DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION 

AFFORDABILITY AND STUDENT LOANS COMMITTEE 

SESSION 2, DAY 2, MORNING 

November 2, 2021 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

On the 2nd day of November, 2021, the 

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

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

in the state of New Jersey. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

P R O C E E D I N G S 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, everyone, 

I'm Commissioner Cynthia Jeffries, I will be facilitated 

this morning session. I want to welcome everyone back 

both the committee, the subcommittees and the public. 

This morning we're going to start with roll call and then 

we will do some updates on some outstanding issues and 

move promptly into the agenda. First, I'd like to remind 

everyone of your naming convention. Please make sure that 

your name is conforming so we know your, your 

constituency and your name and your primary. So with 

that, let's start with our roll call this morning. We're 

just going to call the constituency and the primary, just 

introduce your name and we'll go through this rather 

quickly. So for Department of Education? 

MS. HONG: Morning everyone, Jennifer 

Hong, federal negotiator, 

MS. JEFFRIES: And along with Jennifer 

assisting her, is Brian Siegel this morning, is that 

correct? 

MR. SIEGEL: That's correct. Good 

morning, everybody. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, accrediting 

agencies. 

MS. PERFETTI: Morning Heather 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Perfetti here. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, dependent 

students. 

MS. MACK: Pause on that constituency 

group, Cindy, we'll come back. 

MS. JEFFRIES: We'll come back to 

them. Federal Family Education Loan lenders and/or 

guarantee agencies. 

MS. O'CONNELL: Morning. Jaye 

O'Connell. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good Morning Jaye. 

Financial aid administrators at postsecondary 

institutions. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Morning, everyone. 

Daniel Barkowitz here. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, Daniel. Four-year 

public institutions. 

DR. DORIME-WILLIAMS: Good morning, 

everyone, Dr. Marjorie Dorime-Williams. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, doctor. 

Independent students. 

DR. ANDRISSE: Hi, Stan Andrisse, I'm 

here. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. 

DR. ANDRISSE: As an alternate. 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, are you sitting 

in for Michaela this morning? 

DR. ANDRISSE: She did not inform me 

that she would not be here, but I can be on if she's not 

yet. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Perfect. Thank you, 

Stanley. Individuals with disabilities or groups 

representing them. 

MS. LILLY: Hi, good morning, 

everybody. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, Bethany. 

Legal assistance organizations that represent students 

and/or borrowers. 

MS. YU: Good morning. This is Persis. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, Persis. Minority 

serving institutions. 

MS. GONZALEZ: Good morning, Noelia 

Gonzalez. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, Noelia. 

Private nonprofit institutions. 

MS. SABOUNEH: Hi, everyone, this is 

Misty. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, Misty. Proprietary 

institutions. 

MS. BARRY: Good morning, Jessica 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Barry. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning. State 

attorneys general. 

MR. APAR: Hi, I believe Joe should be 

joining, but I'm the alternate I can sit in for the time 

being. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. 

MR. APAR: Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: State higher education 

executive officers, state authorizing agency and/or state 

regulators. 

MR. TANDBERG: Hi, David Tandberg. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good morning, David. 

Student loan borrowers. 

O'BRYAN-LOSEE: Good morning, 

everybody, it's Jeri O'Bryan-Losee. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Hi, Jeri. Two-your 

public institutions. 

MR. AYALA: Good morning, ladies and 

gentlemen, Bobby Ayala. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Morning, Bobby. U.S. 

military service members, veterans, and groups 

representing them. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Morning, Justin 

Hauschild. 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MS. JEFFRIES: Good Morning, Justin. 

And the advisors, are you with us this morning? I see 

Heather-. 

MR. DAROLIA: Hi, this is Raj Darolia, 

advisor for economics, Higher Education Analysis 

(inaudible). 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, wonderful. 

Alright, I see Joe has now joined from the state 

attorneys general office as the primary. Do we have 

anyone from dependent students with us? 

MR. NORWOOD: Good morning, Greg 

Norwood sitting in for Dixie. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Good morning, 

Greg. Did I miss anyone? Okay. So with that, I'm going to 

move on to a couple of announcements. First of all, we 

want to give you an update on Ms. Anne Precythe. 

According to the consensus, yesterday, the committee 

placed her on the committee as well as the Prison 

Education Program Subcommittee. FMCS she has reached out 

to both her and her assistants and we are currently 

awaiting a response from them. On the request yesterday 

to add additional public comment time, we have this 

response for you. The 30 minutes every session that is 

afforded during the five days of each session is more 

than what has ever been offered before. It has been three 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

days in the past. It is also what has been published in 

the federal Federal Registry. In addition to the 30 

minutes, there were three days of public hearings for 

people to comment. There will be at least an additional 

30 days for people to submit written comments during that 

NPRM period. We did add a waiting list to the 30 minutes, 

so in the event if the 30 minute time slots aren't filled 

or there happens to be a gap or additional time we have 

the waiting list that is being utilized and has been 

utilized. So at this point, we don't we think that the 

system is working fine and we'll continue with the 30 

minutes and the waiting list. So with that, we will move 

into today's agenda. Jessica, you have a question. 

MS. BARRY: I do I just have a 

question and a comment about yesterday. Coming into this 

second week, I had a lot of questions about how we would 

structure our conversations because we have so many 

different topics to cover and they're all super 

important. But I wanted to bring our attention back to 

closed school discharge. I I feel that is a really 

important topic that affects all of our schools. And when 

I looked at at the end, at the temperature check, you 

know, 75% of the negotiators voted it down. So I feel 

like if we are going to come to consensus by the end of 

this negotiated rulemaking session in week three more 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

discussion needs to happen. So I urge the Department to 

think about that and circle back to that yet in this 

week. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jessica, and 

I was just about to jump into that and address it, given 

the response to the the outcome of the temperature check 

yesterday. We do want to kick this off with additional 

discussion, especially from those who had their thumbs 

down, which, as you indicated, were numerous. Okay, we 

would like to spend some time this morning for those who 

had their thumbs down to briefly hear from you as to why 

you had your thumb down and what a possible solution is 

for that. Because as Jessica said, you're you're trying 

to reach consensus here. And so the Department needs to 

clearly understand and hear what your concern is and what 

the possible solutions are that will get you from here 

[indicates thumbs down] to here [indicates thumbs up] to 

here [indicates sideways thumb], at least, okay? These 

temperature checks, they have value and they're extremely 

important. They give everyone a reading of the sentiment 

in the room as to what's before them. And so at this 

point, we'd like to open it up for those of you who had 

your thumbs down first and briefly tell and articulate 

what your concern was and what you see as a possible 

solution. Jessica? 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MS. BARRY: Okay, so this might be a 

good time for us to describe more of the proposal that we 

put forth, I know we were one of the groups that proposed 

late and I apologize for that. It took us a while to come 

to a consensus just among our small group. But let me 

bring that up for myself real quick as we're discussing 

it. What we want to bring attention to and and Heather 

and Daniel, feel free to jump in at any time. But what we 

want to bring attention to is that there are situations 

where closed school discharge is applied because these 

situations, the Department considers it a closed school 

for other reasons. But we think that those should be 

excluded when it comes to closed school discharge. So the 

first one, if you have our proposal under A, this, an 

example of this, just if I can explain it is so say you 

have us a school system and they have a main campus, say 

in New York City, just for an example, and they have a 

branch campus in Florida, and both schools operate 

completely independently. They have their own presidents, 

their own resources, library, all those things. And so 

say the pandemic hits and this is the pandemic's fresh in 

our minds for use as an example. And it's almost 

impossible to operate the New York campus because things 

have been closed down for so long. Enrollments decline, 

the rents really high there, so the school system decides 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

to close the main campus. Now that main campus has a six 

digit OPEID, and that branch campus that's back in 

Florida has an eight digit OPEID. And so when that main 

campus closes now there's there's no home for that eight 

digit OPEID that was tied to that main campus. So say the 

group that owns the school system also owns another 

school system that has a separate OPEID. And they're just 

transitioning that eight digit OPEID to the other school 

system, the other six digit OPEID. This doesn't change 

anything at that school. The students aren't affected. 

It's really just kind of a corporate structural change. 

But there have been instances where schools have been 

assessed liabilities for a closed school discharge for, 

say, those students that are at the Florida campus. So we 

wanted to make sure that that's addressed in A. In B, you 

know, this would be so say I have a school and enrollment 

is increasing and I need some additional space. So I rent 

I rent one classroom from another local college and I'm 

using it and that's considered an additional location. 

Okay, say a couple of years later, enrollment changes. I 

don't need that location anymore and I and I stop using 

it. Right now, that's considered a closed school and that 

could be a closed school discharge. And then the last one 

is say, you have two two eligible schools offering 

predominantly online classes. One closes down. Students 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

are able with minimal disruption to transfer to the other 

campus. That's also something that we would like for you 

to consider, and Heather and Daniel, please jump in if 

you think I missed anything there if you want to add 

anything. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: I think you did a 

great job summarizing. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. 

DR. PERFETTI: Cindy, is it okay if I 

add to the comment? 

MS. JEFFRIES: Sure. 

DR. PERFETTI: So, I would just add, 

in addition to the example that Jessica provided for area 

under A, I know in in for us as accreditor, we have also 

had public institutions that are going through 

consolidation efforts. And in those circumstances, one of 

those institutions technically may be considered closed 

even though they are consolidating with another public 

institution. So this is not just about corporate 

restructuring, it is also about what is happening among 

public higher education systems. And so this is why we 

were looking for what I call a carve out exception so 

that in that circumstance, if the system continues to 

deliver on its promise to students, continues to retain 

the academic programs for students. And the shift is more 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

of an administrative shift granted that can have impacts 

on students I’ m not saying that it cannot. It 

certainly can. And a accreditors do look at how those 

decisions impact students. But what we were looking for 

was in some circumstances of mergers, acquisitions, or 

some kind of transaction by any other name that those 

institutions that are being subsumed, consolidated, 

conglomerated, whatever the language may be that a system 

or or two separate institutions may be using that there 

is some recognition in the definition of closed school. 

What I discovered in talking with the presidents of other 

accrediting agencies is there's not consistency on this 

point, and there's not a definition that helps with this 

particular set of circumstances. And so the group that 

came together was trying to be cognizant of the impacts 

in those kinds of circumstances. Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Heather. 

We're going to move to Jaye, but before we do that, I 

want to note that Josh will be sitting in for legal aid 

instead of Persis for the purposes of the discussion on 

this, okay? 

MS. O'CONNELL: Thank you, so I 

appreciate all the issues being negotiated and understand 

we're doing that in the context of the Direct Loan 

regulations. But I will be unable to agree if I can't see 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

the FFEL impacts until session three. And ideally, we 

could see them as soon as possible so that our 

constituency can understand how that impacts our students 

and schools. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jaye. 

