Negotiated Rulemaking - 12/12/23.

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 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

 OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

 NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING 

STUDENT DEBT RELIEF COMMITTEE

 SESSION 3, DAY 2, AFTERNOON

December 12, 2023

On the 12th day of December 2023, the

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

to 4:00 p.m. 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

P R O C E E D I N G S

MR. FRANCZAK: Welcome back, everyone, 

from lunch. I'm Mike Franczak with FMCS, and I will be 

co-facilitating with Cindy Jeffries this afternoon. We 

wanna let folks know that there will not be public 

commentary today as we did yesterday and in the prior 

sessions. And I'll do a quick review of what I believe is 

our agenda for today, the remainder of the afternoon. So,

the first thing we're gonna do is review the FFEL 

language. I believe from there, the Department's gonna 

make a statement in terms of our overall thought- or the 

overall thoughts in terms of the consensus moving 

forward. In terms of final consensus, we'll run through 

each of the sections in terms of a final consensus check. 

We'll- and as we go through that process, when you vote, 

we're gonna ask you, when you're voting, thumbs up, 

thumbs down, or thumb sideways, thumbs down. We'll ask 

you to hold that so we can make sure we record what 

everyone is indicating in terms of their vote for their 

respective sections. We'll take any new comments at that 

point. If not, then we'll move into the next section and 

run through all the sections, so we make sure we have 

time. We'll take a break if time avails, and then we'll 

get into the hardship discussion. At the request of the 

non-Federal negotiators, FMCS did invite two researchers 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

to make a 15-minute presentation to the committee on 

their research on the hardship topic, and that will be 

done in the last section of our time today. I believe 

that is everything. There is one last thing we wanted to 

add, and we'll reiterate it again. When we go through the 

consensus decision, final consensus decision making, when 

we- if we do reach consensus and when we do reach 

consensus on the sections, that regulatory language will 

flow then into the language that the- that the Department 

presents. If there is not consensus, then that language 

is subject to change at the discretion of the Department. 

Alright. So, I believe that takes care of all the 

preliminary matters to understand and our agenda for this 

afternoon. Anything else from the Department as we begin 

to move forward?

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes, Mike. If I could 

just add, I wanna remind everyone that when we do discuss 

final consensus checks, that all of the sections in 

advance of subpart G, the new 30.80, will be- one 

consensus check will be take- a final consensus check 

will be taken on that language. And then after that, all 

of the individual sections of regulatory text will have 

individual final consensus checks.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you, Tamy. John, 

you have your hand raised?
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

MR. WHITELAW: I do. We would like to 

have a very brief 5-to-10-minute caucus with the 

Department about a pending matter, and I can tell you who 

I'd like to be in the caucus. The Department gets to- you 

know, they can put in as many folks as they want. I would 

like the caucus to be myself, Yael, Kyra, Jessica, 

Wisdom, Jalil, and me.

MS. ABERNATHY: And Mike, from the 

Department, that would be Ben, myself, Toby, Soren, 

[inaudible], and Brian Siegel.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. Let me name 

everyone again to make sure we have all the correct folks 

for the caucus. We have John, we have Yael, we have Kyra, 

Jessica, Wisdom, and Jalil for the non-Federal 

negotiators. Correct?

MR. WHITELAW: I think that's 

everybody, yes.

MR. FRANCZAK: And then Ben, Tamy, 

Toby, Soren, and Brian on behalf of the Department.

MS. ABERNATHY: And Genzie.

MR. FRANCZAK: Genzie, thank you. 

Alright. How much time do we want to allocate for the 

caucus?

MR. WHITELAW: 10 tops.

MR. FRANCZAK: 10 minutes?
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

MR. WHITELAW: And we may be back 

before that with a bit of luck.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. So, let's aim tohow about 1:15?

MR. WHITELAW: That works.

MR. FRANCZAK: Alright. Brady, can you 

create the caucus?

MR. ROBERTS: Folks- folks should be 

seeingMR. WHITELAW: Well, it may take usit may take me 10 minutes to figure out how to get in the 

breakout room, but that's a separate problem.

MR. ROBERTS: We aim to do that a 

little bit more expeditiously.

MR. WHITELAW: Oh, look at that. 

Alright. There you go.

MR. FRANCZAK: Welcome back from our 

short caucus. So, it's my understanding that part of what 

was covered in the caucus will be discussed as a part of 

the hardship discussion later this afternoon. So, if 

there isn't any further discussion, we'll get on with the 

agenda as planned. Good? Alright. Okay. So, what we were 

planning on doing was the FFEL language review. So, I'll 

turn it over to Tamy for this section.

MS. ABERNATHY: Thank you so much. 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

Will my screen sharers please share the FFEL language? 

Wonderful. We have made a number of changes throughout 

this section. A lot of these changes are focused on 

process. Our commercial FFEL regulations concern loan 

holders beyond the Department, so we wanted to make sure 

the procedures for how this would work are clear. So, for 

instance, we have extended the timeline for certain 

processing requirements. We have made it clearer that 

lenders would have- lenders would be compensated for the 

full outstanding balance of the loan. We have also added 

procedures clarifying how the Secretary would work with 

guarantors and lenders to deliver these benefits to 

borrowers. We have also updated the types of borrowers 

that would be captured under a waiver here. In addition, 

we have kept the provision related to borrowers who 

entered repayment 25 years ago. This is similar to what 

we proposed for Department-held loans, but we did not 

think it was appropriate to go to 20 years here because 

that forgiveness timeline is not available on IDR plans 

that apply to the FFEL borrowers. We also kept the 

provision about including borrowers who are eligible but

have not applied for closed school discharges. We also 

added an additional category for borrowers whose 

institutions lost Federal aid due to high cohort default 

rates. Calling this out explicitly because there are 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

other student outcome measures that affect direct loans, 

such as gainful employment, which would not exist for 

FFEL loans. As we indicated in the last session, we 

removed the provision related to borrowers being eligible 

but not having applied for IBR. We do not think we would 

have the data to identify these FFEL borrowers under IBR. 

And the first instances of IBR forgiveness in FFEL are 

still a few years off. There was a request to retitle 

this section to mention that this is for commercial FFEL. 

While we understand this confusion as a stand-alone 

section, this would not be necessary when the rule is 

promulgated. This information- this section would be 

included in the commercial FFEL regulations found in 34 

CFR 682, so the coverage will be clear. The red line text 

representing all these changes should be shared, and we 

would like FMCS to have a temperature check, please.

MR. FRANCZAK: Great. Tamy, were we 

covering part b in this section, or what- is this a, c, 

d, e, and f first?

MS. ABERNATHY: So, what we are going 

to do here is look at a, c, d, e, and f as one section. 

We've removed paragraph b, and we'll discuss that 

separate- not discuss it, but we'll take a temperature 

check on that separately. So, if we could separate the 

two temperature checks to be a, c, d, e, f, and then b 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

all by itself.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you for that.

MS. ABERNATHY: Thank you, Michael, 

for that clarification.

MR. FRANCZAK: Yes. Alright. So, any 

initial discussion or questions around a, c, d, e, and f 

before we take a temperature check? Alright. If not, with 

a show of your hands, thumbs up, sideways thumbs.

MS. TAYLOR: Can you just clarify one 

more time? We're still within the FFEL section, notokay, thank you.

MR. FRANCZAK: FFEL only.

MS. ABERNATHY: 682-403.

MR. FRANCZAK: Alright. Then, yes, we 

are only on the FFEL section a, c, d, e, and f. We're 

holding on b for the moment. Alright. So, what if we take 

a temperature check on those sections with a show of 

thumbs. Okay. So, the only non- descending thumb I'm 

seeing is from Jessica Ranucci. Is there anyone else that 

I'm missing? Okay. Any Questions or comments about- or 

concerns relative to that temperature check? Jessica.

MS. RANUCCI: Look. I don't mean to be 

annoying here, but I just- I- I'm unpersuaded by your 

reasoning that a court could not read this to cover 

Department-held FFELs. It's right next to the provision, 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

for example, that's about, like, disability discharge, 

which applies to Department-held FFELs. Like, I just- Idon't have a substantive disagreement here. I just- I 

don't want you to accidentally write red text that would 

take away the ability to give to relief to many, many, 

many borrowers who have Department-held FFEL loans just 

because you called it the wrong thing. So, I really- I 

don't really care how you do it, and I think if you have 

to do it in the preamble, I guess that you could make 

that clear, but I would strongly encourage the Department 

to clarify in some way in the reg text itself that, if a 

borrower is- has a Department-held FFEL and thus would be 

eligible for waiver under the provisions we've spoken 

before and the text of this provision that the fact that 

they're- that the basis upon which they receive the 

waiver is not listed in the commercially-held FFEL 

section is not a reason that they can't receive the 

waiver under 30.80. So, I think there are a lot of ways 

to clarify. I think the title is honestly the simplest 

way, but I'd be happy to do any. I just- I would worry 

that without being clearer that people- you know, a court 

could misread this and not follow through with what you 

intended to do.

MR. FRANCZAK: Jessica, would you put 

those two ideas in a chat message?
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

MS. RANUCCI: Yeah. I think the 

Department knows what they are, but sure.

MR. FRANCZAK: Any other discussion or 

question on a, c, d, e, and f of the FFEL language? Scott 

Buchanan.

MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah. I would just say, 

you know, briefly on these particular sections, you know, 

I think on the claims process, certainly appreciate the 

Department's consideration on this. We'd like to continue 

to work with the Department on some of these provisions 

because I think, you know, as we sort of dissected some 

of the complexities that might come in implementation, 

we'll still need to work on that. But I wanna 

acknowledge- we appreciate sort of the Department's 

openness to work on those things. I think, on sort of 

section f, I will highlight that today there's a process 

to do partial forgiveness, as opposed to the methodology 

that's contemplated in f, and I think we'd like to 

hopefully have some discussions with the Department as 

you work on the final rule, there might be an opportunity 

there to address that on the sections. And I think those 

are sort of the issues that we'd like to continue to see 

if there's forward progress on, that can be made in terms 

of further clarifying and providing some definitional and 

technical changes there.
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

MR. FRANCZAK: Tamy?

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes. Jessica, we can 

include a statement in the preamble. The regulations 

themselves do not govern the Department's actions on 

Department-held loans, so we cannot fully take care of 

what a court may do. But we can address this as clearly 

as possible in the preamble language.

MR. FRANCZAK: Jessica, do you have 

your hand raised again?

MS. RANUCCI: Yeah. I understand that. 

I just- that- you know, the language that concerns me, 

for example, says the Secretary determines that a FFEL 

program loan qualifies for a waiver and then under 

certain situations. And that's not actually what this 

regulation is doing. It's determining when certain FFEL 

program loans qualify for waiver, and there's a different 

regulation that shows when other FFEL program loans 

qualify for waiver, and I just think- I- the preamble is 

fine if that's the best thing I'm gonna get, but I would 

just strongly encourage you to put anywhere in this 

regulation, something that clarifies that it is not- it's 

not limiting relief as to other FFEL loans, and I think 

that it would be extremely simple just to put anywhere 

here that it does not apply to loans owned by the 

Department. Again, I think the title is the simplest, but 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

you could do it anywhere. I'll stop now.

MS. ABERNATHY: This whole section, 

Jessica, is in subpart d of Part 682, which is the FFEL 

loans by guarantee agencies. So, it's only commerciallyheld FFEL loans. So that does cover- and, again, we would 

be- you know, we could make sure that in the preamble 

that we clearly call that out, but I don't think because 

of where this is located and it's only about 

commercially-held loans in the FFEL portfolio, I don't 

think that- I just think it's covered because of where 

it's already located in the amendatory text or where 

we're proposing to put it in the amendatory text.

MS. RANUCCI: I just- I don't really 

see a countervailing harm here, but I hear you. I think 

it's, like, not the clearest that it possibly could be. I 

don't really- like, I- maybe you have some reason I don't 

see that it would- you would be afraid to change the 

title, But I would just encourage you to take another 

look. Thanks.

MR. FRANCZAK: Alright. I think your 

message has been noted, Jessica, by the Department. They 

will take that under advisement. Are we okay to 

transition then to part b of the FFEL review language to 

review? Alright. Tamy?

