 

who is likely to default of continuing to in the near 

term of continuing the efforts of repayment and, you 

know, the cost to the Department and to taxpayers for 

continuing to try to get money from people who, again, 

are more likely than not to default. So I was hoping, 

Tamy, that you might be able to give a little bit of a 

more of a window into that 80%.

MS. ABERNATHY: I'm going to do my 

best to try to do that without coughing. The goal of this 

provision is to provide automatic relief to one portion 

of the student borrower population that we know is 

experiencing hardship. Such that they have a reasonably 

high likelihood of defaulting in the near future. We 

don't want to use a percentage that's too low to 

accurately capture the population of borrowers that are 

experiencing hardship, and we think that the 80% properly 

balances, including borrowers who are likely to face 
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hardship. So that's why we chose 80%.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. 

Jessica Ranucci?

MS. RANUCCI: Thank you. I really 

appreciate the Department for putting out this proposal 

in a couple of respects. But I want to start by echoing 

what Yael said. I think that borrowers who are more 

likely than not to default in the immediate term are 

borrowers who are experiencing hardship. They're 

borrowers who are experiencing many of the factors that 

are outlined in (b). And I think that that is- (a), like, 

as a policy matter, an appropriate group of students who 

can get relief. I think (b) is a regulatory matter. The 

Department is preserving its authority to immediately 

waive the loans of those borrowers. Were that regulatory 

text to be added, I do not believe would foreclose what 

the Department is proposing to do right now. And so I 

think it might be prudent to include those in the 

regulations. I just want to speak to a couple of other 

things that I appreciate about this proposal. I think 

that it is the Department, as I understand it, is using a 

model that has been tested and validated. I think that 

that is a good approach to use in terms of something 

that's inherently predictive. I also appreciate that the 

Department here is being transparent about its intended 
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use in the near term of its more general regulatory 

authority. I think that that transparency to the public 

and to us is valuable. I think in terms of burden, I 

don't, I know I say this all the time, but I don't want 

to forget that when you wave people student loans, those 

people stop calling their servicers. They stop calling 

the Department. That eases a burden on the student loan 

system. And I think we can't forget that waiver itself 

has spillover effects in terms of making the student loan 

system work for people who are left with student loans 

after a certain exercise of labor authority. And I also 

understand you to be saying that this is an automatic- a 

proposal for a form of automatic relief, which I strongly 

support. That being said, one minor comment is in line 

with what I said earlier. I think it might make more 

sense here to use the term waive, not discharge as you've 

used in the other regulations.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 

Jessica. Appreciate those comments and suggestions. 

Jalil?

DR. BISHOP: Thank you. So I know we 

don't know yet what the model will look like and exactly 

what will be the variables and the approach. But I think 

it's important for us to just uplift that we know so much 

about borrowers who are likely to default, borrowers who 
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have been in default. We know that they are experiencing 

a lot of what we are using in section (b) to define 

hardship. And I think that this should be an approach 

that- this model should be something that can capture 

what we know from the evidence, what we know from talking 

to borrowers. And not something- this shouldn't be 

something that's applied narrowly. And I think it's just 

important to make that explicit. You know, throughout 

this whole entire rule making session, I've made a point 

to highlight Ben Miller's research because I think Ben is 

right here at the Department's assistance. So Ben showed 

that for every $40 that we pay to debt collection 

agencies we only- the Department only collects back $1. 

So we are already spending a lot of money to try to track 

down, harass and extract income from borrowers who simply 

don't have the money. So that's kind of underscores 

Jessica point that not only would this be relief for 

borrowers, but relief on an overall student loan system 

that is often spending unnecessary funds to try to 

collect money that borrowers simply do not have. And 

again, I would just underscore that we know default 

borrowers are struggling and that we should apply this 

broadly. Apply to borrowers who are on a $0 repayment 

plan. Apply to borrowers who have been in default for 

multiple years in the past but apply it broadly so that 
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we can provide relief immediately to those that we know 

are either on the edge of default or have had deep 

hardships because they have navigated the trenches of 

being in default.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Jalil. 

Appreciate that. Lane Thompson?