Jennifer. 

MS. HONG: So just real quickly to to 

summarize, Jaye, Jaye voted no, she doesn't have the FFEL 

language and for the other for the group that put forward 

the proposal, the sticking point is the definition. But 

generally we're okay with everything else, just narrowing 

the definition. Is that, am I understanding that right? 

MS. JEFFRIES: Jessica, you want to 

respond to that or? 

MS. BARRY: I do have other issues 

with it that I discussed yesterday, but this was the one 

issue that we didn't get a chance to discuss. 

DR. PERFETTI: I think, Jennifer, 

yesterday I had mentioned the real the question that I 

had about the stackable credentials and the issuing of a 

credential, and in the current definition, it seems 

broader than may be necessary, and I know we never really 

circled back to that conversation. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: I'm sorry, since you 

asked the question, I would also, I'm sorry to jump 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

ahead, but I would also suggest I'm looking at the PEPS 

database, which is the Postsecondary Educational 

Participants database. And looking at that database, I 

think it's important for us to understand the number of 

closed schools. I understand that we typically think 

about and I have no objection to closed school discharge 

for the cases that have been brought forward, like the 

ITT Techs or the New England School of Art, those 

situations. But I think there's an assumption that closed 

school when it happens are these big ticket items. It 

would be helpful to have, I mean, I could give you a 

number, but I think it's an unreasonable number and 

probably not right based on the database, it might be 

helpful to understand how many schools have closed 

because this is a much larger issue, I think, than 

perhaps we all understand. This occurs with with with 

fair regularity in terms of school closure. So, so and I 

think that might be helpful as a context. So I'm not sure 

if it's possible for the Department or our analysts, our 

data analysts, to pull those numbers, but that might 

provide some very helpful context. Raj, I'm looking at 

you, kid, that might provide some very helpful context 

for us as we continue this conversation. Thanks. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Daniel, do 

you want to put that request in the chat? So we don't 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

lose track of it. Jennifer, do you have did that answer 

your question? Do you have what you need on those first 

two? 

MS. HONG: Yeah, let's continue. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Marjorie, you're 

next. 

DR. DORIME-WILLIAMS: Thank you. So I 

would absolutely second what Jessica, Heather, and Daniel 

have shared, both for private and public institutions. 

This happens unfortunately, very frequently, and so I 

would be, I think, cautious about penalizing schools that 

have no control over, you know, unfortunate 

circumstances, you know, for example, MSIs are 

continuously underfunded by other states, which impacts 

enrollment and their ability to attract students, and 

that can lead to a school closure. My other point, and I 

feel like I haven't really gotten a clear answer about 

this. My understanding is this is about the schools that 

close. Sometimes they're big tickets, sometimes they're 

not and providing relief to borrowers because this 

institution is closed and for whatever reason, they're 

not able to continue there. For students who re-enroll, I 

feel again and I shared this yesterday that we're almost 

penalizing them for continuing their education, and I'd 

like to see a more consistent process that has to deal 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

with the school closing and not whether or not students 

enroll or don’t enroll. Again, I think if we're thinking 

about solutions, you know, perhaps we can create a 

formula that's based on the amount of credits that they 

can transfer because we're now adding debt, time, 

additional burdens to students who are simply seeking to 

continue their education. So I really would either like 

to see a response or to see that addressed more directly 

in the language beyond just sort of the process of yes, 

they have to apply and fill out an application. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Marjorie, 

and thank you for putting forth, I heard a couple of 

different solution ideas. Jennifer, do you want those 

ideas captured in the chat or are you capturing them on 

your own? 

MS. HONG: Again, I'm going to I'm 

going to defer my plea for any proposed reg language if 

there's specific areas in the regulations that you can 

point to to make your suggestions, that's that's most 

helpful because we're on such a compressed timeframe, 

look and analyze it that way. I know Raj had a response 

to Daniel's inquiry, so if we could get him on the record 

to respond, that would be great. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Yes. Raj, do you want 

to go on the record with that response that you put in 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

the chat? 

MR. DAROLIA: Sure. Yes. So this is 

actually something I thought might be useful, the 

committee's been working on it. Don't have it ready just 

this minute but should be able to get it today. 

Effectively, what we were going to do is take the closed 

school record from Department of Education website, merge 

its IPEDS data so not just have a record or kind of a 

demonstration of schools that have closed over time, but 

as much as we can some student demographics and some 

student counts (inaudible) as well. So happy to share 

that probably tomorrow is the earliest I could get it 

done. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you, Raj. 

Next, we have Josh. 

MR. ROVENGER: Thanks. I don't think 

I'll come as any surprise that the big sticking point for 

me relates to automatic discharges for those who attended 

pre-2019 and in particular those who attended pre-2014. 

And I think the easiest solution there is just to scrap 

that comparable program requirement as it relates to 

those borrowers. The other thing I would add, which I 

think might be helpful from a data perspective for this 

conversation, is data related to the Department's 

recovery from institutions after a closed school 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

discharge. And because I've heard a lot about the threat 

to schools and I'm not actually aware of this being a 

thing that the Department routinely does. Like I know, 

like with the ITT context, for instance, the Department 

filed the claim of bankruptcy, but you know, the school 

is gone, and so its ability to recover is actually pretty 

minimal, and I think that's true across the board. And so 

I think that type of data would also be really helpful 

for this conversation. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. If you want to 

put that request in the chat so we can follow up on it. 

That would be appreciated, Josh, and thank you for 

clearly articulating your concern and a potential 

solution to that. Again, I'm going to reiterate what 

Jennifer requested from the Department that the reg text 

is the most helpful. So if there's some way you can 

transfer that your solutions into that and get it to the 

Department, the sooner the better. Okay, so they have 

time to look at it and formulate a response. David, you 

are next. 

MR. TANDBERG: I echo, Josh, on the 

discharge. I mean, the automatic discharge. I think his 

proposal makes sense, just scrap the comparable program 

requirement in the regulatory text. I really appreciate 

what Jessica and Daniel discussed because we are seeing 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

more complex mergers, consolidations, and the like. And 

that crosses all sectors nonprofit, private and and now 

most recently in the publics. Also, you know, talking 

with SHEEO in in the various states when they're dealing 

with the closures of institutions, many of which are 

quite small, mom-pop type institutions. Their efforts 

around recovery and their assistance with the Department 

of Education is that they're not recovering much money 

and is is the sense we got. But I would love any data on 

that. But my sense is when it's closed, it's closed for a 

reason, and that's because they don't have any money. And 

so just leave it there. But thank you for this 

opportunity to discuss my concerns. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, David, 

appreciate it. Jeri, you were next. 

O'BRYAN-LOSEE: Hi. First, just going 

back to Marjorie's statement, I'd like to make a plea for 

appropriate funding for our institutions, especially our 

state and public institutions. But I just want to remind 

people when it comes to the students, when we add layers 

of hoops, they have to jump through. That regulatory 

language could just be like, it's not the it's not up to 

the students to create the next steps. So whether or not 

they move on to another institution, this particular 

institution failed them in some way that there is like, 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

just forgive that so they can start fresh. And I just 

want to remember that at the end of the day, it's the 

students who are harmed, no matter what severity people 

think that might be. And so I just want to put that out 

there. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Is there a solution 

that you had in mind, Jeri? 

O'BRYAN-LOSEE: Yeah. Streamline the 

process for the students to be able to be forgiven. I 

mean, I get we can play if/then all day, you know, we can 

play if this if a if a butterfly flaps its wings in New 

York, there's a rainstorm in China, we can do that all 

day long. But at the end of the day, it needs to be a 

streamlined, less words is better, process, because it is 

the students who need to understand this at the end of 

the day. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. I want 

to I need to mention that Michaela is back in as primary. 

Welcome Michaela, and I see that, Brian, you put 

something in the chat about the GAO report that you want 

to speak to that or? 

MR. SIEGEL: No, they're just been 

some discussion about statistics there is the GAO report 

does have some statistics on closed school discharges. We 

think Raj will be able to provide more, fully updated 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

more information and complete information tomorrow. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. Oh, 

let's see. Joe, you are next. 

MR. SANDERS: Hi, thanks. You know, I 

think we would do well to to go back to first principles, 

and I think Josh said it well yesterday, if you know, if 

you go to the statutory authority here, it says if the 

school basically says if the school closes, the loan 

shall be discharged and I think that the more we can 

simplify and bring it back to that principle, what 

Congress wanted here, the better we're going to do. My 

objection is based on the fact that although I think that 

the regulation has come a long way, there's some really 

good things in here and the main thing that I think is a 

positive is the return of automatic and automatic being 

within a year. Those are really good things. But right 

now, this doesn't change what happens immediately after a 

closure, from my perspective, right? If I'm in the office 

and a school in Illinois closes, I know that I'm going to 

get deluged with complaints, and I know that I'm not 

going to be able to give students a good answer about 

whether or not they're eligible for closed school 

discharge. And that's because of the window. Right, 

because of the 180-day window, the students are going to 

be panicked and they're going to want an answer. And I'm 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

going to have to tell him, well, you might need to stay 

at the school for some amount of time, and I know that 

it's, you know, sounds ridiculous to have to keep taking 

out loans. But if you really want the loans discharged, 

we need to wait and see when this is going to happen. And 

so, yes, automatic is good, but it does not, what we have 

on the table does not solve the immediate problem when 

the school closes, and that's when students are making 

decisions. And, you know. We have a student loan 

helpline. We have people that are trained, unfortunately, 

we've had to deal with a lot of these in the last five 

years, six years. But, you know, people are emotional. 

Students are harmed. They're, you know, Michaela said it 

well yesterday, their, just discharging the loans or just 

being able to transfer some credits is not going to 

eliminate the harm. They they feel like they've spent a 

lot of time and effort. They feel like they were, you 

know. They felt like they were going to be able to 

complete a degree at an institution, in a program, in a 

specific space, and that's been taken away. And so unless 

and until we can create certainty at the moment of 

closure as to what the options are. I have a problem with 

with what's on the table. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, so I think what I 

heard, though, was that one of your main concerns is what 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

happens in the immediate aftermath of the closure. Do you 

have a specific solution or idea of how to address that? 

MR. SANDERS: I do, and I presented it 

in the first session. It's up on the website. It's a 

simple fix. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. It's in the form 

of the reg text? 

MR. SANDERS: It's in the form of reg 

text. I did not conform it to the new text. I don't think 

it will be that hard to do that. I think the text is 

roughly the same on the, you know, the question of the 

window. But as long as there is a set timeframe, it's 

going to allow schools to play with that. Right, it's 

going to allow schools to and I'm not saying all schools 

will do this, but it's going to allow some schools to 

say, you know what, I've got to close and I'm going to 

announce it before the window and I'm going to try to get 

people to transfer to my other campus. And I'm going to, 

you know? Try to keep people from taking advantage of the 

discharge. 