MS. ABERNATHY: I think we just need 
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to go ahead and do that temperature check and then get 

discussion on that.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. Alright. So, we 

are looking at section b. Jessica has your hand raised.

MS. RANUCCI: Alright. But this one is 

a legitimate clarifying question. Tamy, I thought that I 

heard when you spoke in the introduction that the subpart 

provision b did not apply the 20-year time limit to any 

FFEL borrowers, but I think that I see that in here, and 

I just was- can- wondering if you could clarify that. 

Maybe I misunderstood.

MS. ABERNATHY: I'm trying to look at 

this, Jessica. Give me a second. So, I have in my notes 

that we kept the provision related to borrowers who 

entered repayment 25 years ago.

MS. RANUCCI: Right. I don't think 

that's- it doesn't look to me like that's what the reg 

text that was sent says. IMS. ABERNATHY: Let us take a look at 

that, and we'll circle back to you. Thanks for bringing 

that up. Let us get some eyes on that. I can't do both, 

unfortunately. I just can't do that. I'm not that- not 

that talented, but we'll get back to you on it. Thanks so 

much.

MR. FRANCZAK: Alright. Thank you. 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

Thank you for the clarification and answer. Alright. So,

we were then circling back for a temperature check for b, 

part b. Scott. 

MR. BUCHANAN: Now wait a minute. If 

we're not sure what language is in front of us, how- Is 

the language that was shared last night the language that 

we are voting on? Okay. So, there's been noMS. ABERNATHY: Yes, sir. I Just don't 

have it in front of me, so I can't speak to it.

MR. LEGAARD: I could speak to that, 

Jessica. I- the- you're talking about b1, right? For 

standard repayment 20 or 25 years ago?

MS. RANUCCI: Right.

MR. LEGAARD: Yeah. No, it's in there. 

Apologies if we- if we weren't clear about that. The 

language we have from last night that we shared with 

negotiators last night is the language we're looking at 

now.

MS. ABERNATHY: B1. Correct?

MR. LEGAARD: Correct.

MR. FRANCZAK: To clarify, do we wanna 

take these b1 first as a temperature check, b2 as a 

separate temperature check, or do we wanna take b1, b2, 

and b3 altogether?

MS. ABERNATHY: I would prefer we do 
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them altogether unless the committee has a reason to do 

them separately. But I Believe we still have some other 

hands up.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. Let's go with 

Sherri Gammage.

MS. GAMMAGE: Tamy, did I understand 

you to say that don't have it in front of you? I wanted 

to see it again before I voted.

MS. ABERNATHY: The- screen sharers, 

would you put that up on the screen? I have it. It's just 

on a different screen. But, yes, here it is, b1 right 

here. Can you see that? Is it- it's showing, correct? 

Okay.

MS. GAMMAGE: Yes, I can see it. Thank 

you.

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes, ma'am.

MR. FRANCZAK: With that 

clarification, are we okay for a temperature check now? 

Or Lane has [inaudible] hand up. Lane, go ahead.

MS. THOMPSON: Thank you. I thought I 

heard that 20 years was not an option for this section, 

but then 20 or 25 years is in this language. So, I think 

I'm just a little unclear on that. Could we get a little 

bit of additional information about whether it is 25 

years or 20 years or if that was the intention. Anything 
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about that would be very helpful before we do the 

temperature check.

MS. ABERNATHY: So, if you look at b1, 

the title of b1 is first entered repayment 20 to 25 years 

ago. Romanette one talks about on or before July 1, 2005. 

Romanette 2 talks about entering repayment on or before 

July 2000. So, there's 2 separate- that's why it's 20 or 

25.

MS. THOMPSON: So, it's just two 

separate dates that that would begin at?

MS. ABERNATHY: So, if you look at 

Romanette 1, the Secretary may waive the outstanding 

balance of a loan if the loan first entered repayment on 

or before July 1, 2005, and the borrower only received 

loans as an undergraduate student or a federal

consolidation loan or direct consolidation loan that 

repaid only loans the borrower received as an 

undergraduate student. And then, Romanette 2, is the 

Secretary may waive the outstanding balance of a loan if 

the loan first entered repayment on or before July 1, 

2000, and the borrower received loans other than loans 

received as an undergraduate student or a federal

consolidation or direct consolidation loan that repaid 

loans other than loans the borrower received as an 

undergraduate student. So, it is two separate timeframes 
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based on undergraduate student and the Federal 

consolidation loans versus other loans received.

MS. THOMPSON: Okay. So, what I'm 

hearing is that this is the same as it is for direct 

loans. I thought that there was not that option because 

of the IDR timeline. Okay. I must have misunderstood 

something that was said earlier. My mistake. I'm sorry.

MR. FRANCZAK: Can we go back to the 

full screen of everyone? Alright. Are we ready then for a 

temperature check for b1, 2, and 3? Alright. By a show of 

thumbs, are we in agreement? B1, b 2, and b 3? This is 

where I'm identifying who's not in consent. Scott 

Buchanan, Jessica Ranucci. Anyone else? Okay. Alright. 

So, does that cover all our FFEL Language for review, 

Tamy?

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes, sir. 

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. So, with- oh, a 

couple comments. Scott Buchanan?

MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah. I just wanted to 

comment and provide some context about sort of our 

position on this. We've been consistent and clear through 

these sessions here. The Department needs to ensure that 

whatever proposed regulatory benefits it develops by this 

process can actually reach borrowers and not just be 

headlines. To withstand judicial scrutiny, the proposed 
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regulations must be consistent with the Higher Education 

Act and legal precedent. Whether one agrees or not, the 

courts have been pretty clear on this. Some of the 

proposed language in both this and previous sections, 

counting time in both default, and with the previous loan 

now paid in full by a consolidation is in repayment is 

contrary to the Higher Education Act and the Department's 

own precedent. For previous sections, those are- you 

know, really matters for the Department because the 

Department has declined to provide their legal reasoning 

despite negotiated request for it. But our constituency 

has clear line of sight on this section, and the 

Department has only ever considered time and certain 

deferments and forbearances as qualifying forgiveness 

under expired and extraordinary HEROES Act authority, 

which itself has been called into legal question. Also, a 

consolidation loan is a new and discreet loan agreement 

with new and discreet terms. The Higher Education Act 

mandates that interpretation, and the Department's own 

consolidation website today affirms it. Second, and I 

think important, is this proposed rule suggests that time 

and repayment, absent any indicator of hardship, is 

reason alone to forgive a loan. That is in direct 

conflict with the repayment plans Congress wrote into the 

HEA, and all without consideration today of individual 
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burden or hardship that the waiver and compromise 

authority certainly requires. We're giving a 

consolidation loan. There's a 30-year term, for example, 

that's only been in repayment for 14 years, is in direct 

conflict with the HEA. We've raised these issues before 

and are ready to work the Department to identify the 

individuals who really need help and how to target that 

assistance to those who need it. We've been doing that 

through IDR and other plans that have provided billions 

of dollars in forgiveness and will provide billions of 

dollars in forgiveness. But we have also seen and heard 

from borrowers how false hope has led them to make lifealtering choices based upon past guidance and promises 

from the Department that have been struck down, leaving 

them worse off. The Government can't make the same 

mistake. Some of these proposed regulations are unlikely 

to stand legal scrutiny, and that's the reality that we 

must face. Given this rulemaking is unprecedented in 

scale, potentially costing 100s of billions of dollars, 

more work needs to be done to take those concerns and 

dozens expressed by other negotiators to heart while 

redrafting so these benefits can actually reach 

borrowers. Look forward to working with the Department. 

And like I said on these other provisions, we appreciate 

the continued conversation, and we'll continue to work on 
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things like the claims filing process and other things 

where we think there's still an opportunity to give more 

time to process those things so they can be done timely.

MR. FRANCZAK: Alright. Thank you, 

Scott. Jessica?

MS. RANUCCI: Just briefly, I think 

that this provision has the same cliff problem as we 

talked about this morning with the same language.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. Is there anything 

else then on the FFEL language review before we move into 

final consensus checks on each of the individual- the 

sections as we've identified?

MS. ABERNATHY: Actually, Mike, I 

think I'd like Ben to jump in. I just would like him to 

clarify if we needed to discuss, b 2 and b 3 separately. 

But if he has anything to add, I'd like to ask him to 

jump in now and add it. 

MR. FRANCZAK: Ben?

MR. MILLER: Sorry. I think it got 

messed up with our behind-the-scenes instructions which 

we're supposed to do b 1 separate from b 2 separate from 

b 3 for discussion. So, if we can do- I think we heard 

from Scott on b 1, and I think we heard from Jessica on b 

1. So, if we can talk about b 2 and then b 3 separately, 

please, I would appreciate that.
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. Alright. So, 

moving then to an individual discussion on b 2. Is there 

any comments or questions on that one before we go to a 

temperature check on b 2 specifically? Jessica.

MS. RANUCCI: Yeah. I noticed that you 

changed last night the not successfully applied for 

language in a different part, and I think that that might 

do well here also.

MR. LEGAARD: Thanks, Jessica. That's 

helpful. We'll take a look at it.

MR. FRANCZAK: Alright. Temperature 

checks on b 2. So, we're looking at these b sections 

individually. So, we now- that- the prior one we can 

consider, that was b 1. This will be b 2 specifically. 

So, with the show of thumbs on b 2, can folks identify 

with thumbs where they are on consensus with b 2? I did 

not see any descent. Looks like the temperature check on 

that one is we are in consensus. Moving next to b 3. 

Cindy?

MS. JEFFRIES: Mike, can I just 

clarify thatMR. FRANCZAK: Waukecha, for voting 

purposes, you're welcome to turn on your video so we 

could see you as well.

MS. ABERNATHY: Mike, her camera's not 
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working at the moment, but she is here.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. Alright. Thank 

you. 

MS. ABERNATHY: [Inaudible] message in 

chat.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you. Alright. So,

we are moving then to b 3 then? Alright. Our temperature 

checks on b 3. Show of hands? The thumbs? Okay, I see one 

thumb down. Thank you, Waukecha. Scott Buchanan, I 

believe, was in descent, and that was the only one. Any 

comments or question on b 3?

MR. BUCHANAN: And I just want to 

clarify, you know, I'll just make a comment here if 

that's- sorry I didn't raise my hand. 

MR. FRANCZAK: It's okay.

MR. BUCHANAN: Alright. But, I think, 

listen, this is- conceptually, we are very supportive of 

this con- of this- you know, where this policy is going 

here. I think we have some technical issues that 

hopefully, and we can work with the Department prior to 

the proposed final rule. But again, I think, we can work 

through those. I think it's- a lot of this is about the 

claim filing timing, sort of how we handle that, and then 

what potentially to deal with uninsured loans and some 

other very technical things. So again, I just want to 
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state that it's a concept, and we look forward to working 

with the Department on this as they proceed towards the 

final rule.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you, Scott. 

Jessica?

MS. RANUCCI: Yeah. Scott, are those 

concerns about cohort default rates specifically or just 

about something more general?

MR. BUCHANAN: Well, I think it's 

about which specific loan populations would be included, 

whether it's, you know, cohorts. And I appreciate the 

Department has offered some clarifying language, but I 

don't think it sort of sufficiently gets us where we need 

to about which pools of loans and what dates would be 

affected. For example, the loan- if a school loses 

eligibility, because of that cohort default rate, if 

there was a loan made after that date and I think the 

language that the Department has offered here is moving 

towards solving that issue, but we had some other 

questions about loans proceeding to that during the 

process when a school might have been losing eligibility 

to make sure we're exactly clear what cohort of loans are 

included in that bucket, and how far back we're going to 

go in terms of application.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. Anything further 
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discussion wise on FFEL before we would transition to our 

next section of the agenda. Alright. So, by way of 

review, I believe that covers all the initial review of 

the text language and temperature checks. So, what we 

would do now is to move to final consensus checks. Tamy?

MS. ABERNATHY: We need- the 

Department needs to caucus, please.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay.

MS. ABERNATHY: 10 minutes.

MR. FRANCZAK: 10 minutes. Brady, can 

you help get them set up for the caucus? So, we'll reconwe will break and reconvene at roughly 2:00 p.m. eastern?