MS. THOMPSON: Yeah. I just wanted to 

speak to the idea of the administrative burden and 

default. I know that a lot of folks who are in default 

end up taking up a lot of service or time because they're 

trying to figure out what their options are. I also know 

that a lot of folks who default once default again. So 

when we're talking about the administrative burden, if 

those loans weren't on the books and servicers didn't 

have to take a call every time that they missed a payment 

I think that would be really to everyone's advantage. I 

just want to kind of say, as a technical point, it might 

be good to include defaulted or re-defaulted. Just to 

kind of make it very clear that people who partook in 

Fresh Start aren't excluded from this. So, you know, that 

have this potential to default or to re-default. And just 

kind of the last point I want to make is that a default 

is nine months of missed payments. So I really want to 

make sure that we're all thinking about this as 

predicting somebody who is 80% likely to not be able to 
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make nine months' worth of payments is really quite a 

high bar. So I think, you know, I think even below 80% 

would make sense. Because we're talking about, you know, 

if you're nine months behind on something, you've got 

probably some pretty big financial issues going on.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thanks, Lane. If 

there's any of that you have some regulatory text that 

you'd like to put in the chat. That would be great. Or at 

least capture your concepts. Jessica Ranucci?

MS. ABERNATHY: May I interrupt? 

Sorry, I don't want to interrupt but I want to respond to 

that. I'm sorry I couldn't get my thing off of mute, but. 

You know, the Department's proposal is 80%. But Lane, if 

you have some suggestions for a different set of 

parameters along with the rationale for those parameters, 

we would be happy to consider that. So if you feel like 

there is a percentage that may more adequately represent 

hardship in that manner or the likelihood to default, 

please go ahead and include that information for us and 

let us take a look at it.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Tamy. Okay. 

Jessica, you're up now.

MS. RANUCCI: Thanks. I was just 

wondering if the Department could speak to the phrase all 

or part of the Federally held student loans. I understand 
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why you would want to preserve the authority to waive 

portions of loans in the general authority, but as to 

this specific exercise of authority, it seems to me that 

given, as Lane mentioned, the extremely high burden here. 

And as I understand it, it looks like you're looking at a 

borrower-by-borrower level, not a loan-by-loan level. So 

I don't think consolidation would be an issue. I was just 

wondering if we might be able to strike that and just say 

that you intend to waive the borrower's full loan 

balance. Or maybe there's something I don't see here.

MS. ABERNATHY: So, Jessica. This is 

full or partial relief. So it could be either. So in 

paragraph (a), the text states that the Secretary may 

waive up to the outstanding balance of a loan owed to the 

Department. If partial relief is what guides that choice, 

we're interested in identifying how to provide relief 

that is proportionate to the degree of hardship being 

faced by the borrowers. So if you have some thoughts on 

how to do that, or you see this as something where the 

Department's consistent practices over time would build 

up transparency in how we award that type of relief, we'd 

be greatly interested in that information.

MS. RANUCCI: Yeah, I'm not sure that 

really answered the question. You're fine to answer after 

lunch, but I understand that conceptual point as to (a)
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and (b), but I'm just not- since (c), in my view, appears 

to be something that the Department is ready to do soon. 

I'm curious what the Department's actual plans are soon, 

and if they're in fact to waive borrower's full balances, 

I think it might be better to be explicit about that now.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 

Jessica. It's 11:57. We are scheduled to break at noon. 

We're going to take John and Yael. And then take our 

lunch break. So, John?

MR. WHITELAW: Very briefly, two 

points. I, you know, significantly disagree with Scott 

and his opposition to this provision and offer support 

for it. And I also just can't help but note the irony 

that many of the borrowers in default and borrowers with 

difficulties are as a result of errors by, you know, 

student loan services. Yet it is the student loan service 

alliance and the student loan services that are opposing 

this relief. And I strongly support the Department's 

effort here to grant relief based upon a predictive 

model.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thanks, John. 

Yael?

MS. SHAVIT: Thanks. So, you know, 

Tamy, having heard the explanation and the subsequent 

discussion, I will just state and, you know, I do think 
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that the appropriate metric here is more likely than not 