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

appreciate it. Michaela. 

MS. MARTIN: Good morning, everyone. I 

first for the folks sitting at home want to let you know 

that the number that was put in the chat was 246,000 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

students that were borrowers and rural had 1,100 

colleges. So we have over almost 250,000 students and 

just over 1,000 institutions. Mind you, while these 

institutions could be held liable or given a bill for 

this, those are not people. Right. These are institutions 

and like, I mean, having sat through business orgs., 

there's also, you know, the corporate veil, so it's not 

very likely that an individual will be held responsible 

for those dollars. It's incredibly unlikely. And I would 

encourage somebody to find me a case in which a school 

like an individual could be held liable for the debts of 

the institution. And I just I think that when we're 

talking about harm caused to the institution, we need to 

remember that we're not talking about harm caused to 

humans. You know, 250,000 students, that thought that 

they could get a degree from an institution that cannot. 

You know, and so my my question is really to the folks 

that are saying that these institutions shouldn't, you 

know, they're worried about the impact of them being held 

responsible is that if we were to take out that one line 

that says institutions can, you know, can be held liable. 

I can quote it. I'm sorry, I get a little worked up. But 

Jessica, if we strike that line, does that resolve all of 

your issues because then there's no responsibility to the 

institution? 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MS. JEFFRIES: And so can you 

articulate clearly what your concern is with the current 

language that has you thumbs down to get you to at least 

halfway and what your solution is? 

MS. MARTIN: I was halfway. I thought 

that it had gone through the list of folks who are thumbs 

down. I was in the middle yesterday, but I'm trying to 

understand if we want this to pass, if the folks who are 

thumbs down on the side of not having a clear definition 

of closed school, if those concerns would be resolved by 

striking what Josh had suggested that one line? 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, 

Michaela. Appreciate that. Justin. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Yeah, thanks so much, 

so hopefully I can do this in an orderly fashion and not 

forget the specific solutions that the Department is 

looking for, but we would echo the concerns raised by 

Josh and Joe. I don't want to belabor the point, but we 

do think it's appropriate to take a more expansive look 

at auto discharge here. We think the points that Joe and 

Josh made yesterday, Joe today, Josh yesterday made about 

Congress's intent with regard to the statute are 

particularly compelling and think the the Department 

should take a closer look at that. Also, just want to 

take a few minutes here, a second to highlight the impact 
26 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

this is having on students. And I think we're talking a 

lot about students transferring from another one 

institution, one that's closing to another institution 

trying to complete their degrees. But the GAO report was 

really clear here that transferring schools is a 

difficult process. Getting credits to transfer is not a 

particularly successful endeavor and in many cases. And 

as one of the public commenters yesterday, Kolin Wilkins 

pointed out, it really has a whole host of other impacts 

on students that are not just academic in nature. We're 

talking about this upending their lives, leaving students 

stranded. They do face difficulties in the academic 

sphere, again trying to get things like transcripts and 

just generally being left without a lot of clear options 

and choices when their initial intent was to finish at a 

particular school. So we think in terms again of specific 

solutions, the Department should take time to consider a 

more expansive view of automatic discharge in the 

proposals that Joe and Josh have both put forward. Thank 

you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Sorry about that, have 

myself muted. Thanks, Justin. Jen. 

MS. CARDENAS: I think Jessica had her 

hand up before me. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Jessica. 
 

27 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MS. BARRY: Thanks, Jen. I put it down 

and then put it back up, so I ended up in the wrong spot. 

I just wanted to say to Michaela, I totally respect your 

comments and yes, recovery from institutions is important 

to us. And the reason why it's important is because those 

carve outs that we talked about, so it isn't always a 

closed school that is getting is being assessed these 

liabilities, sometimes it's a functioning school that 

just closed look like a classroom location. And so it can 

really affect the financial health of a fully functioning 

institution that's doing really well. And I think too, 

one thing that we want to think about is as schools 

struggle and we know the pandemic has been really hard on 

a lot of schools and a lot of different sectors, there 

are going to be schools that are going to be reaching out 

to other institutions asking for help to see if they will 

help them and if they if this is in place they might be 

less likely to to help them in those situations because 

they'll be afraid that they'll be assessed a liability. 

So my suggestion, I don't know if this is possible, if it 

sounds like just among all of us, there's a lot of 

confusion on how these liabilities are determined and 

issued and carried out. Is there any way the FSA could 

make a short presentation to us just to explain that 

process? Because, like I said yesterday, I've heard from 
28 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

schools, but I don't have a lot of data on this actual 

process. If FSA was able to give us some information, 

maybe that would help us feel more comfortable. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. Thank you, 

Jessica. Jen. 

MS. CARDENAS: Yeah, thank you. Okay, 

so I don't have any solutions, my solution is center 

students like this committee should, I think the language 

that is being used, for example, Heather says, certainly 

it can have an impact on students. It does have an impact 

on students like there's no it can. Jessica, you 

mentioned that liability is an issue. We understand that 

it's not something that we don't understand. We 

understand there's administrative things that we can't 

control that students, but we're students like we go to 

schools because we're from low-income communities, we're 

students of color. We pick schools because they're near 

us and we want socioeconomic economic mobility. We need 

to go to institutions that we're able to get into 

different positions to help our families to help 

ourselves. So even the location is important. It's 

important for us to. So if schools are going to be doing 

that, then they should tell us that, hey, we might not be 

here all the time. So then we wouldn't like sign up for 

them and then get screwed over by all these institutions. 
29 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

This language keeps centering institutions like the whole 

morning instead of censoring students, and I think it's 

very hard for students, like Dixie mentioned yesterday, 

to feel that y'all are actually advocating for them or 

we're advocating for them. I'm sitting here listening to 

all of y'all. And it's more institution based and you 

want to make it sound like we don't understand the 

administrative part about it as though we don't go 

through the ropes of having to sign up for financial aid, 

having to talk to institutions about how our credits can 

be transferred, if they're even transferable. Having to 

understand if we're able to get to a new location because 

they moved, they decided they're closed but not 

officially closed. So now I have to fly hypothetically 

from New York to Florida or Florida to New York. Like, if 

you talk to all these institutions, then why don't you 

give us institutions? Why don't you give us information 

that they give you so that they're not hypothetical so 

that we could actually understand? Because otherwise a 

student, you're telling us, well, maybe these places can 

help during the pandemic when institutions need help? 

We're already in that pandemic. We've been almost two 

years in the pandemic. I graduated my whole senior year 

in the pandemic, and it's like, we know things are 

happening now. So then why not give us concrete 
30 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

information? Because it's really hard. It's really hard 

to sit here and listening and listening to y'all talk 

like these students are just numbers, and Michaela is 

right. They are students, there are thousands of 

students, hundreds of thousands of students in comparison 

to buildings, locations administratively. And then like, 

we have all these teachers that also are professors that 

have to also deal with finding new jobs. So please center 

students and I don't have any way of telling you all like 

any solution, my solution is center students because it's 

really tiring and it's only day two in week two. Anyways, 

thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jen. And and 

I hear you. I think what I heard is that communication is 

is a concern. In terms of the text itself and the 

regulatory rule, is there something that you or someone 

you know from the student tab that would help you, you 

know, at least be like this [indicates sideways thumb] 

and the language for closed school discharge recognizing 

it's something that needs to be included into that text. 

Did you want to respond to that question, Jen, or? 

MS. CARDENAS: No, I mean. So my, 

communication's not the problem, I mean, technology 

communication has always been the problem with the 

Department and students, some of us are first gen, some 
31 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

of us don't have the technology available to us or the 

access to internet, and we have to do a lot of footwork. 

My thing is we're not really centering this need of the 

students. We're centering the need of these institutions. 

And all we hear is, well, the institution could do this. 

They can do that instead of how can we help the students 

through these institutions? So that's my point. So it's 

not communication. And maybe it is communication because 

it seems like we don't understand that centering the 

students is valuable. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Ok, thank you, Joe. 

MR. SANDERS: I don't want to speak 

for Jen, but I think that one thing that would help 

students is if there was certainty about their options 

once the closure is announced, you can transfer your 

credits, you can discharge the loans. Right, and have 

those options solidly in front of the students when the 

closure is announced, that's what my proposal does. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Joe. 

Appreciate that. Heather. 

DR. PERFETTI: Thank you, and thank 

you, Jen, for your comments, so I just want to add that 

accreditors do collect student-centered and faculty and 

staff-centered information once we become aware of a 

closure. And we do try to communicate that through the 
32 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

mechanisms that we have available. But we also require 

the schools to communicate with students and for them to 

produce those communications for accreditors, including 

the option about closed school discharge and that that's 

available to students. So I did just want to note that in 

addition to asking that, we look at the definition of 

closed school discharge, we as an agency have a number of 

procedures that institutions, when they are aware of 

closure and when they announce it and bring it forward 

for us, we do have information that we collect that is 

very much student-centered. So I just want to reiterate 

that. My other question that we've not yet circled back 

to is the provision about the school granted a credential 

in a program while the student was enrolled in a 

different program. And so that's sort of a separate issue 

that I brought up initially just because I was trying to 

better understand that provision and the nature of where 

that is coming from. So I don't know if that is the 

Department or if that was a proposal that came forward 

from Josh and Persis. But I did just want to try to 

better understand in light of the movement towards 

stackable credentials what this is trying to address 

here. 

MS. HONG: So, yeah, we can we can 

talk about that further if you have more comment on it, 
33 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Heather. This was meant to address the issuance of 

retroactive credentials to students that had the effect 

of denying them a closed school discharge. So we wanted 

to prevent that from from happening in the regulations 

through our definition program, and I think we've 

addressed it, I do believe that I think Josh and Persis 

raised it as well. But what I'm, so that's the answer to 

that question. Generally, what I'm hearing is this 

proposal we've gone back and we've actually expanded, 

made the definition of school closure less restrictive 

and capturing the concept of comparability on the back 

end when a student enrolls in a comparable program, but 

still keeping it open in terms of their eligibility for 

closed school discharge, that that's the intent behind 

this proposed rule. I understand that the sticking point 

is this proposal put forward in terms of narrowing the 

definition of closure by the institutions while legal aid 

and AGs feel that we should do away with the concept of 

comparable program altogether. So that's what I'm 

hearing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we can, we can talk 

briefly about this credential stacking. I see Josh's hand 

raised. 