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes, please. That 

would be Ben, me, Genevieve, Brian Siegel, Toby Merrill, 

Soren Legaard. Is that everybody? That's everybody.

MR. ROBERTS: I think you should be 

just about all set.

MS. ABERNATHY: Thank you, Brady.

MS. TAYLOR: And if you just go to 

break rooms at the bottom, you should be able to join.

MS. TAYLOR: It looks like I'm being 

added to the breakout room. Am I supposedMR. ROBERTS: The breakout rooms need 

to be kept open for the purposes of the live stream, so I 

just moved you out of the Department breakout room? 
25

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

Because it's a weird Zoom quirk. Sorry.

MS. TAYLOR: That's okay. So, I can 

say not now to this one.

MR. FRANCZAK: Cindy, did you have a 

comment? Your hand's raised.

MS. JEFFRIES: Yes. Since we've got a 

matter of record who's in the caucus, can we pause the 

live stream?

MR. FRANCZAK: Welcome back, everyone. 

We're returning from the Department caucus. And it's my 

understanding that the Department may have some 

alternative language or language to share on the FFEL, so 

I'll turn it over to one of the Department of Ed 

Officials.

MS. ABERNATHY: Hi there. Yes. We- I'm 

gonna turn it to Ben. Did he- is he on camera? Oh, there 

he is. Ben, would you take it over?

MR. MILLER: Yep. So, thanks for 

bearing with us for a second there. As some of you noted, 

there was a little bit of disconnect between the way Tamy 

was describing the reg language, what we sent around. We 

realized that in our attempt to implement the switch from 

saying 20 years to the date, we actually did parallel 

part of the language we did not mean to parallel. So, we 

did mean for this section to be just 25 years. You know, 
26

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

we understand there's sort of concerns, from multiple 

parties as it was drafted before, but we did mean for 

this just to be 25. So, we had fixed that here. The 

second thing, if you scroll down to paragraph 2, we added 

in the language that Jessica had sent- I'm sorry, we had 

added last night on the other section around either has 

not applied or has not successfully applied to clarify 

that section. So that language now parallels what we have 

shared. And, if you scroll down to the 3rd paragraph, 

very bottom. So, I would just note that we tried to have 

this language here to sort of input this issue of adding 

clarity around the current default rate piece. Scott, 

totally appreciate that may not be fully getting the job 

done. Just wanted to sort of throw that out there for you 

to take a look at it. And this is the last one for, 

Consensus, if it makes sense to talk about this one at 

all before you can file consensus on paragraph 3, we're 

happy to do that.

MR. FRANCZAK: Anything further from 

the Department? Scott has his hand raised.

MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah. And I just want 

to- I appreciate that and, just offer that probably in 

the consensus vote as I was looking through, I think the 

concerns we have, really live in the- in section d. So,

and I think the change so I probably consensus voted on 
27

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

the wrong provision. So, I think, on the cohort default 

rate, sort of the conceptual issue here in 3, I think we 

would be sideways, not withhold consent. But it's gonna 

be on section d that I think we still have continued 

challenges that we need to work through on that. So, if 

that helps clarify. So, I think- you know, and the 

consensus votes are, when we take, when we take those 

that on, like, b 2 and 3, I think, we could, certainly 

not withhold consensus on those, if there was consensus.

MR. MILLER: Scott, just because I'm 

stuck on my phone because of unreliable internet, you 

said you b 1? B as in boy 1?

MR. BUCHANAN: No. B 2 and 3. We would 

not withhold consensus.

MR. MILLER: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. But 

you have issues on b.1.

MR. BUCHANAN: B 1, I think we 

continue to have, as I expressed the legal and statutory 

conflict issues remain.

MR. MILLER: Totally understand. I 

just wanna make sure I have the right the right letter. 

Thank you.

MR. FRANCZAK: Looks like Jessica has 

her hand raised.

MS. RANUCCI: Yeah. Again, so now I 
28

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

see that you have a regulation that says, we will waive 

Department-held FFEL loans for undergraduate borrowers 

who entered repayment before July 31, 2005, and we will 

waive the outstanding balance on FFEL loans for all 

borrowers before July 1, 2000, Maintain, that's a little 

confusing, and you should use the term commercially held. 

But I think on the substance, could you just explain why 

you're making this change only in the commercially held 

FFEL section? Just spell it out with the IBR.

MR. MILLER: Sure. So, the only IBR 

forgiveness plan available on commercial FFEL provides 

forgiveness after 25 years. When congress changed the 

law, they provided 20 years for certain direct loans. So, 

we meant to have this just mirror what's available 

statutorily to peg off of the 25 years here. So, we 

hadn't [inaudible] with the 20 years here. That was a 

drafting mistake. We were trying to make sure that the 

rest of the words matched.

MR. FRANCZAK: Are we ready to come 

back to the full group? Alright. Any final comments on 

the FFEL language? Lane.

MS. THOMPSON: I just want it to be on 

the record that that was what I understood from the 

conversation this morning, and the fact that what was in 

the regulatory text was different was very confusing and 
29

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

I feel like it was- kinda threw off this process a little 

bit. So just wanna put that out there.

MR. MILLER: Lane. Sorry for the 

confusion on our end.

MR. FRANCZAK: Alright. Are we ready 

to move to our final consensus check discussions and 

consensus decision making? Good? Okay. So, we are going 

to take these in order. We started with pre subpart g 

sections, early yesterday. And so, and we did that, 

temperature check. So, we, oh, Tamy, did you have 

something you wanna share?

MS. ABERNATHY: I do. I wanna kinda 

set the stage for our Consensus, the final consensus. 

Committee, we really understand that you don't want any 

caps and you don't want any cliffs and you want greater 

amounts of relief, and all we can do is have differences 

of opinion where this is concerned. But as we shift to 

writing the NPRM after these negotiations, we will think 

about your feedback and give careful consideration for 

everything that's been brought forward at the table. And, 

equally, it is important that we have, you know, for 

those areas that we reach consensus on, we will share the 

reg- the parts of the preamble with you. We will also 

have an opportunity for the public to make comment during 

a comment period on the notice of proposed rulemaking. 
30

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

So, as we go into these final consensus checks, I just 

wanted to set the stage to let you know we've heard you, 

and we understand where you're coming from. And we look 

forward to the rest of these negotiations.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you, Tamy. John, 

you have your hand raised.

MR. WHITELAW: I do. I just wanted to, 

sort of set out why I'm gonna be voting certain ways on 

certain things so that there's no misunderstanding. I do 

think this is a good faith disagreement. I'm not- this is 

not about bad faith. And I do think the proposals have 

some considerable merit, but cliffs and the limits are 

sort of- they tip it the other way for me. And I will 

say, and I'm gonna- and we'll come back and probably talk 

about this a little bit later at the end. And I know it's 

sort of been said before, but I just wanna sort of, and 

I'll say it very quickly, and then I won't say it again 

till at the end of the day. It's particularly problematic 

in the absence of usable language on hardship. You know, 

it's possible the hardship language could assuage my 

concerns on this Yeah. But we don't have it, so I'm sort 

of stuck. And as I think Tamy and I have had a 

discussion, it's fine that we are- it's not fine, but 

it's not you know sometimes we don't agree, and it's 

just- I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna get all, you know, 
31

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

hissy fit about it, but I will say, I know, for me, the 

10 and 20 limits and the inability to get any movement on 

cliffs is gonna cause me to downvote a number of items.

MR. FRANCZAK: Alright. Thank you, 

John. So, we will next oh, Ashley has her hand raised. 

Ashley.

MS. PIZZUTI: Tamy said something 

yesterday that, you know, has made me pause a little bit 

on how I'm gonna vote. There are some things that I feel 

necessary to vote down on. And I just wanna make that 

clear that I'm not downvoting anybody to getting 

cancellation. I think that everyone should get 

cancellation. I just think that there is just language 

here that puts too many limits and doesn't give enough 

broad cancellation in some of these provisions. So, I 

want to make that clear that I'm not against anyone 

getting any cancellation. 

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you, Ashley. 

Kyra?

MS. TAYLOR: And I'm just making a 

similar point. I think, I agree with the groups that the 

Department is targeting. I agree with the motivations 

that have given rise to these negotiations. However, 

while I'm strongly in support of discharging interest, of 

discharging old loans, of doing many of the things that 
32

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

the Department has proposed today, I think the proposals 

on the are insufficient to meet the crisis that is at 

hand. And I also, to the extent that I am downvoting, 

it's not question of whether or not the population that 

would receive relief under those regulations are somehow 

undeserving. It is simply a question of the regulation 

text not going far enough.

MR. FRANCZAK: Before we go to Yael, 

Cindy, did you have a process piece?

MS. JEFFRIES: No. I'm gonna yield to 

Yael and then I just wanna set stage with some comments 

for the consensus preparation.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. Yael?

MS. SHAVIT: Thank you. In the same 

vein, similarly, though I will be downloading some 

provisions here, I do wanna say that I think the effort 

that the Department has initiated with this rulemaking is 

critical. I also am not downvoting the notion that that 

any of the individuals who would get relief under the 

draft regulations should get it, but rather that many 

more people should get it. And that as the Department 

goes back and considers these regulations prior to 

putting out an NPRM to take that into consideration. And 

to that end, the last thing I'll say is a little bit of a 

correction or not correction, but a clarification on what 
33

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

Tamy said, which is that, you know, this isn't just a 

question of should there be cliffs or shouldn't there be 

cliffs, should there be caps and shouldn't there be caps. 

I think there's a separate question, which is, should the 

Department give itself the discretion to be able to 

create tools that it can use in different circumstances 

in a perspective basis that will allow it to, if 

appropriate, and I'm not saying that it is in this 

context or in a different context, but if appropriate set 

caps, sure. But it would do so under regulations that 

give it the discretion to make those determinations on a 

case-by-case basis and given different circumstances. And 

I think that's a little bit more of a nuanced point than 

just saying it's a question of whether or not there 

should be caps. It's a question of whether or not the 

regulatory text needs to include it. How the Department 

then uses the regs is a different question altogether. 

But with that, I will stop talking.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you. Cindy, do 

you wanna kick us off?

MS. JEFFRIES: Yeah. I just want to 

make a few comments here in preparation for the 

consensus. 1st, it is only primaries who are casting 

their position on each of these sections. So, the only 

exception to that that we currently are aware of is that 
34

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

Jordan Nellums we'll be in for the currently enrolled 

group as Jada is absent today. So, it is appropriate for 

him to step in her place. That being said, if anyone who 

is not a voting member, which I'm not seeing any, well, 

if you could please turn your camera off so that when we 

make note of dissents, we are only looking through the 

persons with the authority to cast a vote. I also want to 

remind you that there is one group that is currently has 

no one here at this afternoon to cast the vote and that 

is the veterans or veterans organizations. And so 

according to protocol, that absence will not- the absence 

will be the equivalent to not dissenting and will not 

hold up consensus on any of the items. I think other than 

that, Mike, we can turn it back over to you and you can 

start walking through the sections.

MR. FRANCZAK: Yeah. So, appreciate 

that, Cindy. So, when we go through each of, you know, of 

the sections that we've identified, we'll ask you to hold 

your votes by way of your thumb so that we can record 

them and then make sure we didn't miss anyone in terms of 

any descent. And then if there are- we're trying to get 

through this quickly. So, any new comments that you'd 

like to share, we would go with those new comments. 

Otherwise, we'd like to move to the next section. 

Alright. And we're gonna go in the order of numerical 
35

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

order. So, the first section or identified sections is a 

grouping. It's the pre subpart g sections that we first 

identified. They were the corrections to subparts a, c, 

e, and f. They are 30.10, 30.20, 30.23, 30.25, 30.27, 

30.29, 30.30, 30.33, 30.39, 30.62, 30.69, 30.70, and 

30.79. Alright. So that's what we are taking the final 

consensus vote on.

MS. ABERNATHY: Michael?

MR. FRANCZAK: Yes?

MS. ABERNATHY: I have one thing that 

I wanna mention because I believe we made one change to 

the reg text from last night than what was presented. I 

need to get back up and find that. Give me just a second. 

In, 30 subpart a, section 30.1 a 2, we say refer the debt 

to the Government accountability office for collection. 