to default in the next two years. Again, you know, the 

Department's creating a model and can control to some 

extent the level of confidence in that model, accurately 

predicting that someone is in fact more likely than not 

to default. But I think that is really sort of the 

appropriate measure in light of, you know, the 

Department's, I think appropriate effort here to identify 

quickly people who are in great need and have kind of a 

demonstrated need based on the factors that are in the 

Department's- available to the Department. So that's one 

point. And as to the other, I think, I mean, what I'm 

hearing Jessica to be saying here in particularly in 

light of the discussion around the administrative costs 

associated with continuing to collect on loans of people 

who are going to be defaulting, is that, again, 

notwithstanding the discretion the Department is keeping 

for partial or full relief as to (a) and (b) generally, 

that in (c) in particular, it seems appropriate to just 

do it as full relief. In order to achieve what I 

understand the Department's goals of (c) to be and I'm 

having a little bit of a tough time picturing the way in 

which partial relief could kind of be applied in the 

context where the Department is determining that people 

are unlikely to be able to pay their debt like are likely 
73

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

to default period and within a certain period of time. So 

again, without sort of conflating this discussion as to 

the broader discussion about the possibility of partial 

relief for (a) and (b), I think for (c), it does read to 

me as raising a slightly different concern, the same way, 

you know, I'm sharing Jessica's question and comment here 

and would be interested to hear more about any plans the 

Department does have in that context, specifically with 

respect to section (c), to the extent there's something 

the Department can share after lunch or tomorrow.

MS. ABERNATHY: We really appreciate 

your feedback, and we will consider your comments.

MS. SHAVIT: Thanks.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. With that, we are 

going to be breaking for lunch. But before we break, I 

want to remind our participants that are viewing this 

live over the live stream to please use the correct link 

for this afternoon session, as it is different than the 

one that you used this morning. So please make sure that 

you use the new link so that you're able to continue 

viewing. So with that, we'll go ahead and break for lunch 

from 12:00 and we will resume promptly at 1:00. So if you 

could come back a few minutes before 1:00 so that we can 

get situated and on camera and ready to go at 1:00, I'd 

appreciate it. Thank you.
74

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

 Zoom Chat Transcript 

Student Loan Debt Relief Committee - Session 4, Day 1, Morning, February 22, 2024

*Chat was copied as presented, as a result minor typos or grammatical errors may be present.

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

+1 to Jessica: strongly support Department’s efforts to support borrowers suffering from 

hardship

From Ashley Pizzuti - P - 2 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to Jessica: stron..." with ���

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

+1 to Jessica: strongly support Department’s efforts to support borrowers suffering from 

hardship

From Sarah Butts, P-4-year Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to Jessica: stron..." with ���

From P - Wisdom Cole, Civil Rights to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to Jessica: stron..." with ���

From A- Susan Teerink 4 year - Private Not for Profit Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to Jessica: stron..." with ���

From P - Wisdom Cole, Civil Rights to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to Jessica: stron..." with ���

From P - Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone:

+1 to Jessica and Yael strongly support providing relief based on hardship

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

+1 to applying broad, flexible approach to interpreting ‘costs’ of collecting on outstanding 

debt

From P-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop- Graduate Student Borrowers to Everyone:

+1 costs considered beyond costs to the govt is critical to make this an effective regulation 
75

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

for borrowers in need

From Sarah Butts, P-4-year Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 costs considered ..." with ���

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

Reacted to "+1 costs considered ..." with ���

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

§ 30.91 Forgiveness Waiver due to likely impairment of borrower ability to repay or undue 

costs of collection. 

 

(a) The Secretary may waive up to the outstanding balance of a loan owed to the 

Department arising under the Federal Family Education Loan Program authorized under title IV, 

part B, of the HEA, the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program authorized under title IV, part 

D, of the HEA, the Federal Perkins Loan Program authorized under title IV, part E, of the HEA, and 

the Health Education Assistance Loan Program authorized by sections 701-720 of the Public Health 

Service Act, 42 U.S.C. 292-292o, whether or not such loan has been reduced to judgment, when 

the Secretary determines that a borrower has experienced or is experiencing hardship

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

+1 to John. I support the Department's interpretation of hardship broadly to include both 

financial and non-financial factors.

From Sarah Butts, P-4-year Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to John. I suppor..." with ���

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

Reacted to "+1 to John. I suppor..." with ���

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

Stepping in as primary for graduate borrowers

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

Ed Boltz is stepping in for consumer advocates

From P-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop- Graduate Student Borrowers to Everyone:

Jalil coming back as primary
76

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

From Scott F Waterman - Legal Assistance Organizations to Everyone:

How will you define household?