MR. ROVENGER: Yeah, I just wanted to 

respond to the credential stacking issue. In addition to 

retroactive awarding of of Degrees, as Jennifer just 
34 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

mentioned, we've also encountered the problem of schools 

forcing borrowers into an associate's program before a 

bachelor's program, even when they only want to do the 

bachelor's program and even when they believe that 

they're working towards the bachelor's program the entire 

time. And then the closed school discharge only wipes out 

the bachelor's, the loans associated with the bachelor's, 

but not the associates. So the one thing I would note is, 

well, with respect to this idea that there are innovative 

stacking programs. This definition only is implicated if 

a school closes. And so I don't think it's restricting 

schools' innovation. I think it's just restricting 

schools' manipulation and again, is only implicated if 

you know the innovation didn't work and the school 

closes. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Josh. We 

have one left hand, which is Greg. And unless someone has 

a solution that has not been shared after Greg, we will 

move on to the next issue. Greg. 

MR. NORWOOD: Thank you, and this may 

may sound like a non-issue, but but they said I was just 

wondering we were listening to accreditation, talk about 

how there are different methods by which to communicate 

to students when schools may be closing. But just 

wondering how effective those methods have been in 
 

 

 

35 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

ensuring that students are aware of not only the fact 

that their institution is closing, but what to do as a 

result of that moving forward. And so then it's in a 

question and not necessarily solution based, but I would 

challenge that because again, we're centering students. 

And so to say, have this almost vibe that we're doing 

what we can to to, you know, alert students of this of 

these different changes and challenges. I think I would 

just question its its effectiveness in ensuring that 

students know what to do, not just that is happening, but 

what to do and how to handle it moving forward. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Greg. 

Alright, Jessica, and then we're going to move on. 

MS. BARRY: Sorry, I just had one last 

thing. There seems to be a lot of confusion around under 

the definition of program of A, B, and C. Is there any 

way Jen could just walk us through it briefly? So we're 

all on the same page and understand where the Department 

is coming from? 

MS. HONG: Yeah, I'm happy to do that, 

so. Okay, so under romanette 3I, “Program” means the 

credential defined by the level and CIP code in which a 

student is enrolled, except that the Secretary may define 

a borrower's program as multiple levels for 

Classification of Instructional program codes if, and 
36 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

again, we think we've expanded it. So the Secretary has a 

definite discretion to determine whether an institution 

has placed a student in a different program in or, as 

Josh stated, forced their hand in terms of enrolling or 

awarding them an associate's degree so that they would be 

ineligible for discharge. So A, B, and C is is an attempt 

to capture that. A is if the enrollment occurred at the 

same institution in close approximate periods. B is a 

school granted a credential and a program while the 

student was enrolled in a different program. So it's kind 

of obvious that this kind of dual enrollment was foisted 

upon the student. The program stack or were presented as 

necessary for borrowers to complete in order to succeed 

in the relevant field of employment. Again, that goes 

again to the forced hand of the student. So those three 

scenarios are ones that we've we're aware of that we've 

identified. I think they cover the ones that Josh and 

Persis have encountered as well, and they're presented 

here so that the Secretary can consider these scenarios 

and still issue a discharge. Is that helpful? 

MS. BARRY: Yeah, I think so. I was 

looking for more examples, but I don't know if you have 

examples of any of those. 

MS. HONG: So. Again, to go back to 

that, I think Josh was alluding to this if a student is 
 

37 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

in the A program and then the the institution awarded an 

AA, this provision would prevent the student from being 

ineligible for the discharge, in other words, if they had 

if the institution awarded the AA under the current 

regulations, they would not be able to avail themselves 

of the discharge. However, now that we've put this 

language in, they will be able to avail themselves of the 

discharge. For B, the school granted a credential program 

while the student was enrolled in a different program. So 

that's an example of a student, you know, getting it to 

an AA degree, therefore making them eligible for 

discharge, so we wanted to ensure that that does, we 

wanted to prevent that from happening. For C if we see 

things like we would enroll someone in a certificate and 

then the borrower would finish and then they say, oh, but 

you really don't need the AA. So we want to make sure we 

pick that scenario up here. I don't know. I see Justin 

and Joe's hand raised, I don't know if they can fill this 

out a little bit more as well. 

MS. BARRY: I think that was helpful 

though, Jennifer. Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Joe, do you have 

something briefly to add to that? You're muted, Joe. 

MR. SANDERS: I have seen stacking in 

my investigations, multiple investigations, I've seen it. 
38 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

One of the biggest areas that we see is nurses. People 

want to be nurses, the school says great, get a medical 

assistant certificate. You don't need a medical 

assistance certificate to become a nurse. That happens 

all the time that happened at Corinthian, that happened 

at ITT. Less so at ITT because they had nursing programs, 

but we see it with. At Corinthian, we saw it with 

graduate degrees where I'm sorry, this is a Kaplan 

example, there was a student who had been at Corinthian. 

She went to Kaplan, Kaplan was stacking her with a 

masters and then a PhD, so stacking happens all the time, 

we see it across schools. And so I think this is a 

positive effort by the Department to try to account for 

that. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Joe. 

Alright. Seeing no more hands. Jennifer, do you have what 

you need? 

MS. HONG: I do, I just I. I know 

we'll come back to this discussion, but I will say that 

the Department will take the re-enrollment piece under 

consideration as far as the proposal put forward by the 

institution's institutional representatives and Heather, 

the accrediting agency, we we, you know, this kind of 

narrows the definition of school closure where we're 

trying to expand it. So I know for certain for B and C, 
 

39 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

we wouldn't be able to take the proposed language that 

you put forward. And we do have some concerns about A as 

well. So I just want to put that out there as we continue 

to think about this. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you for 

being candid with that, and Jessica, Heather, those of 

you on their proposal hearing what they had to say, 

perhaps some additional thought or solutions might pop 

into mind. Okay? With that, we are going to move on to, I 

believe it's issue paper three interest capitalization. 

That correct. Okay. Jen, do you want to walk us through 

that? 

MS. HONG: Sure, this might this might 

be one of our shorter discussions, I'm hoping and it was 

initially as well. One of the things I wanted to say on 

the outset is we had proposed, first of all, nothing has 

changed. The deletions that we proposed in the regulatory 

text to remove capitalizing events where we have a 

discretion to do so still stands. We had expressed that 

we would be able to provide conforming FFEL language in 

the first session. However, upon further analysis, and 

we've already reached out to Jaye to communicate this to 

her. We we found that we simply don't have the legal 

authority to do it on the FFEL side. And I know Brian is 

available to talk more about that if necessary. So what 
40 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

we have is before you, I touched upon the retroactivity 

piece early on. Basically, it's just simply not feasible 

to unwind years of payment to address capitalization. 

It's also prone to error, so we wouldn't be able to make 

changes attendant to that proposal. We did look into 

whether we could cap the amount of interest when it is 

required by statute. We also don't think that would be 

feasible. The Department would have to have a basis for 

justifying any sort of cap. And a cap would still have to 

apply each time it happens, meaning that borrowers would 

still see repeated acts of capitalization. And we just 

believe that the cost of these items is better spent on 

improving our other discharge programs. So it was my 

sense that we were in a very good place with this, there 

was very little discussion last time. I think we can all 

get behind removing these capitalization events. I think 

this is a boon for borrowers. I see Persis's hand up, so 

I will be quiet now. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jen, 

Jennifer. Persis. 

MS. YU: Yeah, so I had a couple of 

thoughts, I mean, first to the retroactivity piece. You 

know, it's certainly disappointing to hear the 

Department's not willing to consider applying this 

benefit retroactively. I hear over and over again from 
 

 

41 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

borrowers who are drowning in debt who have paid back 

well over the amount that they ever initially took out. I 

remember working with one legal aid organization who had 

a borrower who took out $5,000 in 1989 and somehow 

managed to stay in a forbearance up until now. And so she 

now owes $125,000 and all because of capitalized 

interest. And this borrower will never get out from under 

this debt. And I think that's really, really tragic. So, 

you know, I so that's disappointing. The other pieces 

that I'd like to talk about is some of the other programs 

in which the Department says it does not have authority. 

I mean, certainly one of my questions is with deferment. 

You know, the the reasoning why we want to get rid of 

capitalization for forbearances certainly applies to 

deferment. So I recognize that there is a statutory 

barrier. I'm wondering if there is a creative solution 

that we can apply through income through the ICR statute 

to mimic these deferments so that borrowers can have an 

opportunity to make these pauses in their repayment 

without having to suffer from interest capitalization. 

And the other piece that we had discussed at the at week 

one was about consolidation and whether or not it was 

possible through a consolidation to not have interest 

capitalized. And I'm curious to hear more about the 

analysis that the Department engaged in to determine 
42 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

whether or not consolidation could we could keep the 

interest in the principal separated through that process. 

Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Persis. 

MS. HONG: I'm sorry. 

MS. JEFFRIES: No, go ahead, Jennifer. 

MS. HONG: Great, thank you for that, 

Persis. As far as well, first, I want to clarify, we did 

take the issue of retroactivity under consideration. We 

did take it back. And our conclusion was that there was 

no there was no neat way to do it, and we just we just 

feel like our, you know, our money spent best elsewhere 

in improving our other discharge programs. So it's not 

that we didn't take into consideration the deferment. We 

haven't as you mentioned, it's statutory. We haven't 

found a solution to that. We're certainly open to hearing 

about that. And if we want to discuss more of the 

consolidation issue, we are open to hearing more from you 

all about what the, you know, I guess what this would 

mean for the borrower in terms of keeping the principal 

and the interest separate. I think we just need to hear 

more from this committee in terms of creative solutions 

on that and in terms of consolidation. First, I guess I 

guess just trying to get an understanding of how this 

committee feels about that, if we could just kind of 
43 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

revisit the consolidation issue. We're certainly open to 

hearing ideas on that front. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Jeri. 

O'BRYAN-LOSEE: I like what Persis 

just said, separating the the principal from the 

interest, I think, would go a long way to, especially 

considering the communication issue with students because 

students don't understand the difference between 

forbearance and deferment and Income Driven Repayment 

plans and that I think that is one way that we can look 

toward making it not so burdensome, burdensome, I was 

thinking about the example Josh gave yesterday, which was 

given when the at one of the other and one of the other 

hearings about the woman who had $6,600 and ended up 

owing $27,000 like, it's just a moneymaker for people 

taking advantage of students. And if we can, if we can 

separate that interest from the the balance when people 

are moving their money around, trying their best to 

understand all these extra words that I think that that 

looking deeper into that would be would be key to help 

people right away. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Jeri. 

Suzanne has stepped in for David. She has a question to 

ask. So Suzanne? 