We added the words in accordance with section 30.80 f. 

So, I just wanted to make sure that I drew that to- made 

sure the negotiators saw that change.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you. Couple hands 

raised. Jessica, then Scott.

MS. RANUCCI: I'm not trying to be 

annoying, but is it possible that that's supposed to be 

30.70 f? I don't think there is an f on 30.80.

MR. FRANCZAK: What if we come back to 

that? Unless Tamy has an immediate answer.
36

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

MS. ABERNATHY: She does not. So.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay.

MS. ABERNATHY: We're looking at it.

MR. FRANCZAK: Yeah. We'll have to 

come back to that one. Scott?

MR. BUCHANAN: Listen. I'm not sure 

it's gonna change anything, but, I mean, not having these 

changes in front of us is really kinda problematic here. 

I appreciate the Department's under time constraints and 

but.

MS. ABERNATHY: We are working to get 

those to you. I wasn't aware that they hadn't been sent 

yet.

MR. BUCHANAN: Yep. No. I appreciate 

that. But it it's difficult to be proceeding into voting 

when we still don't.

MS. ABERNATHY: Okay. Why don't we 

just take a break? Let's take a break until we can get 

this to you guys.

MS. RANUCCI: Was it- this was in the 

one you sent last night though, right?

MS. ABERNATHY: No. It's okay. Why 

don't we take a 5-minute break and let me make sure that 

we can get this document to you guys? Is that okay?

MR. FRANCZAK: Sounds good. Alright. 
37

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

Let's pick 5 and make sure everyone has a copy of the 

document as sent. Can we go off live feed? Welcome back 

from the caucus break and we are going to proceed with 

our agenda. I'd like to first, though, turn it over to 

Tamy for a statement.

MS. ABERNATHY: Great. First of all, 

thank you guys so much for keeping us straight in all of 

the changes. Last night- the version that you received 

last night, there have been 2 things from that version 

that have change and there's nothing else that has 

changed. That is the 30.70, not 30.80, that we referenced 

just a bit ago and then the FFEL changes that we went 

through in b. The document that you have references 

everything from last night but those two additional 

changes. So, you should be able to follow along now and 

hopefully that will eliminate any excess confusion. And 

thank you so much for your patience with when we got this 

information to you. We really appreciate it.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you, Tamy. So,

everyone should have received it in an email for the 

proposed regulatory language. FMCS is also working to put 

it in the chat as well as another resource possibility. 

Alright. With that, are we ready to proceed with our 

final consensus check? Alright. Sounds good. Alright. So 

we are, again, looking at a grouping first, which is the 
38

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

pre subpart g sections. I won't go through them all 

again. But as we identified earlier, they're all the 

subparts, the corrections in subparts a, c, e, and f. 

Alright. So, what we're going to do is we're gonna ask 

you as we're voting in this section, I already asked you 

to show your thumbs and hold them so we can make sure to 

identify everyone so we're not missing anyone. So, if you 

would, on this particular pre subpart g sections, could 

you, raise your thumbs for voting purposes? This is final 

voting on this subsection, sections. Alright. Keep them 

raised, if you would, please. So, I'm just identifying 

those who are in descent. Okay? Kyra Taylor, John 

Whitelaw, That's everyone. Am I missing anyone?

MS. SHAVIT: It looks like Ashley's 

thumb is down.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. Ashley as well. 

Sorry. Are there any new comments? Again, we don't- we're 

trying to expedite things. We've understood all the 

concerns that have been raised throughout the past two 

days with respect to major concerns that folks have. So, 

we're just looking for any new comments with respect to 

this particular sections vote. Alright. Seeing none. If 

you would- if you do have anything please raise your 

hand, the virtual hand. Alright. Seeing none. I believe 

we're gonna go next to the subpart g sections, which 
39

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

begins with, I believe, 30.80. Alright. So, 30.80. That 

is the waiver of the student loan debts. Alright. By way 

of thumbs or consensus, can you raise your thumbs and 

vote on section 30.80 as a final consensus check? I do 

not see anyone in dissent. Did I- so I believe that has 

full consensus. Congratulations. Alright. We are next 

going to 30.81, section 30.81, which is relief for 

borrowers on an IDR Plan. Everyone has identified the 

section we're voting on section 30.81. Okay. So, by show 

of hands for a final consensus check or vote on 30.81, 

can folks raise their thumbs? Alright. So, I'm just going 

to identify those who are in descent. Jessica Ranucci, 

Yael Shavit, Kyra Taylor, Ashley Pizzuti, John Whitelaw, 

Richard Haase, Wisdom Cole. I believe that's everyone who 

was in descent.

MS. JEFFRIES: Mike, if I may, your 

audio is extremely weak when you're starting out, and 

it's really hard to hear. Okay?

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thanks.

MR. FRANCZAK: When you're closer to 

your- to the microphone. It's totally fine. I think it's 

just distance.

MR. FRANCZAK: Alright. Well, I please 

thank you for pointing that out. Please bear with me. 
40

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

I'll speak louder and slower, if that's okay, and I'll 

sit closer to my computer. You'll just have to see my 

face closer to the screen, so please bear with me. 

Alright. Okay. We are moving next to 30.83. Correct? Or 

I'm sorry. 30.82. Sorry. 30.82, relief for borrowers on 

SAVE Plan. Alright. By show of hands and thumbs, please, 

identify your final consensus check on 30.82, relief for 

borrowers on a SAVE Plan. Thumbs? Alright. I'm gonna 

identify those in descent. Jessica Ranucci, Yael Shavit, 

Kyra Taylor, Ashley Pizzuti, John Whitelaw, Richard 

Haase, Wisdom Cole and I believe that's everyone in 

descent. Alright. Next, we have 30.83. 30.83 is what we 

covered in part this morning. I don't have the name of 

the section in front of me. Please bear with me.

MS. ABERNATHY: Waiver when a loan 

first entered repayment 25 years ago.

MR. FRANCZAK: Right. Thank you, Tamy. 

Alright. So, voting on 30.83. Jessica has her hand 

raised. Jessica?

MS. RANUCCI: Sorry. 20 or 25 years 

ago, right? I'm not trying to be- just after that last 

conversation we had, this one is 20 or 25 years ago, 

right?

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. With that 
41

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

clarification, are we ready to vote?

MS. ABERNATHY: So, Michael, it's 

waiver when a loan first entered repayment 20 or 25 years 

ago in section 30.83.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you. Alright. 

Ready for a vote? Alright. Show of thumbs. In consensus. 

What I have in terms of identifying who is in dissent, 

Kyra Taylor, Ashley Pizzuti, John Whitelaw, Lane 

Thompson, Wisdom Cole. Did I identify Scott Buchanan yet? 

Those are all folks who were in descent on 30.83. 

Alright. If there aren't any new comments, we'll move on 

to the next one. So that would be 30.84, titled, waiver 

when a loan is eligible for forgiveness based upon 

repayment plan. By show of thumbs, please indicate your 

consensus decision on 30.84. That one looks like full 

consensus. Next, we would go to 30.85, waiver when a loan 

is eligible for a targeted forgiveness opportunity. By 

show of thumbs, please indicate where you are on 30.85 

for consensus decision. On this one, so far, in terms of 

descent, we have Kyra Taylor. Ashley, do you have a vote 

on this one? I couldn't see your thumb. Sorry. Thank you. 

That is the only one identified in descent on 30.85. If 

there aren’t any new comments for 30.85. We would next 

move to 30.86. 30.86 is waiver based upon secretarial 

actions. By a show of thumbs, please indicate your 
42

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

consensus level on 30.86. I believe that one is full 

consensus. Moving next to 30.87. 30.87 is waiver 

following a closure prior to secretarial actions. By show 

of thumbs, please indicate your consent decision on 

30.87. I believe we have full consensus on 30.87. If 

there aren't any new comments on 30.87, we'll move to 

30.88. 30.88 deals with waiver foreclosed gainful 

employment programs with high debt to earnings rates or 

low median earnings. 30.88. Okay, by show of thumbs, 

please indicate your decision on 30.88. I believe we have 

full consensus on 30.88. Next in order, is 30.89. 30.89 

is waiver when the current balance exceeds the original 

principal balance. 30.89. Alright. By show of thumbs, 

please indicate your vote on 30.89. Alright. I'm gonna 

identify those in descent. Jessica Ranucci, Yael Shavit, 

Kyra Taylor, John Whitelaw, Sherrie Gammage, Lane 

Thompson, Richard Haase, Wisdom Cole and Sandra Boham.

MR. WHITELAW: I think you missed 

Ashley.

MR. FRANCZAK: I missed Ashley again? 

I'm sorry, Ashley. I apologize. Ashley Pizzuti also is in 

descent. Alright. So that was 30.89. Are there any new 

comments on 30.89? Alright. That moves us to 30.90. 30.90 

deals with waiver when the current balance exceeds the 

original principal balance for low-income borrowers, not 
43

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

in an IDR plan. By show of thumbs, please indicate your 

consensus on 30.90. Those in descent include Jessica 

Ranucci, Yael Shavit, Kyra Taylor, Ashley Pizzuti, John 

Whitelaw, Richard Haase, Wisdom Cole, and Sandra Boham. 

There is a severability clause in 30.91. Do we need to 

vote that one separately or not? That's a question for 

the Department.

MS. ABERNATHY: No.

MR. FRANCZAK: Okay. That leaves the 

FFEL language. Are we voting on the FFEL language in its 

entirety?

MS. ABERNATHY: We are separating that 

out from a, c, d, e, f, and then b 1, b 2, b 3.

MR. FRANCZAK: So, will there be 

separate votes on b 1, b 2 and b 3?

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes, sir.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you.

MS. ABERNATHY: Yes, sir.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you. Alright. So,

we are going to start with the FFEL language section 

682.0. I'm sorry, 403. We're looking first at sections a, 

c, d, e and f. And asking for your consent. Vote on a, c, 

d, e, and f first. Can we have a show of thumbs? Alright. 

Those in dissent, Scott Buchanan. Ashley are you- I can't 

see your thumb. There you go. Yeah. Just a little higher. 
44

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

It gets- it- your name blocks it sometimes. Thank you. 

Scott Buchanan in dissent. Sandra, did you vote? Sandra 

Boham? I can see. Okay. In agreement. We're at 70%. 

Alright. If there aren't any new comments on that section 

vote, we'll next go to b 1 of the FFEL Language. Alright, 

b 1, by a show of thumbs, please indicate your consensus 

decision. You're on b 1 of the FFEL language. Alright. 

I'm identifying those in dissent. Scott Buchanan, Kyra 

Taylor. John Whitelaw. Richard, I can't see your thumb. 

Oh, you're up. Okay. And, Sandra, I couldn't see your 

thumb. Okay. She's okay. She's in consent. Not blocking. 

Any new- oh, Kyra. Yes.

MS. TAYLOR: So, I just have one new 

comment that I didn't raise previously. I strongly 

support discharging the debt of commercially-held FFEL 

loans that are over the age of 25. My only reason for not 

providing consent here is because the cliff is present 

here as it is in the earlier IDR pieces of language. And 

I'm concerned that not all FFELs would be encompassed 

even once they hit that 25-year mark. And so, I just 

wanted to clarify my vote there. That is the only reason 

that I'm not providing consensus here.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you, Kyra. Lane 

Thompson?

MS. THOMPSON: I just wanted to add 
45

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

that the 20- and 25-year distinction for undergrad and 

graduate loans is confusing enough as it is. So, to add 

in another that it's always 25 for FFEL just makes it 

even more complicated for borrowers, unnecessarily so, I 

think.

MR. FRANCZAK: If there aren't any new 

comments then on the b 1 decision, we would next go to b 

2. Alright, b 2, can we have our consensus decision by a 

show of thumbs? Looks like we have full consensus on b 2. 

The next and I believe the last consensus, final 

consensus decision is on b 3 for this particular 

grouping. Alright, b 3 of the FFEL language. By a show of 

thumbs, please indicate if you are in consensus or not on 

b 3 of the FFEL language. Sandra, where are you on the b 

3 vote? You're muted.

MS. BOHAM: The cohort rate. Correct?

MR. FRANCZAK: B 3?

MS. BOHAM: Yeah. 