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

I'll be coming back in for consumer advocates

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

Adding comment to record here: It’s important to factor in high-cost burdens such as 

housing which can vary greatly by region. When looking at household income under (b) here, it’s 

critical that we also look at those high cost burdens

From Edward Boltz (A: Consumer Advocate)((he/him) to Everyone:

This from the DOJ /ED guidance on student loan discharge in bankruptcy:However, where 

a debtor has not enrolled in an IDRP, the Department attorney should give significant weight to the 

fact that, as noted, Education has found widespread problems with IDRP servicing. In particular, 

Education has advised that IDRPs have not always been administered in ways that have been 

effective for, or accessible to, student loan debtors. In some cases, borrowers may not have been 

aware of their IDRP options. At times, servicers failed to inform borrowers about these options in 

favor of other repayment plans or nonpayment options like forbearance. Likewise, many schools 

have failed to advise prospective borrowers about IDRPs, despite being legally obligated to do so. 

See 20 U.S.C. § 1092(d). Thus, non-enrollment alone does not show a lack of good faith.

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

+1 to Lane: those are definitely examples of how errors not made by these borrowers can 

cause them hardship

From (P)-Angelika Williams: Private, Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

Seeking clarification on paragraph b, (7) "Receipt of a Pell Grant and other information from 

the FAFSA form":

The initial part pertains to the outcome of the FAFSA, while the latter addresses the data 

disclosed on the FAFSA.

 

(1) One specific concern is whether the Department of Education (ED) or students will 

retain access to information submitted on the FAFSA after the conclusion of the aid year or award 

year, especially if the borrower is no longer enrolled.

 
77

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

(2) A second concern arises when the borrower is no longer enrolled, prompting the 

question of which FAFSA form will be applicable or utilized if the borrower possesses FAFSA 

information from multiple years.

 

(3) The third concern centers on whether all need-based results from the FAFSA should be 

taken into account in this particular item.

From (P)-Angelika Williams: Private, Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

(4) The fourth concern pertains to the recent changes in the FAFSA due to simplification. 

The query is whether the information under review will be aligned with the data from prior years 

before the simplification modifications were implemented.

From P - Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone:

+1 to Yael, having reg text to refer to in order to address servicer error would be very 

valuable

From P - Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone:

+1 to broadest definition of household

From Edward Boltz (A: Consumer Advocate)((he/him) to Everyone:

+1 John Whitelaw: Ozzie & Harriet never existed in the 1950s and certainly don't today

From P - Wisdom Cole, Civil Rights to Everyone:

+1

From P - Kathleen Dwyer - Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:

+1 agree with John Whitelaw on encouraging broad definition of household size

From Ashley Pizzuti - P - 2 Year Borrowers to Everyone:

+1 to broad household. Some borrowers have no choice but to move back in with their 

parents in middle age or move in as a caretaker to someone in the home.

From Sarah Butts, P-4-year Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 to broad househo..." with ���

From A- Susan Teerink 4 year - Private Not for Profit Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to " +1 agree with John ..." with ���
78

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

From P-Carol Peterson-HBCU to Everyone:

+1 agree with Jalil

From P-Vincent Andrews-Veteran & Military Groups to Everyone:

I would also encourage the Department to include regional cost-of-living variances we 

discussed in previous meeting to be included in hardship, particularly related to income, debt 

obligations, etc.

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

+1 to Jalil’s recognition of the value proposition taking on student debt has for the well 

being of the student, their family, and their community at large, and the importance of recognizing 

these in discussing ‘cost’

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

(9) Typical student outcomes at any or all the last programs attended; 

(10) Whether the borrower has completed any or all postsecondary certificate or degree 

program for which they received title IV, HEA financial assistance;

From P - Wisdom Cole, Civil Rights to Everyone:

Recommended language would be any and all disabilities outlined within the Americans 

with disabilities act. And any and all disabilities that prohibit major life activities.

From P-Vincent Andrews-Veteran & Military Groups to Everyone:

Veteran and military disability is already tier based, and information could easily be 

acquired for severity and type of injury from VA doctors or records

From Sarah Butts, P-4-year Borrowers to Everyone:

Consider employment in public service as a factor in considering borrowers for relief. For 

example, some borrowers who receive PSLF forgiveness, after completion of 10 + years of public 

service, may have remaining loans that create hardship and should be forgiven.