MS. MARTINDALE: Yeah, thank you this 
44 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

question for the Department regarding statutory 

authority. I mean, I served on the REPAYE committee and 

we were able to make that plan more generous by limiting 

interest accrual and capitalization. I guess my question 

is, I mean, the ICR statute, as I recall, has a fair 

amount of flexibility. Is there something we could do to 

limit the amount of interest accrual to begin with and 

put a cap on that, so there's less interest to 

capitalize? Is there is there a workaround in that 

regard? Because, yeah, I mean, the the promise of the 

Income Driven Repayment plans are quite undercut by these 

capital capitalization events. I understand there are 

areas where there may be statutory barriers, but but I 

want to know if there's a possible way to. I have to 

refresh my memory on everything about the statute, but we 

dealt with this in REPAYE and we were able to limit 

interest accrual and therefore capitalization in that 

context. 

MS. HONG: So we did so we did remove 

it, we removed the capitalization in ICR. 

MS. MARTINDALE: Right. Can we put a 

cap on how much can accrue to begin with? 

MS. HONG: Right, I mean, that's the 

issue that we looked into. And we didn't see a solution 

there. 
 

45 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MS. JEFFRIES: Ok. Thank you, Suzanne 

and Jennifer. Persis. 

MS. YU: Yeah, and I just wanted to 

underscore the importance of consolidation. You know, as 

we're talking about, well, we're going to be talking 

about Public Service Loan Forgiveness, I assume later 

today and in the context of thinking about the PSLF 

waiver, one thing that I hear a lot from folks is that if 

they’re FFEL borrowers who want to be able to take take 

advantage of the PSLF waiver, they're nervous about 

consolidating their loans because there is this 

consequence that if they have unpaid interest, that it is 

going to be capitalized into their principal. And if for 

some reason their employment doesn't wind up qualifying, 

you know, because they have to do consolidation first 

before they can ever enter the process, that this is a 

real barrier to folks accessing the programs that are 

that are that are great, that are, you know, intended to 

do a really good benefit for borrowers. But they have to 

take this first step and it's a leap of faith that 

they're going to consolidate their loans, their balances 

may grow, and if it doesn't work out, that's going to 

have pretty devastating consequences for folks. So I 

think that addressing the capitalization event in 

consolidation is very important for making basically for 
46 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

making our other programs functional. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Persis. 

Anyone else? Jaye. 

MS. O'CONNELL: So just in terms of 

consolidation, I mean, I'm thinking of borrowers who are 

paying on their underlying loans, making regular 

payments, and then they consolidate into PSLF, so they've 

been making their qualifying payments. I mean, our 

requirements are that you apply payments to outstanding 

interest first and then principal. So I'm I'm just. 

Thinking of the math that there may not be that much 

interest outstanding if if you are moving from the the 

three underlying loans to a consolidation and you're 

paying as agreed, you're only going to cap the month or 

few months of interest from that process, which interest 

will continue to accrue in consolidation time. Time is as 

much a factor. I mean, I know capping increases costs, 

but time and interest accrual is really a factor I think 

in some of these examples and I had requested, you know, 

if we could have some data that helps us really 

understand the implications of capping. I don't know if 

Raj was able to produce that or not, but again, I just in 

terms of the PSLF example where someone's making 

qualifying payments, I just don't know that there's going 

to be words about standing interest from those underlying 
 

47 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

loans because they should be paid. 

MS. YU: So the people who are going 

to be have have you know, who will be in an income based 

repayment plan. Many of those folks have negatively 

amortizing balances and those are the folks for whom, you 

know, many of those folks thought that they were in a 

qualifying payment, which is why this PSLF waiver is so 

important to begin with, right? So they have negatively 

amortizing loans in IBR, and they are very understandably 

nervous. I mean, another thing which we can put a pin in 

until we get to the IDR conversation is making sure that 

those those IBR payments still continue to count as 

qualifying payments under Income Driven Repayment in 

addition to PSLF. But yeah, I think that there is still a 

good number of people who do have negatively amortizing 

loans and income based repayment. 

MS. O'CONNELL: Thanks. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. I'm seeing 

no, Jeri. 

O'BRYAN-LOSEE: Sorry, Cindy, because 

that's my FFEL situation. Just just to clarify, I am in 

that situation where I was put in something besides 

Income Driven Repayment Plan to gain extra interest when 

I should have just been in an IDR. So I am the poster 

child for that particular example. And, you know, praying 
48 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

that the lookback will help me in some way. But it's a 

very it is a very real issue and people do have to decide 

what they're going to, what choice they're going to have 

in that process. So I just want to clarify that out 

there. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jeri. I 

think what we're going to do now is take a quick 

temperature check on where everyone is at with what's 

before you on the interest capitalization. And so if I 

could see thumbs. Okay. Not seeing any thumbs down. Just 

double checking. Okay, that that was a good outcome. 

Let's for the time being, let's move on to the next. The 

next issue, and I'm just I'm going to and we'll come back 

to the interest capitalization. On this next one, 

Jennifer is going to walk you through it and explain all 

of the changes and nuances in issue papers four and five. 

Jennifer? 

MS. HONG: Thank you. And just to 

close, well, we're leaving the loop open on interest 

capitalization. Please, if you have any proposals in 

terms of ICR, we're open to seeing those as well. Okay. 

And one second here. Okay. Just to just to recap here, 

this is proposed regulatory text. Regulatory text for 

PSLF. You might recall that we separated out two issue 

papers on PSLF one having to do with improving the 
 

49 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

application process and the other is on is on employer 

eligibility full-time employment. We did provide some 

draft regulatory text in the first session, mostly having 

to do with the application process, but I will review the 

changes to the reg text as a whole and we can discuss it 

all together. But when we take the temperature check, 

we'll take it on each issue that the application issue 

and the employment issue eligibility issue. We did 

receive a proposal from Heather on PSLF, our PSLF 

advisor, on Friday. We weren't able to consider those 

changes for this draft. So please do jump in when your 

respective suggestions are relevant to this review that 

we're going through right now. Just a couple of things. 

I'm going to point out areas where we made changes in 

session one because for some reason the highlighted 

portions did not carry forward on the PDF. You may recall 

I think most of our discussions for, on the employer 

eligibility side last time, and there seemed to be more 

tentative agreement on the application piece. Either way, 

we took a lot of your suggestions and added them here, so 

let us just jump in at the text queue. So on page one, 

just a minor technical edit to employer, employee by 

breaking the text up into sub paragraphs one and two. At 

the bottom of the page, we changed adjunct faculty to 

non-tenure track employment. We've also flagged the 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

credit, our conversion to get a better idea from you all 

regarding how other states calculated their conversions 

and an understanding of how they justify those numbers. 

Because remember, we had last time talked about 3.35 as a 

conversion. We made a minor change to the military 

service definition, this is going on to page two. And 

that's to include service by veterans and further 

streamline this definition. We've also added several 

other definitions here, including non-tenure track, which 

encompasses all those categories you see there adjunct, 

contingent, part-time, full-time faculty, teachers, or 

lecturers at institutions of higher education who are not 

on tenure track lines. So please flag anything if you see 

something missing from that. Minor technical edit to 

public interest law to remove the qualifier regarding the 

provision of legal services to be provided by a public 

service organization. We've added a definition of public 

safety services. And then moving on to page three, we've 

added several definitions for public service, and we'll 

see those new definitions for public service for 

individuals with disabilities. Public service for the 

elderly. Public education service. Public library service 

and school library services. Next, staying on page three, 

I'd like to draw your attention to the definition of 

qualifying employer. Under (1), we find an edit for you 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

with the addition of United States-based and basically 

what we're interested in here are your thoughts on this 

definition. We're trying to do a few things first. 

Listening to types of government service that can 

qualify. Second, we're trying to make clear that 

organizations like the U.N., the W.H.O., etcetera, are 

not qualifying employers, even if employs a state that 

make up American delegations or federal employers to call 

employees to qualify. But also to make the point that 

foreign governments are not qualifying employers. 

Finally, we're mindful of the fact that tribal 

governments have the right to self-determination and 

generally operate outside the scope of federal or state 

law. So we flag that for discussion. Under paragraph 

three, we've added an attestation piece. So let me just 

read this part aloud, and let's take a pause here for 

some discussion about this section and also how it 

relates to approving contracted employees who work for 

eligible employers. So what we added under a private this 

is paragraph three, a private organization that provides 

a public service as defined in this section attested to 

by the employer on a form approved by the Secretary and 

is not a business organized for-profit, Labor Union, or 

Partisan Political Organization. The Secretary may 

substantiate the employer's attestation based on a review 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

of information in the Secretary's possession about the 

employer. I think there's more there are more changes 

here, rather than go through all of them, we see a lot of 

hands raised. Let's pause there and take any questions or 

comments up to that point. And then I have some questions 

about the contract, contracted employees, but let's hear 

from others first. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you, 

Jennifer. Jeri. 

O'BRYAN-LOSEE: Hello. Just going back 

to the 30 hours or equivalent by each credit hour taught 

for non-tenured faculty, I will be providing some 

information from Oregon statute, including personal 

testimony from the the during that decision and will 

provide that as soon as I have it. And the other thing I 

want to, I just want to give a plus one on the public 

service, the sec, the last section you were just talking 

about capturing the health care workers, especially the 

California and Texas health care workers, if that's what 

the intent of that is. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jeri. 

Justin? 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Yeah, thanks so much. 

I wonder if I can maybe just start with a quick question 

here. I think we're trying to better understand the 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Department's specific intent in the redrafting of the 

military service definition. We know that there's some 

new language in there that includes veterans. We know 

prior language referred to organizations serving service 

members. So I'm just trying to get a sense of what 

exactly the Department is trying to do there and then 

offer hopefully some additional thoughts on that. 

MS. HONG: So we felt what was there 

was a bit clunky, so we're just I mean, the intent was 

just to streamline it and to encompass the service of 

veterans of those organizations as well, make sure that 

that's explicit. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Is it okay for me to 

follow up there? 

MS. HONG: Please. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: So when we're talking 

about those organizations, is it a reference to U.S. 

Armed Forces and National Guard or or organizations like 

veteran and military serving organizations that serve 

veterans or members of the Armed Forces? 

MS. HONG: So the way that it reads is 

that it's those organizations refers to Armed Forces or 

the National Guard. Are you suggesting that it should be 

expansive to include those organizations that serve? I 

realize that is a bit-. 
54 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Yeah, I mean, so I 

think there's two issues. Yeah, I think there's two 

issues for us here. So when we're talking about military 

service, you know, I think we're thinking U.S. Armed 

Forces and National Guard. Obviously, we're open to a 

more expansive definition, but it's we're a little 

unclear on how the veterans fit in here. If it's just 

moving in any veteran than that is performing service 

that is defined as public service. Later in the reg or 

exactly kind of what's going on there? And then we do 

have this separate consideration of making sure that 

currently excluded veterans serving organizations that 

may hold a 501(c)(19) status, for instance, are included 

within Public Service Loan Forgiveness. So we would be 

happy to offer some alternative language that that maybe 

gets at both of those things. But we just want to get a 

sense of what the Department was attempting to do in this 

provision relative to to other areas here, including the 

definition of public service. 