MR. FRANCZAK: Mhmm. Yes. That's- that 

is it. Alright. I believe we have full consensus on b 3. 

Are there any other items, or sections to discuss now 

before we would move into the hardship discussion. We 

also may wanna take a break as well. What's the- what's 

the interest of the group right now?

MS. ABERNATHY: We would take a break 
46

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

now so that we would not interrupt the hardship 

discussion.

MR. FRANCZAK: Mhmm. Okay.

MR. WHITELAW: Before we do, I'm gonna 

ask, indulgence. I have a hearing in nine minutes and 

wanted to make a brief introductory remarks before we get 

to the hardship discussion. And if there's no objection, 

I would like the opportunity to do that. I'm not asking 

that anyone respond to them, but I have a couple of 

things that I think is important for me to say. And if we 

take a break, I will be in a hearing and not be present 

for possibly the rest of discussion depending on how long 

this judge keeps me in his little courtroom. So, with 

everyone's indulgence, I would like approximately 2 to 2 

and a half minutes if the Department and the FMCS folks 

and others don't object.

MR. FRANCZAK: John, proceed, and then 

we'll take our break after John's three-minute, up to 

three-minute comment.

MR. WHITELAW: Okay. Thank you so 

much. I wanna take a step back. I am always enthusiastic 

and happy to join student debt negotiations on behalf of 

students with disabilities. I think there has been a long 

history, unfortunately, of not thinking about students 

with disabilities, and this stretches way back and 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

predates many- involvement of many people in here, going 

all the way back to at least 2013. Unfortunately, there 

is still a tendency not to think of the separate needs of 

students with disabilities except when it comes to a 

specific disability-related matter such as total and 

permanent disability. One of my hopes had been that my 

participation in this negotiated rulemaking session over 

the past three months would have to been resulted in a 

robust, actionable set of policies and proposed 

regulations addressing hardship because that is the area 

of all the things that we've talked about that 

specifically would be relevant for folks with 

disabilities. There's not really a single word that we 

have had today up to this point that has been relevant in 

a separate sense for students with disabilities. 

Absolutely, students with disabilities will benefit from 

some of these changes that we have reached consensus on, 

and students with disabilities would benefit from some of 

the other proposals, that were presented. But there 

really has not been a centering of issues revolving 

around students with disabilities. And, again, I do not 

have any question about the good faith of the folks at 

this table. But my understanding is, just as an example, 

we were scheduled to do this for two and a half- for an 

hour and a half at the end, and we're now already down to 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

an hour and six minutes. And after the break, it will be 

less than an hour. So, I am troubled that at the end of 

six days of negotiations where we've had previous 

discussions about hardship, we're not actually gonna get 

something actionable for us to vote on. There are going 

to be no concrete regulatory proposals that come out of 

this that particularly address the situation faced by 

students with disabilities. And unlike a former colleague 

who made his remarks and did the mic drop and walked 

away, I have no interest in walking away from this table. 

I very much want to be a part of theMR. WEATHERS: John, 30 seconds 

remains.

MR. WHITELAW: -very much want to 

continue to be a part of the discussion, And I am notthis is- the fact that I have to leave to go to a 

hearing, please do not, please do not, take that as any 

sense of lack of engagement. I want to be very much 

engaged in this as it relates to students with 

disabilities and urge that the voice of students with 

disabilities be considered. Thank you so much, and with a 

bit of luck, I'll be back.

MR. FRANCZAK: Thank you, John. We 

wish you a quick hearing.

MR. WHITELAW: Yeah, don't we all? 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

Thank you so much.

MR. FRANCZAK: Alright. So, is 10 

minutes sufficient time for our break? Alright. Let's 

reconvene at 3:05 Eastern. Can we go off live stream?

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Welcome back. I 

hope that 10 minutes gave you a little bit of a breather. 

We are set to begin. We do have one of the researchers 

here with us to give us the presentation, and then we'll 

move into the hardship discussion. Before we do that, I'm 

gonna turn it over to Tamy for a couple brief comments.

MS. ABERNATHY: Thank you, Cindy. As 

you are aware, we did not produce regulatory text on 

hardship. The negotiators submitted a lot of creative 

ideas that discussed many types of borrowers, and we 

appreciate all the work that went into those suggestions. 

We reviewed that information, but we did not feel that we 

were able to craft regulatory text for this session. We 

understand the critical importance of hardship, and we 

are going to continue to consider how to identify relief 

for borrowers who need help, but who- who are not 

addressed by the current system or the proposals we have 

sought consensus on today. So, we want to use this time 

to hear more about the ideas submitted by you all- by all 

of you over the last several weeks and, of course, our 

researcher today as well. We are going to carefully 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

consider what we hear as we decide what our next steps on 

hardship should be. We have received a request from some 

negotiators for the presentation, and we will que that up 

in just a second. So, we are providing time for that now, 

then we will delve into what negotiators have submitted. 

So, at this time, I'll turn it back over to FMCS for our 

presentation. Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thanks, Tamy. So, 

in order to meet the non-Federal negotiators' request for 

the presentation, I'm gonna turn it over and let our 

presenter introduce herself.

MS. JIMENEZ: Hi, everyone. This is 

Dalie Jimenez. I'm a professor of law at UC Irvine School 

of Law where I lead the student loan law initiative at 

UCI. And I'm here to present to you work that was done as 

part of our initiative, in which I worked on. But I have 

to confess, I'm not an economist. And our economist, main 

author, Marshall Steinbaum, who's a professor at 

University of Utah, just is actually proctoring his exam 

right now and couldn't make it. But I hope I will be able 

to answer your questions. [Inaudible] and Jonathan Glade 

are also on this brief. So, we were trying to answer the 

question of, you know, trying to draw lines among 

hardship. I realized actually I'm not sharing my screen. 

I need to do that so that you see what I'm seeing. Here 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

we go. Can you see the- I think you should be able to

see?

MS. JEFFRIES: Yes.

MS. JIMENEZ: Okay. So, this isobviously, this work is directly trying to answer the 

question that the Department has posed about what types 

of hardships can borrowers continue to face, or may they 

continue- continue to face, and how could the Department 

address those cases of hardship? We used what we were 

already working on, which is, the credit reporting 

dataset held at the University of California by the 

California Policy Lab. And that dataset is comprised of a 

2% random national sample of borrowers who have an 

Experian credit report. And, you know, it's a very large 

representative national sample. And we can only observe 

the kinds of things you observe in a credit- in your own 

credit report, and so we can't speak to everything that, 

you know, might measure hardship. This is sort of- we 

termed it sort of the tip of the iceberg in the sense of, 

like, the things that are observable. There may be many 

other things going on. There are likely many other things 

going on that we do not have visibility into. And so here 

are the six main things we are- I'm gonna discuss with 

you today. We're looking at issues like the credit score. 

In this case, it would be a decrease in a credit score 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

would indicate higher levels of hardship. Decrease in the 

likelihood of homeownership or really, a mortgage. 

Increase in credit utilization. So having less available 

credit is an indication, in our view, of hardship, 

increase in the number of accounts or people with severe 

delinquencies, which I'll talk about, but it's basically 

not paying for three months on an account. An increase in 

the percentage of legal adverse proceedings like 

bankruptcy and increase in auto loan amortization. So,

growth in auto loan. So, I will just kind of start with 

the punchline recommendation, and then go into the slides 

with, you know, the graphs, which are all in the reports. 

Our main recommendation- the first one is to reduce- to 

cancel student debt for borrowers in the bottom half of 

the income distribution of student borrowers. That is, 

the bottom half of, income, which corresponds roughly to 

incomes below $71,000. Importantly, we do not observe 

income in the dataset. What we observe, however, or we 

have done is merge the dataset at the- with the American 

Community Survey data. And so we are, essentially, 

assigning income based on ZIP plus four, sort of a small 

geographical area for a borrower. And the income in the 

American Community Survey data does not actually, you 

know, distinguish within student loan borrowers and 

nonstudent loan borrowers. And here, we're only looking 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

at student loan borrowers. So, what is happening is thatwhat is certainly happening is that we are under- we're 

over assigning income here, so that any recommendations 

that we are making are actually more conservative than 

they could be- than they would be if we had income. The 

reason being that we know from other research that 

student loan borrowers have a lower average income than 

non-student loan borrowers. So again, the first 

recommendation is to reduce debt to 0 for borrowers in

the bottom half of the income distribution and then, to 

reduce debt such that the student debt-to-income ratio 

for borrowers in the middle, you know, sort of the middle 

income distribution, corresponds to less than 30%, that 

student debt-to-income ratio and that, financially, more 

than 30% debt-to-income is a hardship. Okay. So, I'll 

start with some summary statistics and then delve into 

the six hardship topics that I discussed. We- you can see 

essentially that the median income, you know, has not 

changed very much. We're using these 2 snapshots in time 

as the pre-pandemic snapshot, the first quarter of 2020, 

you know, before the payment pause, before the official 

declaration of, you know, the pandemic, etcetera. So, the 

first three months of 2020, we're comparing it to latest 

data that we have in our dataset, which is the second 

quarter of 2023. And here you can see essentially how we 
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break out the incomes based on, again, our, approximation 

of income using the American Community Survey. You may 

note that it ends- the sort of maximum income here is 

250,000 dollars, which we know is not the maximum income 

in the population, but that's because of how the data in 

the American Community Survey is. They just- everything 

above 250 is just coded as 250. And- but we're not really 

making any recommendations about the top 10% of the 

income distribution. So, to start with credit score, 

again, the idea here is that the higher credit score is 

good. Lower credit score is bad. So, a drop in credit 

score, if you look at the blue line, the bottom 50% 

income quantile, you see a dramatic drop for- as soon as 

the student debt to income ratio gets anywhere past 0. 

And, you know, basically, this is what- you know, I would 

just repeat myself several times with the other graphs, 

which is that particularly in the, you know, bottom 50%, 

the- you can see here, like a dramatic drop, as soon as 

there is any student debt, which is why we recommend 

essentially for those student borrowers, you know, below, 

again, roughly $71,000 in income and household income 

that, you know, it would be a hardship to- or yeah, it 

would be a hardship to have them have any student debt, 

because you can see essentially, pre-pandemic and postpandemic, the effect. And then this is despite the fact 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

that credit scores in general improved during the 

pandemic, as we know from- we can see here, but also, we 

know from other research. And, you know, mostly, the 

ideas, you know, depend- the pause had a big effect. 

Credit scores in general improved, and credit score for 

student borrowers in particular improved. I'm gonna- I 

see a question, but I'm gonna hold it if that's okay 

because it's gonna throw me off. So, okay. Let's see. I 

think I- okay. So, and then I can go back. Like, if there 

are questions, I can go back to any of the slides. So,

for homeownership, the- again, here, what we're looking 

at is a borrower with a mortgage loan outstanding. And 

you can see the sort of, you know, change. We're making 

these recommendations, you know, with- sorry, hold on one 

second. There's not- the thing about homeownership is 

that, you know, you have to have a certain credit score 

and you have to have a particular- you know, other 

characteristics in order to get a mortgage. So, we don't 

see a lot of variation in this- in the homeownership 

outcome for borrowers with a higher debt to income 

ratios, and there's almost no variation in the top 10%, 

as you can see, you know, the green line here. It's notyou know, having any student that at all, though, you can 

see in the bottom 50% of the distribution, makes a 

dramatic difference in whether or not you're gonna be 
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able to qualify for a mortgage. And again, this is why 

the major topline cancel- you know, recommendation. 

Credit utilization. So, this is about, you know, again, 

availability of credit, or rather the usage of credit. 

And there's no- you know, there's- there isn't like a law 

about this or a general- you know, a rule written 

anywhere except, basically everywhere the general 

recommendation or the general thought is that 30% of 

higher in credit utilization is associated with a 

declining credit score and difficulty with repayment. And 

so, we view it as an early warning sign. And so, by 

itself, may not be, you know- you know, wouldn't be 

enough to make the recommendation that we make. But, 

again, this is all in the six measures that we're talking 

about. And here you can- what we're doing is computing 

the total outstanding balance on unsecured lines of 

credit to the total limit across all the unsecured lines 

of credit. This is mostly credit cards that we're talking 

about. And you can see that, like, utilization, you know, 

which is on the left-hand side, increases rapidly at the 

bottom of the range, you know, in terms of the bottom. 