From A-Jordan Nellums-Currently Enrolled Student to Everyone:

+1 on including parent plus borrowers explicitly in the text

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

Reacted to "+1 on including pare..." with ���
79

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

From P - Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone:

I think disability inclusion here is very important, I just wanted to push for a broader 

definition, seeing as TPDD is VERY SPECIFIC

From Sarah Butts, P-4-year Borrowers to Everyone:

+1 on explicitly including Parent Plus Borrowers

From P-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop- Graduate Student Borrowers to Everyone:

Revise b (7) from “7) Receipt of a Pell Grant and other information from the FAFSA form;”

To

 7) Receipt of a Pell Grant and/or Parent Plus borrower whose dependent student received 

a Pell grant and the dependent student’s education was supported with the PLUS loan, and other 

information from the FAFSA form;

From P-Vincent Andrews-Veteran & Military Groups to Everyone:

Reacted to "I think disability i..." with ���

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

+1 to explicitly including Parent Plus borrowers

From Sarah Butts, P-4-year Borrowers to Everyone:

Consider loss of a primary caregiver/ parent as a factor that may cause hardship. This 

information may or may not be included on the FAFSA form and should be given consideration.

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

Disability waiver should include the waiver of a Parent PLUS borrower who borrowed for a 

student whose has become disabled.

From (P)-Angelika Williams: Private, Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone:

Paragraph (b)(7): Receipt of a Pell Grant and federal aid programs awarded to low-income 

students'

From Sarah Butts, P-4-year Borrowers to Everyone:

+1 on considering environmental factors, including high cost of living areas and 

underserved communities, as examples.

From P - Kathleen Dwyer - Proprietary Institutions to Everyone:
80

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

Reacted to "Disability waiver sh..." with ���

From P - Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone:

Replying to "Revise b (7) from “7..."

 

+1 to including Parent Plus borrowers explicitly in the Pell reference

From P-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop- Graduate Student Borrowers to Everyone:

+1 on including parent plus borrowers in paragraph A

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

Reacted to "+1 on including pare..." with ���

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

Reacted to "+1 on including pare..." with ���

From A- Susan Teerink 4 year - Private Not for Profit Colleges to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 on including pare..." with ���

From P-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop- Graduate Student Borrowers to Everyone:

Reg Text for the Department to include Parent Plus borrowers explicitly.

(b) Factors that substantiate hardship. In determining whether a borrower meets the 

conditions described in paragraph (a) of this section, the Secretary may consider any indicators of 

hardship related to the borrower or, for parent borrowers, the parent borrower or the student on 

whose behalf the parent borrowed, including but not limited to-- 

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

Reacted to "Reg Text for the Dep..." with ���

From A-Jordan Nellums-Currently Enrolled Student to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 on including pare..." with ���

From A-Jordan Nellums-Currently Enrolled Student to Everyone:

Reacted to "Reg Text for the Dep..." with ���

From P- Jessica Ranucci (Consumer Advocates) to Everyone:
81

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

Reacted to "Reg Text for the Dep..." with ���

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

Ed Boltz is coming in for consumer advocates

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

I'm coming back to the table.

From P - Wisdom Cole, Civil Rights to Everyone:

+1 Apply Broadly

From Sarah Butts, P-4-year Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "+1 Apply Broadly" with ���

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

+1 to Jessica’s point on ‘burden’ - we all know (and many of us are/have been) people 

who’ve spent dozens and dozens of hours in communication with servicers, the Department, and 

advocates trying to manage their student debt. Review of a forgiveness application would take 

comparatively little time.

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

(c) Immediate relief for borrowers likely to default. The Secretary may consider any 

indicators of hardship related to the borrower, including but not limited to the factors described in 

paragraph (b) of this section to discharge waive all or part of the federally held student loans of 

borrowers who the Secretary determines based on data in the Secretary’s possession have 

experienced or are experiencing hardship such that their loans are least 80 percent more likely 

than not in default in the next two years after [INSERT EFFECTIVE DATE OF THE REGULATIONS].

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

Reacted to "(c) Immediate relief..." with ���

From P - Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone:

My recommended change: (c) Immediate relief for borrowers likely to default. The 

Secretary may consider any indicators of hardship related to the borrower, including but not limited 

to the factors described in paragraph (b) of this section to discharge all or part of the federally held 

student loans of borrowers who the Secretary determines based on data in the Secretary’s 

possession have experienced or are experiencing hardship such that their loans are more likely 

than not (at least 50% likely) to be in default in the next two years after [INSERT EFFECTIVE DATE 
82

Negotiated Rulemaking – 2/22/24

OF THE REGULATIONS].

From P-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop- Graduate Student Borrowers to Everyone:

Reacted to "(c) Immediate relief..." with ���

(ED Note: Documents shares in chat are available on the Department of Education’s 2023-2024 Neg 

Reg website)