MS. HONG: So those organizations 

should be encompassed elsewhere and are under the 

definition of public service. This this just pertains to 

military service. This definition right here, those 

services provided by Armed Forces and National Guard. And 

any, you know, prior service. I think that's that's 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

what's meant to encompass the veterans' service, so, so-. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Okay, so is it-. 

MS. HONG: As we go through this, let 

me know if you feel like we're missing those individuals 

that you're referring to as we get further into the 

public service definition, I feel like that they ought to 

be encompassed in later in the definition. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Understood. 

Understood. Thank you. 

MS. HONG: But but yes, please provide 

it if you feel like it's missing. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Justin and 

Jen, for that dialog. Bobby, you are up next. 

MR. AYALA: Thank you. Thank you for 

this. If we could circle back to 1 (C), the calculation 

of the equivalent full time. I Was wondering if we might 

want to consider, in addition to credit, hour contact 

hour, contact hour calculation. I'm thinking about those 

instructors at technical schools or two-year schools that 

teach technical programs in which they may only count 

for, let's say, a science lab counts for one credit hour, 

but they are in fact in lab for three to four hours for 

that one contact hour. And they may we may want to 

consider perhaps a separate calculation for that or or 

what have you. So just wanted to see what your what 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

everyone's thoughts were on that. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Right, thank you. Thank 

you, Bobbie. Certainly, I want to remind people this as 

well as any of these as we move forward and inch our way 

into that third and final week of this to feel free to 

present in reg text your proposals to the Department. 

Misty. 

MS. HONG: If I could just respond to 

Bobby, so, so, Bobby, this just goes to my question to 

you all, if anybody can, I know Jeri is going to provide 

something from Oregon, but we're interested in 

understanding how those calculations take place. Like 

does it include those contact hours already, does this 

calculate? So if anybody has the answer to that, that 

would be useful for this committee. 

MR. AYALA: And I'll see if I can 

perhaps draft, I'm sorry. I'll see if I can perhaps draft 

up some kind of a formula to present. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Great. Wonderful, 

Bobby. Thank you. Misty. 

MS. SABOUNEH: I have a question for 

Jennifer and then a comment, so it sounds like we're 

trying to broaden, on page three, the qualifying 

employer. The definition to not just include 501 (c)(3) 

to capture things incurring public comments, like 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

nursing, health care, folks completing their residency. 

With this definition, will that capture those, but just 

require an additional step of getting like an attestation 

letter that's submitted to the Secretary? Am I 

understanding that correctly? 

MS. HONG: Yes. 

MS. SABOUNEH: Okay. It was brought up 

in session one, the idea of using the CIP SOC codes for 

this and maybe an easy way to potentially automate 

someone who qualifies for PSLF and the CIP codes are a 

way to easily designate which programs we would consider 

working in public service and then obviously that ties 

FAFSA to the SOC code. So just wanted to bring that up 

again for discussion and see, it wasn't we brought up on 

session one and it wasn't in here. So I didn't know there 

was a reason that we were not wanting to do that. 

MS. HONG: So we appreciate we we we 

appreciate that suggestion, and we definitely heard it. 

We've we've explored it in the past. I don't think that 

it kind of gets to where we need to be the the SOC codes. 

So I think this is why we've turned toward this concept 

of attestation. Explore that further, because we feel 

like that might be more encompassing. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. Just 

before we move to Bethany, I want to point out that Soren 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Lagaard has joined the table as general counsel and that 

Suzanne is in for David. So Bethany? 

MS. LILLY: Hi. So I think I have a 

follow-up question to Misty's because I'm thinking of the 

young gentleman who testified during one of our earlier 

public comment periods who was a provider of disability 

services but was a contract worker for a private company. 

And I think what the Department is trying to do is get at 

those cases with the definition on an employee or 

employed on page one. But the way I read the definition 

of qualifying employer in sub 3 2 little i it says, not 

a business organized for profit. So my assessment would 

be that if somebody was working for a business organized 

for profit as a contractor with a disability service 

provider, they would not be eligible. But I might be 

misreading this. So I just like statutorily or 

regulatorily, I would like to understand if I'm reading 

the language right or if I'm misunderstanding something. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks, Bethany. Jen? 

MS. HONG: Yeah, so, Bethany, so no, 

you're not. So there's two different things here. We so, 

yes, the language as proposed restrictive and in. But 

we're willing to have the conversation regarding forprofit companies. Some of the concerns that we heard in 

the first session is that lack of transparency around 
59 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

for-profits more than nonprofits and the lack of 

charitable mission for some of those organizations. So it 

may be more difficult to assess an employer's eligibility 

in the context of a public service definition in statute. 

So the idea here is to try and have more clarity to 

ensure borrowers have, you know what they what they need 

to ensure that they are eligible. The second piece of 

that, though, is a contractual employer and employees, 

and we we did have some questions about that. So if we 

could take if we could take the for- profit piece off the 

table for just a second and look at the contractual 

employee piece we wanted to see we just wanted to pose 

some questions for the committee in terms of, would you 

know, would an eligible employer know that a contracted 

employee worked for them for the time needed? And would 

they be willing to sign an attestation on behalf of the 

contractor? And then how do we I mean, that's kind of 

like operational. And then a broader question is like how 

do we address broader labor concerns about ongoing 

misclassification of employees into contractor roles? And 

does does this risk rewarding that behavior where it 

allows the employer to offer benefit but not shoulder the 

expenses they should of employing someone? So if we could 

just if we could answer those questions on the kind of 

contractual employee piece, if anybody has any ideas on 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

that, then we can loop back and talk aboutMS. LILLY: So I think that that gets 

to what I raised previously, which is I completely share 

the concerns about misclassifying employees. And I think 

that that's a broader conversation that the labor market 

is having right now. But we're talking about student 

borrowers here. We're talking about individuals who have 

taken out money and are trying are doing work that we 

really value and that the society has identified via the 

statutory basis for this. That's valuable work to be 

done. And so that's part of my instincts here when I'm 

trying to capture these folks. I I liked the attestation 

piece because I think that gets at some of it. And I 

think certainly, you know, disability service providers 

who contract with, say, staffing agencies, I think would 

be happy to provide that verification for their 

employees. I understand the concerns about the 

classification, etcetera. I I don't know that this is the 

right place to try and answer them, since we're talking 

about borrowers, we're about like, that's what we're 

trying to focus on is making sure that folks who borrowed 

and now are doing public service worker getting access to 

it. So for what it's worth, my perspective on that would 

be, I think organizations would be willing to do that and 

I think that we could rely on their attestation there. So 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

for for what it's worth. I had a related question, but 

maybe I'll let someone else talk and come back to that 

because it's about something, something unrelated to 

that. So I'll turn it over to Suzanne. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Bethany. 

Suzanne? 

MS. MARTINDALE: Yes, thank you. Yeah. 

I mean, we need to focus on the public service job. 

That's what that's the term in the statute, right? What 

kind of work is the borrower doing? And I think that that 

needs to be the focus here and to eliminate barriers and 

use maximum authority. We believe that the Department has 

a lot of authority and discretion under HEA to make this 

program actually work the way it was intended. I 

primarily I don't want to repeat what other people have 

said, plus one to others, but wanted to submit for the 

record and for the committee's consideration in advance 

of next session some language put together in a memo by 

some former regulators who have experience at New York 

Department of Financial Services, as well as the Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau. I'll put it in the chat. 

There are some proposed markup language to the 

regulations and again submitting it for the record now as 

some potential solution language in the hopes that the 

Department will consider it in advance of next session. 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Suzanne. 

Justin. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Thanks, I'm actually 

going to defer to Heather, if that's okay. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Heather? 

MS. JARVIS: Hi, I'm interested in 

this discussion about employer eligibility in the context 

of the statute, and so I think we're all aware the 

statute governs these regulations and the statute 

dictates that government and 501 (c)(3) employment, 

full-time employment are qualifying. And it additionally 

lists a lot of public service activities and in the 

interest of streamlining, automating, and simplifying 

this program so that it can work more effectively. I 

think it's important that we recognize that these 

definitions are duplicating the language that we're 

already married to which is government and 501 (c)(3) 

employment will qualify, and so the question really is 

what else will qualify? And as the statute lists all of 

these public services, this committee needs to find a way 

to expand on government and 501 (c)(3) employment in 

order to give meaning to all of the statutory language. 

And so this takes us back to the question of whether any 

full-time employment will qualify or not. Rather, any 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

for-profit employment will qualify or not. And that's an 

important question that this committee can consider. But 

if the if the decision is made that only nonprofit 

employment will qualify, then it seems that extensive 

definitions are confusing and unnecessary because they 

simply reiterate all of the government and nonprofit work 

that already qualifies. So in that regard, I think it's 

important to consider a a question of, you know, what 

really is public service, what is a public service job 

and that that could be done much more much more simply by 

talking about work in the common good. I would also like 

to reiterate the conversation we had last time about why 

why wouldn't we allow borrowers to attest to the full 

time nature of their employment? They can do so under 

penalty of perjury, and the Department can evaluate 

whether that is suspect of fraud. But really, we're not 

in a situation where we're trying to limit people's 

ability to qualify for this program. We're trying to do 

just the opposite. So I will mention that although the, 

you know, qualifying employment is a very important 

conversation. Really, the reason this program has failed 

so far is because of the excessive focus on monthly 

payments and whether a given month counts towards the 

hundred and twenty. And that ought to be really the meat 

of the conversation. 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Heather. 

Okay. Persis. 

MS. YU: Thank you. I want to go back 

to what Bethany was saying about how important it is to 

have contractors, but not just contractors, I think. I 

think looking at the the for-profit versus nonprofit 

model is just not really relevant, especially for a lot 

of low-income workers, where certainly the tax structure 

of their organization has little bearing on the type of 

work that they're doing or whether or not they chose it. 