Right? You see here that the colors are flipped where, 

you know, the blue line is the top, the bottom 50th 

percentile of income, and you can see how their 

utilization changes pretty rapidly as soon as they start- 
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as soon as- as soon as they have any student debt. Okay. 

Severe delinquency, we define and, actually, this is not 

our only definition. This is some definitions that our 

reserve uses as having a loan with a payment of 90 plus 

days past due, so not having paid within three months if 

a payment was due. And, you know, most of the variation 

here is, again, in the bottom part of the distribution, 

for borrowers in the middle, 40th percent of the income 

distribution, that's- this goes to our second 

recommendation. A student debt-to-income ratio of 30% 

appears to be a threshold for an increasing probability. 

And you can see that in the vertical line, you know, the 

0.297 vertical line, and observe essentially the red 

line, how it- you know, there's sort of a jump there in 

2023 and also in 2020, You know, for that distribution. 

Okay. Adverse legal proceedings are the bulk of these are 

bankruptcies, but it also could include any other public 

records that the credit bureaus have kept track of. And 

there's not the- again, the majority- the vast majority, 

over 90% of what we're talking about here is 

bankruptcies, but it could include foreclosure and 

alimony or small claims. And we're looking only at things 

that were filed in the previous three years, because all 

these public records can remain in a bankruptcy- sorry, 

can remain in a credit report for 10 years. So, we're 
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looking at things that occurred in the last three years. 

And here you can see again- I mean, there's even- there's 

much more sort of variation, but, the threshold for sort 

of increased probability of facing adverse legal 

proceedings, is if we look at the blue line, the bottom 

50% of the income distribution and, again, the vertical 

dash line of 0.97- you know, close to 30%, you can see 

that there's a- there's sort of a jump that happens much 

more dramatically in this case in the middle 

distribution, the 40th- the 50 to 90% of income, the red 

line. But you can see it happening also in the bottom 

50%- 50th percentile of income. Okay. And finally, before 

getting to questions, auto loans. So, the idea here is 

we're looking at the degree to which indebtedness 

inhibits repayment or amortization of secured loans. And 

we use auto loans as the main example since the term is 

shorter and it's more similar to student debt than 

mortgages, and it's just, again, also something we can 

observe. We compute the average ratio of student balanceI'm sorry, current balance on auto loans to original 

balance. So, like, how much have people paid down? And 

you can see, that, you know, auto loan amortization is 

much worse for borrowers in the bottom 50th- 50% of the 

income distribution if they have any student debt, while 

the amortization rates for in the top 50% of the income 
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distribution is kind of independent of, you know, of 

student- you know, it- it's sort of- it's being affected 

by something else other than student burden. And this 

again, really motivates the recommendation to reduce 

student debt to 0 for student borrowers in the bottom 

50th percentile of the income distribution. I think 

that's the last slide. So yes. So, you know, I'll go 

back. I'll just put the recommendations up, and then look 

at the chat because it looks like there are some 

questions from Ed. Hi, Ed. Is the median income used here 

national state? It is the national. National is what 

we're using. Lawsuits for money owed, including student 

loans, have not been included on court reports for 

several years, since lawsuits are included presentedthat's right. That's right. So, we can't- you know, we 

only have what we have and the- it's- Ed's comments on 

the chat is absolutely right that- and we note it in the 

report, that the credit bureaus can only include 

information if they can, you know, actually match a 

public record to the person, you know, to the person's 

credit report that they're reporting about. And, that 

information is available for bankruptcies, because date 

of birth and address and name are included. For most 

other public records, it isn't. We do observe some in 

the- in- you know, some non-bankruptcy things in the 
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credit report still being reported. So, I presume that 

they have, you know, double-checked that. But, yes, this 

absolutely means that we're undercounting, you know, in 

many ways. Like I said, this is actually a very 

conservative- this- as, you know, sort of the grass that 

you see understate, to be clearer, understate the extent 

of the hardship. And- but that- then, you know, sort of 

the best we've got. I've lost where everyone is. I'm 

gonna stop sharing for a second. I can reshare. It's just 

that I lost- I couldn't find you all. So, yeah, happy to 

answer other questions. Try to answer, to be clear.

[Inaudible] I'm trying to see if I- should I just- Jalil 

looks likeDR. BISHOP: Yeah. First, thank you 

for the presentation and helping to ground the hardship 

conversation and just great evidence and showing us the 

extent to how student debt entangles in other economic 

insecurities. I wanted to- because- I just to want us to 

get some type of guidance because we're at a- we're close 

to the 4 o'clock mark. So, I wanted-wonder if the 

facilitators can tell us how they see the last 30 minutes 

of the conversation going, and how best to flow from 

here.

MS. JEFFRIES: Yeah. I- we allotted 

the researchers 15 minutes. So, if there are questions- 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

Ms. Jimenez, did you complete your presentation?

MS. JIMENEZ: I did. I did. I just if 

there are questions, otherwise [inaudible] my exit.

MS. JEFFRIES: Right. Brady, how much 

time?

MR. ROBERTS: That was just at about a 

hair over 15 minutes.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. So, are there any 

questions that you feel you need to have answered while 

we have Ms. Jimenez here? Otherwise, we'll go directly 

into the hardship conversation. Alright. I'm not seeing 

any hands. I wanna thank you for joining us and sharing 

your research on behalf of FMCS and the non-Federal 

negotiators that requested your presence. Thank you.

MS. JIMENEZ: Thank you.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Let's go into our 

hardship conversation. Tamy, anything you need to say 

before or do we want to just goMS. ABERNATHY: Yes.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay.

MS. ABERNATHY: Thank you so much. As 

we move into this discussion, we wanted to provide some 

additional framing that would be helpful for us as we 

discuss hardship to highlight what would help us continue 

to review this issue. One is that as you discuss 
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categories of borrowers, it would be helpful to 

understand more about the different thresholds or

criteria that would be chosen. For example, there have 

been ideas around older borrowers or borrowers in 

default. It would be helpful to understand more about the 

rationale behind what age we should look at, or what's a 

proper amount of time to consider in default, and why. It 

is also helpful to hear more about how some indicators 

might be used as a factor within a larger analysis. For 

instance, we do not think Pell Grant recipient on its own 

would-be sufficient grounds for a waiver. But it would be 

helpful to consider how receiving a Pell grant might be 

one factor among others. What other factors would you 

consider alongside it to look at hardship? The same is 

true for a joint spousal consolidation loan. How would 

that be used in a larger analysis, and why would it be 

used that way? Another thing to talk through is what data 

we would need and how we would get at it or get it. For 

example, we've heard some stories about borrowers with 

significant expenses related to caregiving or medical 

needs, but those factors are not included in the 

Department's administrative data. The final thing to 

consider here is how to determine the amount of relief 

that would be appropriate given those factors and 

analysis. For example, borrowers might have different 
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levels of medical expenses. How do we figure out how to 

connect the given hardship factor to what the amount of 

relief or what amount relief is appropriate. So, with 

that, we wanna turn it over for discussion.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you, Tamy. 

Jessica.

MS. RANUCCI: Thanks, Tamy. You know, 

there's many borrowers who have watched the proposals 

that we've discussed and voted on the last two days who 

don't see themselves reflected in any of the pathways to 

relief, even though their loans are really negatively 

affecting their lives. We've heard repeatedly that debt 

relief based on financial hardship is critical and 

urgent. We've heard it in the public comments. We've 

heard it from the negotiators, and we've heard it from 

the Department itself, I think. But we didn't get any 

regulatory text, and we didn't get any specific feedback 

on a lot of the proposals that were submitted by 

negotiators. I understand that's what you want us to 

return to now. I wish we had more time, but we're looking 

at about 30 minutes left. You know, Tamy, I know you said 

in your prior introduction that the Department is still 

interested in working on this. But I think in order to 

take that statement seriously, we really need to know 

what the procedures are in order to get the Department to 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

issue regulatory text. My understanding is that the 

Department can't issue this text without having discussed 

that text with negotiators. And I think, and I don't 

think the Department disagrees, that we're the best 

negotiators to do that, that you're not intending to 

bring this at a new table or to convene a new negotiated 

rulemaking session. So, I guess my question is, what are 

the steps from here? Are you open to extending the 

session today? Are you planning to reconvene the 

committee to discuss proposed text once you, have it? If 

so, when are you gonna do that, and how are you gonna do 

that, and how are you gonna let us know? And I think if 

you're not prepared to answer those questions, the real 

question I have for you is, how can you convince us and 

all the borrowers that are following live and, in the 

news, and are really hoping for relief here that they 

critically need that debt relief based on financial 

hardship is still going to happen? I don't want to 

believe that the Department's just walking away from this 

idea, but I'm just worried that if we end this session 

today without any concrete steps going forward, that 

that's the only conclusion that I and others might be 

able to draw.

MS. ABERNATHY: We are not walking 

away from this. We're very committed to hearing what you 
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have to say. We do have a hard stop at 4:15 today. But 

our plan is to listen to this discussion, to get the 

feedback that we've requested from you guys, and to share 

more about our next steps in the future. That's really 

where we are. We need to hear more from you, and we'll be 

able to circle back at some later date with our next 

steps.

MS. JEFFRIES: Richard?

MR. HAASE: Before I share my 

concerns, I don't know, I see Jessica raised her hand 

again. I don't know if it's to continue that exchange. 

Yes, and no? 

MS. RANUCCI: Yeah, but you can go 

ahead. That's fine.

MR. HAASE: Well, yeah. I just- I have 

to be honest here and really share my frustration with 

this. So, when we- we were asked to spend a lot of time 

in our early sessions focusing on discussions of 

hardship, it was listed among the initial questions that 

began our neg reg work in October, and we had literally, 

entire higher days centered on stacks of questions about 

hardship as a priority that was established by the 

Education Department. We were told- we were directed and 

asked to go back and put together language proposal items 

for the Department. And we were given this really tight 
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timeline. I don't even remember what it was. We had, 

like, a negotiation session on a Thursday, and we were 

told you needed language by Tuesday or what- whatever it 

was, we had literally 48, 72 hours to turn language 

around. And despite the short timeline that we were 

provided, we submitted many thoughtful proposals 

regarding hardship. We're being told now at 3:32 on the 

last day of negotiations, what is, you know, reportedly 

the last day of negotiations, that we don't have language 

because you have follow-up questions. And I have to be 

really honest and say- and question why we weren't 

provided the follow-up questions weeks ago if they were 

what was really hindering our ability to make progress on 

what was clearly identified as a priority for the 

Department, for the negotiators, and for the borrowers 

who we are representing here today? I have to be honest. 

I don't understand why if the only thing that prevented 

us from getting movements on this issue was the need for 

clarification on our proposal items. We were not asked 

for clarification on our proposal items. I'm sorry. II'm very frustrated that- and that we were not asked 

those questions until 3:32 on the last day. And every 

time we tried to lean on the Department and say, well 

what do you need from us? What do you need from us? Where 

are we going with this? We just kept getting kind of 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

pushed off to the side. I'm very frustrated. I- we've put 

a lot of time and energy into this. Hardship matters 

tremendously to this process. And I really- you know, to 

reiterate some of the questions that Jessica just shared, 

I'd like to know what the next steps are for us and for 

the borrowers who are watching.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. I see Ben Miller 

has come on camera. Ben, did you have something to say?

MR. MILLER: Sure. Richard, we 

appreciate that. I mean, one thing I would just say big 

picture is the questions we are reiterating here are very 

similar to the questions we gave at the second session. 

As we look to craft this, we have the same issues around 

trying to figure out data, trying to figure out 

prioritization, trying to figure out thresholds. There 

were a lot of really useful and interesting thresholds 

sent through to us. A lot of it came as reg text, so I 

didn't necessarily have the discussion behind it as to 

how or why those certain things are picked. And so, you 

know, we are trying to understand and understand a little 

bit more about what was shared as to how some of those 

things would be considered and would be picked. We are 

not giving up on this issue, but it is incredibly 

complicated issue. Right? A lot of the things we've 

talked about and sought consensus on so far today are 
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talking about fairly categorical approaches, where our 

goal is not to get into individual borrowers and 

individual circumstances in quite the same way. A lot of 

these hardship discussions, there are some categorical 

elements and there's also some more individualized 

elements. And, you know, our goal here is automation. Our 

goal here is to put the extent we can. And when you start 

to move into hardship determination, you start to move 

into more complex analyses and that is a lot harder for 

us. And so, what we are trying to do is we're trying to 

say again, it's helpful to understand the rationale. 