I'm thinking in particular of home home childcare 

providers who are certainly not making a lot of money, 

but they are not nonprofits. And in fact, I think that, 

you know, in that particular instance, and in many 

instances, I have clients who are home health care aides, 

you know, they're not choosing those jobs because of the 

tax status of the organization. They're choosing it 

because that's what they can do. And they are certainly 

providing a valuable service. And so I would certainly 

urge the Department to strike the “is not a business 

organized for-profit” language in subsection romanette 2, 

I think that's the simplest way to solve this problem and 

also to recognize that, two things to recognize one that 

especially when we're talking about low income student 

loan borrowers and we're talking about borrowers of 
65 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

color, they are more likely to be actually working for a 

public service organization that is technically by tax 

status organized for-profit. So I think that that would 

be a really important fix to have. But I think, you know, 

as we're thinking about this in the context of bigger 

things, part of what I want us to also think about is 

this in context of all of the student loan policies and 

why are we trying to ensure that all these different 

employment opportunities get into Public Service Loan 

Forgiveness? And that's because Income Driven Repayment 

itself is so broken and that the alternative to getting, 

to qualifying for Public Service Loan Forgiveness is that 

you're stuck in this Income Driven Repayment plan that 

has not been working, that is too expensive, and is not 

actually providing relief at the end of the day. So I 

think as part of this conversation, I think it's worth 

bringing back to the conversation about Income Driven 

Repayment and why the alternative of not qualifying for 

Public Service Loan Forgiveness is so horrible for a lot 

of borrowers and so untenable. So I just want to put that 

pin in that conversation to happen later. Thank you. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Persis. 

Jeri, you are up next. 

O'BRYAN-LOSEE: Okay, so I just, you 

know, an idea that we focus Public Service Loan 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Forgiveness on the person, on the student going back to 

the student and what the student does, because if they're 

providing a public service or if they're working with 

people with autism, boom, you qualify. If you're a social 

worker boom you qualify, that it may be easier to look 

from a student perspective that has turned into an 

employer in a certain situation, as opposed to relying so 

much on the on the employment itself in a particular 

organization. So it's actually the work being done is a 

public service for the greater good. I just want to be 

careful about the full-time. Again, going back to about 

18,000 part-time academics that I work I work with is 

that full-time means something very different to to that 

that instance and to get people to sign off on those 

forms, just take away that, just take away the 

requirement. You don't have to work a certain amount of 

hours. You just have to be in the public service and do 

it that way instead of, you know, adding more 

restrictions and language is to take that away and make 

it if you're working in public service, you just have to 

verify it. There's no restriction on the number of hours. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jeri. 

Justin. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Yeah, thank you. So I 

think part of what I'm struggling with, frankly, is that 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

I think there's a few different ways to accomplish a lot 

of what everyone here wants to accomplish through the 

regulatory language. You know, are we going to try to 

squeeze it all into the definition of public service? Are 

we going to try to relook at qualifying qualifying 

employer? You know, I saw some of the recommendations 

made by my made by Heather, and she attempted to do this 

one way. She alluded to it in her comment just a few 

minutes ago. And so I think that's part of what I'm 

struggling with personally, where we're going to make 

these changes in the language and that that really 

impacts what the language is going to be and how we're 

getting at these issues, obviously. And so the concern 

I'm about to raise here is kind of contingent on us 

sorting that out. But one thing that we'd like to see 

considered is care provided for veterans through the VA's 

Comprehensive Assistance Family Caregivers Program. You 

know this is this is a service provided for ill, wounded 

veterans and frankly, service that we think should 

qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. But it's a 

matter of figuring out how we want to address it in the 

language, and I think that's going to go a long way to 

helping us be able to provide you with potential 

regulatory text. We do have something we can offer up, 

but just want to flag that as a concern. And then just 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

generally about this idea of how we're going to go about 

accomplishing what I think we all really want to 

accomplish here. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Justin. We 

have one more hand, Bethany, and then I think Jennifer 

we'll move back to you for furtherMS. HONG: Can I just respond to 

Justin real quick? I want to make sure that so so Justin, 

are you suggesting that the current language or proposed 

language doesn't capture that the group that you had just 

mentioned? 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Yeah, that's our 

understanding, and it has to do with some nuances about 

how the program is executed in terms of payment versus 

stipends and things of that nature. I'd be happy to have 

my alternate speak about it in more detail, but it's our 

understanding that it's not currently included in the 

proposed regulatory text. 

MS. HONG: Okay. Thank you for that. 

And I just to circle back on Persis. Persis, your comment 

on low-income individuals taking on for-profit positions, 

I understand that that's. I guess that's more anecdotal 

in terms of their situations in which that would occur. 

Do you have more evidence across the board that we know 

that this is like a common occurrence? And the reason I 
69 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

ask is because we, you know, one of the things that we're 

trying to balance here in terms of opening it up for forprofits, we're trying to ensure that borrowers have 

clarity on whether their employer is eligible. And we're 

also trying to eliminate administrative hurdles. And so 

the reason why we're focusing on the employer. You might 

recall this discussion from session one is because and 

when these rules were first negotiated, we had to find a 

way to operationalize. And there's no we haven't found a 

solution to do that by looking at every job description 

from from a borrower, which is simply not tenable. So 

that is why we we're focusing on the organization and 

that will help streamline and ensure that borrowers have 

a clarity and faster determination, so if we open it up 

to for-profits, we're having to make an assessment of 

whether they are providing a public service. So that is 

an additional hurdle that we have to consider and also 

take into account the lack of transparency that many forprofit companies have, rather than knowing off the bat 

it's 501 (c)(3) mission, so just to keep that in mind. 

Also, one last question for, not last question but 

another question regarding the contractual 

representatives for our institutional reps. Do they have 

any feedback that they can provide in terms of whether 

signing an attestation for those contractual employees on 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

a university campus, for example, if that if that's 

doable, if there's any barriers to that? I'd love, would 

be interested in hearing. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jen. 

Bethany. 

MS. LILLY: Does Persis want to 

respond to that because I dropped something on low wage 

workers who rely on SNAP in the chat, which 

disproportionately shows that they are employed by the 

private sector and I would imagine other public benefit 

that we look at would reflect similar numbers. I also 

think there are particular industries that there are 

particular contractual employers that focus very much on 

low-income workers and placement in low-income jobs that 

we should be taking into account, but Persis. 

MS. YU: Thanks, just real quickly, I 

think actually the memo that Suzanne cited too earlier 

does a really great job of describing the growth of 

outsourcing by governments and health care and how that 

impacts low income and borrowers of color. So I would 

just point to that resource. Thank you Bethany. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you for that, 

Persis. Bethany, did you have additional or did you? 

MS. LILLY: Yes. And I had I wanted to 

echo Persis's comments earlier on the overlap between our 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

concerns about the definitions in Public Service Loan 

Forgiveness and the Income Contingent and Income Driven 

Repayment plans. Because I think it's a clear sign that 

those programs are not working as they are currently 

structured, that everybody wants to be in Public Service 

Loan Forgiveness because it's one, faster and two, 

slightly less complicated, or at least the rules are more 

clear. And so I really think that point needs to be 

emphasized. I do not think we would see the amount of 

attention or focus on Public Service Loan Forgiveness if 

we did not have broken other structures and systems here. 

I wanted to register. I don't know if this is statutory 

and if it is, I understand that. But especially given we 

just exited a global pandemic, it is confusing to me that 

we would be excluding workers at the W.H.O. and the U.N. 

and other folks that have been doing pandemic response 

work lately. That just strikes me as something that is a 

little. I'm sure the Department has other uses for that 

money, but this is something that to me, just given 

everything that folks have gone through over the past two 

almost two years, we would want to be encouraging 

employment at the W.H.O. We would want to be encouraging 

employment in other places that are doing that type of 

response work. So just registering that I personally, as 

long as it's not a statutory requirement, would suggest 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

the Department not go that far. Yeah. Okay, thank you. 

Heather, then yes. If it's not a statutory exclusion, I 

don't understand why we would want to draw that line, 

especially given the past two years. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Bethany, for 

that. Michaela, you are next. 

MS. MARTIN: Yeah, I wanted to just 

clarify the concern from the Department about what you're 

saying is that you are worried that you'd have to check 

every individual every time if you opened up a larger 

definition? And I guess I guess I can just like if if 

that is what I'm understanding, like there are other 

programs that have systems that allow for both, right, 

where you could have your list of like, we know that 

these companies are doing this. So those ones would just 

kind of automatically qualify. And then if they're not on 

that, then checking. whether or not that employment 

counted or the work that they were doing, like you could 

do both, right, which would alleviate the administrative 

burden, I say this because I know like on Medi-Cal and 

they do that, you know, you have your pre-authorized 

folks and then you just have to get approved for that. 

And also certain social services have some programs for 

work that you're doing that are already in communication 

with that program. So I was just wondering if a system 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

similar to what those programs are doing could exist here 

and help alleviate that administrative burden. 

MS. HONG: If we still have to make a 

determination on whether A, the employer qualifies, 

whether the employer is a public service, providing a 

public service, and then B, whether the work itself is 

public service, and I think we're for the the nonprofits, 

we're getting to it through the attestation. So, but for 

if we were to open it, open it up to for-profits, it 

would it would be an additional an additional hurdle. It 

would it would create more time on the processing and no 

doubt. 

MS. MARTIN: But you could do both, 

have it an either/or? 

MS. HONG: Do both in terms of I mean, 

yeah, I mean, we're having the conversation, we're open 

to this in terms of we want to balance streamline. And 

part of the problem is that borrowers have been in the 

queue and they want they want to know whether they're 

eligible. So what can we do on the regulatory side to 

ensure that the borrower knows, hey, that I qualify, I'm 

certain I qualify for this program. My employer qualifies 

and we can process the application as efficiently and 

effectively as possible so that those are the those are 

the issues that we're trying to balance here. 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Jen. 

Jennifer. Jaye, you are up next. 

MS. O'CONNELL: So nothing to do with 

my FFEL role, but I also do some work with the United Way 

and I was trying to look at this through the lens of some 

of the, you know, the housing and houselessness and 

looking at those types of that type of work and where 

does it really fit? So people who are working with the 

disadvantaged and working on transportation issues and 

working to make sure, you know, people can raise their 

economic standing. So I'm not clear, is that is it both 

the employer and the employment as drafted now that 

you're looking at or, is it an or? Not sure if that 

question is clear, but can you qualify by employer? Or by 

employment? 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jaye. If you 

want to put that question in the chat and then so we 

don't lose track of it and see if we can get an answer. 

Alright, Daniel, you are next. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: So I want to respond 

to Jennifer's question about contractors in the 

institution of higher ed space. So I think it depends on 

the kind of contracting arrangement, Jennifer. So for 

example, I'll use two examples. One might be food 

service, where an institution would contract with an 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

outside provider to provide food services. In that 

situation, the the roster of who the employees are that 

are coming on a campus on a given day might not be 

available to the Central Administrative Office. So asking 

the institution to certify individual employment for full 

time employees provided through the food service 

contractor might be very difficult to manage for an 

institution or if so, even if it's a set set of 

employees, it wouldn't necessarily be H.R. that would be 

the central focus for that management. So that's one 

example. I use a second example of the space I know very 

well, which is financial aid services. So there are a 

number of institutions that contract with outside 

agencies to provide financial aid services for in lieu of 

hiring an office or having you know, those supports, and 

they may contract out part or all of those services. 