Helpful to understand the reasons. We have the same 

turnaround time that you do. You know, our goal here is 

to move it as quickly as possible. We are really excited 

about the votes we've taken today. We've gotten very 

useful feedback. We aren't done on this topic, but we are

hoping to talk a little bit more here, circle back, and 

have next steps. As sort of Jessica alluded to earlier, 

you know, we're not gonna produce an NPRM on hardship 

without having text before a neg reg committee. And so,

our goal here is to talk more, hear more, figure out how 

we could construct reg text or what reg text could look 

like before we have next steps. And so, our hope is to 

hear more, to hear more about the reasons, the rationale, 

why you draw lines where you draw them. And we're trying 
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to say here for some of these things, we think that the 

things identified, whether it's Spousal Consolidation 

Loans or Pell Loans or things of that nature- I'm sorry, 

Pell or things of that nature, those could be mitigating 

factors that go into an analysis, but we don't think they 

can be stand-alone. So, we're asking you how to think 

about comparing those things within a larger analysis 

because this is an inherently more complicated issue, but 

we think it's a really important issue. So that- that's 

where we are, and this is us saying we're asking for more 

help. You know, I- that- that's just where we are right 

now.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Ben. 

Jessica?

MS. RANUCCI: Thanks. You know, Ijust to respond briefly, I don't doubt that you, Ben, or 

you, Tamy, personally or the teams that you represent 

absolutely want this to work, but I just- I don't see a 

way that we end up with hardship regulatory text without 

having a negotiated rulemaking. Ben just said that. I 

think Ben and I agree with the Department here. And so,

my question is just if this is a direction that the 

Department is planning to go, how are you planning to get 

there if it's going to require a negotiated rulemaking 

and when is that going to happen and is it going to 
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involve us? And I think that if you don't have the 

answers to those questions, it really does make me 

question the Department's commitment to pursuing this 

issue because as much as you may individually want to do 

it and if it can't happen without a negotiated 

rulemaking, and you're not willing to set a negotiated 

rulemaking, I don't see how it gets done. So, thanks.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Jessica. 

Lane?

MS. THOMPSON: I have a few thoughts 

here. The first one I'd like to mention is the hardship 

of loans that are not collectible. There was regulatory 

text submitted about this, and I think that any of the 

folks who signed on to that text would be more than happy 

to provide additional data reasoning and backup for why 

we did draft that. As part of that, I would like to 

mention that that is data that the Department has access 

to already. Right? What loans have you not been able to 

collect on for years and years and years? That can be 

looked at through benefit offsets. It can be looked at 

through private collections. It can be looked at through 

simple default data. The other thing I wanna mention is, 

borrowers over the age of 65, that's a group of people 

that are generally considered to be elders in our society 

by lots of other governmental programs. You know, I think 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

it would be hard to argue that people over the age of 65 

ought to be paying back their student loans. Again, if 

this is something the Department would like additional 

data, additional reasoning for, I'm more than happy to 

collaborate on providing that. The last thing I want to

say just really quick is that we did just get that really 

excellent presentation on some of the hardship that folks 

face just from having student debt. And so, I think that 

there's a part of this were canceling some debt for 

everyone or everyone under a certain income threshold 

seems to be a pretty clear and data-supported solution. 

So, the other thing I'd like to offer is if there's 

something that we're missing in terms of what would be 

useful for the Department, you know, I'm sure that a lot 

of the other negotiators and I as well would be happy to 

continue this process into the new year.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Kyra, or 

Lane, for those, examples and offers. Yael.

MS. SHAVIT: Thanks. So, a couple of 

things. I mean, first, there were some concrete proposals 

that I think maybe didn't require a lot of explanation 

that the Department got. And I don't think that we've 

gotten much of a sense into the Department's position on 

them or concerns about them, you know, including, for 

example, some of the proposals that Lane- the categories 
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that Lane just mentioned. I brought up SNAP eligibility 

and Social Security disability receipt as indicia of 

hardship that the Department could use because it's 

information that's available to the Federal Government 

and could be automated. You know, so I'm reiterating 

that, but I also don't want to lose the process point 

here Because it sounds like, you know- and first of all, 

I appreciate the complexity and the good faith. I think 

this is a challenging, project you've undertaken. I'm 

thrilled that you've undertaken it, but I'm really 

concerned we're gonna lose momentum. As this session 

ends, you guys are starting a new neg reg. And my 

question is the following. If what you need is more of an 

opportunity to have back and forth engagement with the 

negotiators, which by the way, it'd be very helpful to 

see some regulatory text to facilitate that even if it's 

not comprehensive, or to get a sense at least of the 

parameters that you're considering, it seems to me like 

that is a pretty good justification for scheduling 

another session, and potentially scheduling it out, you 

know, farther, you know, to a point so we can have a few 

days of conversation back and forth. But if you're saying 

that you need follow-up from the negotiators and we have 

half an hour left in the session today, I'm not sure what 

the next steps are because we're gonna have half an hour 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

of follow-up. If we schedule another session, you'll have 

more of an opportunity to engage.

MR. MILLER: Just quickly on that, you 

know, our hope was here to get to the substance rather 

than the process, but then to get to taking a look at it 

and what we would do if we wanted to schedule another 

session is we'd reach back out to this committee, talk 

about dates. I don't think we wanna talk about 54 

different calendars live on air. And then we'd also have 

to put a notice in the Federal Register talking about 

where the new dates are so that the commit- so thatsorry, the public is aware. So, what we're saying is we 

wanna take a look at what we discussed here, and then we 

have a process if we wanted to add more time to discuss 

this to do it. And just to be clear, what we don't wanna 

do is discuss further the things we just [inaudible].

MS. JEFFRIES: Wisdom?

MR. COLE: Thank you so much, Cindy. 

Just thinking back on this process, and I appreciate the 

remarks from the Department. Recognizing that hardship is 

an area particularly for, Black borrowers, young 

borrowers, and people that I represent within the 

organization, as well as the civil rights organizations 

that we are here representing today, hardship is an area 

where we believe we can see the most amount waivers or 
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cancellation as we've talked about, for those who are 

most impacted. I know we've shared countless proposals. I 

didn't see anything around those who are incarcerated 

borrowers, which is something that we definitely would 

love to do some more targeting. I think the conversation 

we've been having over the last couple months has really 

been about making sure that we can provide relief for a 

target group or set. I think this hardship area is able 

to do that. I- you know, when we came talking about the 

changing of interest rate, you all told us that we'd 

pushed that to Congress. We talked about broad-based 

cancellation. You all talked about we needed to do 

targeted cancellation. I think that in this process, we 

should have spent more time talking about hardship and 

understanding the ways in which we could use this to best 

provide for the public. I do wanna read just an excerpt 

just to remind us of what the power of the Higher 

Education Act can do. It has the authority to enforce, 

pay, compromise, waive, or release Federal Student Loans. 

And so, I think when we think about this opportunity, we 

have to dream more in terms of the prospect of how 

hardship can be used to really see unforeseen factors. I 

hear you all talking about that it's harder to be able to 

capture the data necessary to put out some fair 

standards. The act of taking out the loan in the first 
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place is the hardship. Right? We can boil down 

specificities based off of different target demographics. 

But just from that first clear standpoint that folks are 

taking out loans because they do not have the ability to 

pay to go to school, in itself, is the hardship. And so, 

for us to really make sure that this process is a sum 

total process that includes those who are in most need of 

this debt relief, we have to ensure that there is a 

fourth session or an opportunity to really settle this 

matter around hardship. And so, I think that myself as 

well as other negotiators that I've heard here, feel very 

strongly about that and need to make sure that we 

continue to have an open dialogue around it, but also see 

concrete text that allows us to discuss, to build, and 

actually produce a sufficient process as well as ruling, 

that is encompassing of all borrowers.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. Before 

we go to the next commenter, I want to direct you all tothere was a request for Tamy to put her quest- the 

questions in the chat. She has done so. So, if we could 

focus this remaining time in this discussion around some 

of the topics that she has here that they're looking for 

your feedback. One of the things is, it would be helpful 

for the Department to understand different thresholds or 

how different thresholds and criteria would be chosen. 
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For example, there were ideas around older borrowers, 

which we just heard again about, and borrowers in 

default. It would be helpful to understand more about the 

rationale about- behind what age they should look at, 

which I believe, the same was 65 or older. Or what's a 

proper amount of time to consider in default and why? So,

if we could have comments around that, I think it would 

be most productive. Jalil?

DR. BISHOP: Thank you. I can start 

with speaking on age and kind of the rationale of how I 

arrived to age. So multiple times during the session 

where I- when I asked for guidance on hardship, I was 

told either that was coming later, or I was referred back 

to prior rulemaking. One of the pieces of evidence I 

would refer to is how the Department arrived at the 

Federal poverty line of 225%. They did a data analysis on 

a dataset, and so I aim to gather evidence that did 

similar data analysis. I've sent to the Department a 

Federal Reserve study along with other research that 

shows that borrowers near retirement age, 56 and higher, 

experience hardship. One Federal Reserve study found that 

college attendees who still have student debt around 

retirement are no better off often than peers who did not 

go to college. The small share of families in this 

category have not experienced a typical wage boost 
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associated with a college education. So, again, I use the 

same type of evidence that the Department used to 

determine its federal poverty line, which was statistical 

significance. I sent it to them. Now we're being asked, 

can you clarify why you chose age? So, I'm not sure what 

clarification or what additional evidence is needed 

there. So, if the Department can provide some more 

guidance or nuance these questions, then we can know what 

type of evidence to provide. Because, again, multiple 

reports were sent using the same type of evidence that 

the Department has presented to us throughout the 

rulemaking session.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay. Thank you. 

Jessica?

MS. RANUCCI: So, I think what I'm 

hearing from the Department is that you might do 

something on this, and you want to consider it in the 

future. And I'm confused as to what is going to help you 

make that decision. I think what you're essentially 

asking negotiators to do here is your job. You want us to 

negotiate against ourselves by providing specific 

thresholds on each of these metrics that would exclude 

certain borrowers or talk about overlap between the 

factors that would, again, exclude certain borrowers. I 

understand that that is a role in the negotiations, but I 
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think that we are not really at that point in the process 

when we don't have regulatory text. You also want us to 

look at the data, which, again, I'm happy to do, but I'm 

not an expert on the Department's data. I think the 

Department is an expert on the Department's data. I justI can't see what we're gonna do in the next 10 minutes 

that could possibly change your minds about whether or 

not you pursue hardship regulation in the future. And, 

you know, and I think that for me, and I think for some 

of my other negotiators, it feels performative. I think 

it feels like you want us to have said something about 

hardship so that you have heard it, so that you can say 

that you'll think about it, and that there are really no 

next steps. And so, you know, I was wondering if it might 

be possible to just, like, take a five-minute break. Let 

the Department talk and then, you know, come back and let 

us know that there are any next steps or that there 

aren't any steps, and this is where we're ending.

MR. MILLER: So, can I just- let me 

give a couple concrete ones, okay? So, we saw the 

proposal from Kyra about, I believe it was three years in 

default. As a general matter, most of our forgiveness 

programs are 10 years at the minimum. Right? That's what 

we have in SAVE. That's how PSLF works. And so, it would 

be helpful to understand what is the rationale behind 
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three years? How would you justify that when faced with 

the argumentation about, well, most of our plans stop at 

10? That's the same thing with regard to Wisdom's 

suggestion around going from 10 years to 5 years for 

incarcerated borrowers. We are sympathetic to those 

groups who would like to do something that focuses on 

groups like that, but it will be helpful to understand 

why 10 years versus 5 years and how you would argue that. 