Those companies tend to be for-profit. A thought would be 

again, while I may be able to tell you the roster of 

who's working at my institution, if I were one of those 

institutions, I'm not. But if I were, I might not be able 

to certify they’re full time. So we go back to the 

question of multiple employers with individual portions 

of certification that in total could match the 40 hours. 

I would go back and I forget if it was Jen or Bethany who 

said this or Jeri, but I would go back and just strongly 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

advocate for removing the for-profit distinction and 

letting students certify or borrowers state and certify 

that they are working and provide whatever evidence might 

be helpful, whether that's a W-2 or whatever. But let let 

the let the individual borrower be the arbiter of of I 

qualify under this particular type of public service. I 

could envision having on the form a list of the 

individual types of public service that we’re spelling 

out and saying, I qualify because I provide services to 

individuals with disabilities, whatever it might be. Let 

them check it and then submit it that way. I think that 

would again get to the question of the role, more so 

necessarily than whether my employer is a for-profit 

provider or a not for-profit provider. Oh, and sorry, my 

last my very last point is and I put this in the chat I 

would love, not now, given that we're two minutes before 

a break, at some point, I'd love an update on where we 

are with processing on the PSLF temporary waiver that was 

announced last month. I'd love to know what progress the 

Department has made in that effort, could be an update at 

some later point in the week, but I'd love an update on 

that as well. 

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Daniel. 

Alright, one last brief comment. Carol is in for 

proprietary institutions in place of Jessica. So we'll 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

take Carol's comments, then a couple of announcements and 

we will break for lunch, Carol. 

DR. COLVIN: Thank you. I'd like to 

propose opening up eligibility for for profit service 

institutions to apply to be considered an eligible 

institution for the purpose of PSLF and to qualify the 

positions that would be eligible to remove the 

administrative burden from the Department. And to put 

that on the organizations that would like to be approved 

for that. Going back to Persis's point earlier, a lot of 

low-income student borrowers are not taking into 

consideration the for-profit or nonprofit status of an 

employer before they accept a position. And a lot of them 

have no idea which their employer would be. I think that 

by removing that administrative burden, I still know that 

there would be some follow-up that would have to be done 

by the Department. But placing that on the institution to 

justify the eligibility of not only the institution, but 

also the the employment positions that they have in place 

would be significant. And also, most of these 

institutions are heavily regulated by state, federal or 

industry organizations. So I think that them being in 

good standing and able to submit documentation to support 

that or allow for it to be directly updated on an annual 

basis or more often as needed, would assist in the 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

continuation of that approval and hopefully make it a 

little less cumbersome on the Department. 

MS. JEFFRIES: So thank you, Carol. 

Alright, with that, we are at the 12 o'clock noon lunch 

break time. I will after lunch, you will pick back up on 

the same issue papers, four and five, and I need to let 

you know that Raj has informed us that he will have some 

limited information to share when you return from lunch. 

So we will kick off with Raj and then move back into this 

this topic. Okay? Have a great lunch. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

= 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Appendix 

Department of Education 

Office of Postsecondary Education 

Zoom Chat Transcript 

Affordability and Student Loans Committee 

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

DISCLAIMER: 

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a 

recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate; 

in some cases, it is incomplete or inaccurate due to 

inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as 

an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but 

should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

From Emil Totonchi to Everyone: 

Please reach out to me regarding any tech issues 

(private message, or etotonchi@fmcs.gov, or 312-502-

1717) 

From Emil - FMCS to Everyone: 

Hi all, today please reach out to me regarding any 

tech issues (private message, or etotonchi@fmcs.gov, 

or 312-502-1717) 

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

Josh will be swapping back in legal aid for the closed 

school discussion 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

OPEID? 

From Will (A) FFEL Agencies to Everyone: 

Office of Post Secondary Eduction (Department of ED) 

ID Number 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

Thanks. 

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

Everyone: 

Thanks Will 

From Joe (P) - State Attorneys General to Everyone: 

I have to drop and get back on on my laptop. 

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

Ditto on Jessica's et. al. off site issue and 

Heather's consolidation etc... carve out 

From Stan (A) Ind. Students to Everyone: 

I will be stepping back and Michaela will jump in for 

Ind. Students. 

From Michaela Martin to Everyone: 

I am back at the table 

From Jessica (P), Proprietary Schools to Everyone: 

+1 to Daniel! 

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

+1 thanks Daniel 

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

Can we get a response on the number of closed 

institutions? 

From Raj - Advisor Econ/Higher Ed/Data to Everyone: 

I have been working on a summary of school closures, 

merged to data from IPEDS (so some holes in the data) 

and can likely present it tomorrow 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

+1 josh 

From Justin (P) Service Members and Veterans to 

Everyone: 

+1 to Josh RE ED recovery 

From Michaela [P] Ind. Students to Everyone: 

+1 

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

+1 re: Josh 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

+1 

From Josh (A), Legal Aid (he/him) to Everyone: 

Data showing the frequency with which ED is able to 

recover from closed schools and the amount it has 

recovered 

From Brian - ED OGC to Everyone: 

The GAO report on CSD has some stats: About 246,000 

borrowers16 were enrolled at 1,106 colleges that 

closed from 2010 through the end of 2020.17 

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-105373.pdf 

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

+1 Jeri 

From Josh (A), Legal Aid (he/him) to Everyone: 

+1 Jeri 

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

Based on PEPs data alone, I see 18,323 individual 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

campus locations closed representing 5879 individual 

OPEIDs. 

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

But I defer to Raj's analysis... 

From Raj - Advisor Econ/Higher Ed/Data to Everyone: 

The GAO report is what I covered in my presentation in 

the first session (I think on October 5). I can 

discuss some of the differences in that report and 

what is available from public data tomorrow, but the 

GAO report will have better data on borrowers than 

what I will be able to bring in from public data. 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

Jen will be coming in for me. 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

+ Joe 

From Heather (P) - Accrediting Agencies to Everyone: 

Was there a definition in the GAO Report or elsewhere 

that may be helpful? Were the institutions that 

merged into another or were consolidated in some way 

considered "closed" for purposes of the data? 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

From Greg, A - Dependent to Everyone: 

THANK YOU! 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

++++ 1 

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

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

+1 Michaela 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

+1 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

+1 Jen - the solutions need to center on students 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (Ella/She) to 

Everyone: 

+1 

From Greg, A - Dependent to Everyone: 

+11111111 

From Jen (she/ella): (A) Student Borrower to Everyone: 

Centering students is the solution not just 

communication 

From Jen (she/ella): (A) Student Borrower to Everyone: 

Jeri is going back in 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

++++1 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

+1 Joe 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

Greg's question is a good one. Almost all information 

students get in a closure flow from the school. 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

+1 Greg 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (Ella/She) to 

Everyone: 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Is anyone going to answer Greg's question? LOL 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

I can give real-world examples of stacking if helpful 

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

one of the challenges is the regulation regarding 

being in an "eligible program"to receive federal aid 

which forces students who are preparing for nursing 

school to be in program they otherwise don't need 

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

I will be stepping back to the table 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

Simplifying closed school discharge will also reduce 

administrative burden on borrower defense claims as 

fewer students will be forced to seek relief through 

borrower defense when a school closes. 

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

+1 to Persis 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

+1 Persis 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

My alternate, Suzanne Martindale, will join to ask a 

question. 

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

Everyone: 

+1 Jeri 

From Jessica (P), Proprietary Schools to Everyone: 

My alternate, Carol, will sub in for the next topic. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

From Raj - Advisor Econ/Higher Ed/Data to Everyone: 

At the last session, Jaye asked for some educational 

material related to interest capitalization. I can 

talk today about the basics of interest of 

capitalization and give some examples, if that is 

helpful. I can also provide some modelling of various 

scenarios, if there are any that are points of 

contention or discussion. However, there is not data 

available (at least to me) that allows me to look at 

the underlying distribution of borrowers and the 

various interest capitalization events they face. 

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

Is there a possibility of getting an update as to the 

status of processing the PSLF Temporary waivers? 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

When the timing is right, I'd like to hear from Raj. 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (Ella/She) to 

Everyone: 

Data request for Raj: Could you find data on how 

effective the methods and practices of communications 

are (by accrediting agencies + institutions) during a 

school closure. Or if there's data on how students 

feel during a school closing I'd like to hear about 

that data too :) 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

My alternate, Suzanne Martindale, will step in for 

this section. 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

I will sub in for this section for state regulators 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

+1 

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

Everyone: 

+1 Bobby 

From Raj - Advisor Econ/Higher Ed/Data to Everyone: 

https://provost.uga.edu/policies/academic-affairspolicy-manual/1-09-appointment-procedures/#p-1-09-9 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

I can provide some language 

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

+1 to Suzanne 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

+ 1 Suzanne 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

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

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

+1 to Heahter 

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

*Heather 

From Misty (P) Priv. Non-Profit to Everyone: 

Great suggestion Heather +1! 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 
 

 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

+1 Persis 

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

+1 Persis 

From Misty (P) Priv. Non-Profit to Everyone: 

+1 Persis 

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

Everyone: 

+1 Persis 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

+1 

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

+1 Persis 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

+1 Jeri 

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

Everyone: 

+1 Jeri 

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

+1 Jeri! 

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

+1 Jeri 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

The statute says "full-time" but does not further 

define what that means. 

From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

+1 Justin 

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

In the context of Medicaid, yes: 

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-410t 

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

+ SNAP 

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

"In addition, 90 percent of wage-earning adults 

participating in each program worked in the private 

sector (compared to 81 percent of nonparticipants)." 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

examples of healthcare workers working for for-profit 

entities: https://s27147.pcdn.co/wpcontent/uploads/Policy-Brief-Temping-Out-FederalGovernment-6-19.pdf 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

WHO is not excluded by statute 

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

+1 Bethany! 

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

Great point Michaela! 

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

Everyone: 

But isn't part of the issue now that there are 

borrowers who KNOW they qualify and are still getting 

denied? I'm not sure how this resolves this issue. 

From Michaela [P] Ind. Students to Everyone: 

Yes 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

+1 Marjorie 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

Does the Bureau of Labor Statistics have data that 

would be helpful in defining "public service job"? 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

Historically, ED has only required attestation of the 

job duties of borrowers NOT employed by c3s or 

governments. 

From Misty (P) Priv. Non-Profit to Everyone: 

@Joe, this is why I suggested the CIP-SOC codes. SOC 

is from BLS 

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

Everyone: 

Is there a reason why Misty's suggestion could not be 

used? 

From Jaye (P) - FFEL agencies to Everyone: 

Can the borrower qualify for PSLF discharge based on 

employer or employment - or is this "both/and"? For 

borrowers working in housing, food insecurity and 

improving economic standards for low income covered 

within this list of employers, or do they qualify as 

long as the employer is a 501(c)(3), for example.