What is the rationale for that? So, for example, also, 

we've heard a lot about caregiving expenses and medical 

expenses. I think that is a very sympathetic group that 

we would like to get to. It would be helpful to help us 

think through, let's say I've got $10,000 a year in 

annual caregiving expenses. Does that mean the whole loan 

is canceled? Does that mean part of the loan is canceled? 

How do you think about translating whatever that amount 

of caregiving expense is into what makes sense as a 

waiver. It's those types of things that are very 

challenging, especially because we have an existing 

statutory structure that has an Income Driven Repayment 

Plan. So, when you craft a rule, you have to think about,

a, what is the rationale for the various lines you're 

drawing? And b, how do you respond to questions and 

concerns about existing statutory [inaudible]? I'm not 

saying the presence of IDR means you can't do those 
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things. I'm saying you have to think about that. And 

those types of things are very challenging and very 

complicated. You know, we also, again, don't want people 

to get sucked into extended application. So, it would be 

helpful for us to think about how could we find what is 

the simplest way for us to identify people on SNAP? 

There's not a national database of people on SNAP. We 

cannot do just like a CMA to tell us who those people 

are. We do not have the ability to do matches with 50 

states to get that information. So, it's things like that 

that are challenging. And I think part of what we're 

asking for is as you think about the broad remit of 

categories, which are the ones we should focus on first? 

We're not saying that just because you're not the first 

one, it doesn't mean we get- don't get to you, but we're 

trying to ask for help on what you see as the biggest 

priority, what's simpler, and where are lines to be drawn 

in certain ways?

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Ben. Kyra?

MS. TAYLOR: So, I can speak to the 

three year in default piece specifically. I think that is 

an opening offer from our perspective, three years in 

default, and having people trapped in a cycle of poverty 

where they're losing means that they need to pay for 

their housing expenses, medical expenses, childcare 
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expenses, etcetera, is long enough that any longer than 

that is cruelty on the part of those borrowers. However, 

ultimately, the Department has information. If the 

Department needs more information about those borrowers, 

we know that those borrowers are disproportionately lowincome folks. We know that they are disproportionately 

Black and Brown folks in this country. We know that they 

are disproportionately folks who didn't complete their 

programs. All of those things could suffice as a 

justification to say that three years is long enough. If 

that is not long enough, I would love a response from the 

Department about why. Because I think some of the 

challenge for us in responding to the Department is that 

you've mentioned mitigating factors. That one of the 

things that we have proposed, even though from our 

perspective, that one threshold may be enough, is somehow 

not meeting a high enough threshold that is unspecified 

on the part of the Department. Like others have mentioned 

before, I would have welcomed the opportunity to have 

discussions with the Department about these proposals 

before these negotiations because we only have two days 

to cover a lot of ground here. But like others, I think 

with six minutes remaining, we should talk about adding 

an additional session that is more targeted and more 

focused than how we've had these discussions so far 
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because we do need some limiting principles from the 

Department. Because, like, to Jessica's point, we can't 

really argue against ourselves here. Further, the 

Department does have information that could justify 

cancellation here beyond the proposals that we have on 

the table, but the Department has that data. And so, I 

think trying to do hardship in a single brush stroke 

makes this unnecessarily complicated. This could be 

broken down into smaller pieces of regulatory language 

that could help focus the conversation moving forward.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Kyra. 

Ashley?

MS. PIZZUTI: Yes. So, I wanted to 

just clarify, there is a possibility of a next- another 

session, but the Department does not want to commit to 

that. Correct? And then I have a follow-up for a group. 

One thing that I wouldMS. JEFFRIES: Ashley, I'm not sure 

that I understand that because I'm- and perhaps the 

Department can clarify, but I- what I heard is they do 

want to follow-up. They just have to follow regulations 

and look at what they can do next.

MS. PIZZUTI: Okay. That's what I 

wanted to clarify, that there is very likely going to be 

another session. They just don't know [inaudible]. Okay.
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

MS. JEFFRIES: Yeah, that is not what 

I said. Alright? They have to look at what the options 

are. If there is a decision to have another session from 

this table. There are certain things that have to be met 

before that could even be done. Like Ben was saying, it 

needs to be posted in the Federal Registry so that the 

public knows. There has to be sufficient notice. The 

committee has to be done. 52 different schedules need to 

be pulled together. So that is what I heard the 

Department say. Ben, did I misspeak that or 

mischaracterize that?

MR. MILLER: No. What I'm saying is we 

have the ability to add an additional session. And we 

wanna- well, I was hoping we're gonna spend time with 

substance here and then figure out where [inaudible]. And 

then- but the way to do that is not live on the screen 

and it's through follow ups. And, you know, our hope was 

to hear more about, you know, some of the questions I 

raised, take that into consideration, and then we have 

the ability to follow back up with people as we consider 

them.

MS. PIZZUTI: Okay. I haveMR. MILLER: -for negotiators.

MS. PIZZUTI: Great. Thank you for the 

clarification. I also have a group that I would like to 
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discuss. And I know that there were new rules that were 

rolled out in- on July 1st for group discharge 

applications for Borrower Defense folks. Unfortunately, 

that is all caught up in the courts right now, so that is 

not moving forward, which the backlog of our defense 

applications is just getting piled on and piled on. The 

Department does have the authority to start grouping 

those folks together without having the actual school 

groups to apply. And so, I would like to propose that 

eliminating a lot of debt for quite a few people would be 

to start grouping those schools that have more than 200 

Borrower Defense applications against them. I think that 

would help a lot of folks, especially since a large group 

of folks that went to those for-profit schools are low 

income.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Ashley, for 

that suggestion. Jessica?

MS. RANUCCI: Yeah. I just wanted to 

clarify. Is the Department saying there's some legal 

barrier to scheduling a new session now or that you can 

schedule a new session now, but you don't want to for 

logistics, but you will later or that you could schedule 

a new session now and you will decide at some later time 

if you're going to decide to do that?

MR. MILLER: I'm saying we have the 
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ability to add an additional session. We would like to 

regroup from these two days and then decide in the near 

future what we wanna do after that.

MS. JEFFRIES: Okay, thank you. Jalil?

DR. BISHOP: Yeah, so I think thatyou know, I'm trying to follow the logic and pieces here. 

So while the Department may, in good faith, came to this 

moment without presenting us questions prior and somehow 

hoped in an hour that we are gonna be able to nuance and 

provide evidence and give data around proposals that we 

sent weeks ago, that clearly is not what can happen here 

because of time restraints, But it does seem like we are 

saying as negotiators, if we can get a clear sense of 

when a next session is happening, a clear sense of what 

are the questions, and additional knowledge or evidence 

you need in order to do whatever type of sense-making you 

all need to do for regulatory text, we're able to do 

that. We are folks who are representing borrowers. We are 

folks who understand the technical in both the research 

and data pieces of the student loan issue. We have many 

folks that we're connected to who can bring the research 

and the people power to knock out whatever type of 

nuancing and additional evidence you need, but without 

presenting those questions clear, you're not allowing us 

to have just focused and committed time to give you the 
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information you need in order to create the regulatory 

text that then would warrant another session. So, to me, 

it seems like, can we schedule the next session? If for 

some reason, we fail to provide what you need and you 

fail to provide regular regulatory text, can't we just 

cancel it? But to not put it on the books where you have 

been sent many proposals and have had ample time to at 

least ask questions, I think would just be a injustice to 

the borrowers who, again, have been here waiting for 

cancellation, not just in this rulemaking session, but 

waiting for it from a Biden campaign, from White House 

that has repeatedly put forth ideas and confusing and 

contradictory information. I think it's just- this is 

just another moment where there's such a clear chance to 

do something, and we're instead saying we can't do 

something because you don't have clarification even 

though you have some of the greatest minds and experts on 

student debt right here and tell you that they're willing 

to show up again. It's just a missed opportunity, and I 

think a grave injustice not to schedule that at the very 

least.

MS. ABERNATHY: So, we hear you. We 

know you guys want us to come out with a formal position 

that we are going to have another session. Ben has 

addressed this on three separate occasions during this 
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conversation. We cannot come out right now and say 

anymore details about what is gonna happen. We need to go 

back. We need to regroup. We have protocols. We have 

procedures that we have to follow. We have logistics that 

we have to look at. So, I apologize if that is the best 

answer that we can give you, but that is the only answer 

we have right now. So, we have several minutes left. We 

can either look to answer- and we know you've given us 

proposals. We know you've given us things to think about. 

Our researcher gave us things to think about. We are 

going to go back, and we are going to look at that. And 

if we have follow-up questions, we will communicate to 

you guys when we know what our next steps are. But we 

cannot commit to anything at this moment because there 

are too many factors that are- that we have to work

through first before we can come out and officially say 

anything more. So, unless there's any additional 

conversation, we can go ahead with our wrap-up and close 

out for the day.

DR. BISHOP: I have to respond to 

that, Tamy. I think if what the Department is saying is 

that you came here today with additional questions, you 

needed more nuance, you needed more information, then I 

think we can spend the last seven minutes with you at 

least posting those questions in the chat, at least 
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presenting the additional information that you need, and 

creating the opportunity for us to be able to send 

whatever it is that you're claiming you still don't have 

yet. So, we could spend seven minutes of you all just 

telling us what you still need, because I think right 

nowMS. ABERNATHY: I think what we're 

gonna do is we are going to say thank you so much for 

serving on this committee. I have a few comments that I'd 

like to close with today, and we're gonna wrap it up. We 

will communicate with you when we know additional steps.

DR. BISHOP: I don't appreciate you 

interrupting me. I didn't interrupt you, and I don't 

appreciate you interrupting me. I asked a very fair 

question about a good faith negotiation, and you could've 

answered it. Don't interrupt me, particularly, when, 

again, we're talking about borrowers who should have more 

respect. And that's [inaudible] of the Department of 

Education.

MS. JEFFRIES: Alright. I'm- thank 

you, Jalil, for your comments. We're going to go ahead 

and wrap this up for today. Tamy, you wanna give your 

closing remarks, and then the Department will do- FMCS 

will do the same. 

MS. ABERNATHY: Absolutely. Thank you. 
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Congratulations, Student Loan Debt Relief Committee, on 

completing the 3rd session of these negotiations. It is 

an incredible accomplishment, and we appreciate the hard 

work that you all have put in- into the success of these 

negotiations. We would be remiss if we did not properly 

thank everybody. To our FMCS partners, non-Federal 

negotiators, the public, every Department team member, 

specifically, our auxiliary services team and technical 

team that handle behind the scenes logistics, the Office 

of the General Counsel, Office of the Undersecretary, 

Office of Postsecondary Education, and my team, the 

Policy Coordination Group. It's impossible for me to call 

out every individual or group that assisted in making 

these negotiations a success. But the heartiest thank you 

for your participation and/or contributions to student 

loan debt relief negotiations. This incredible endeavor 

would not be possible without you, your dedication, and 

your hard work. I hope you agree that despite several 

months of hard work, you've worked diligently in 

assisting in the development of proposed regulations for 

the Secretary's authority to waive student loan debt. 

Each of you have represented your constituency group well 

and should be proud of your work as a non-Federal 

negotiator. It's been my honor and privilege to serve as 

the Federal negotiator and to work alongside each one of 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

you in this valiant effort. Non-Federal negotiators, 

you've given the Department solid ideas, which we willwhich will assist us in drafting the NPRM in the coming 

months. We will consider the comments heard today on 

hardship and follow-up in the near future with how the 

Department is deciding to address this issue going 

forward. We did not reach consensus on all the proposed 

amendatory text. However, the items where consensus was 

reached provide great benefits to our borrowers. I am 

most proud of all the work that led to these results. The 

Department will take back the informative discussions on 

the sections where consensus was not reached and propose 

regulatory text and the notice of proposed rulemaking in 

the coming months.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Tamy. 

MS. ABERNATHY: On behalf of the 

Department, we appreciate you serving and the incredible 

work that you've done over the last three months. Thank 

you again, bid you find farewell and enjoy this holiday 

season.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you, Tamy. Scott 

Buchanan, do you have something really quick? 

MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah. Just I had a 

really administrative question. So, about- so, Tamy, we 

do expect that the results of our consensus and 
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negotiation today, there will be another opportunity. I 

just said this maybe is more of a statement in public to 

comment on that, if there are additional things, and 

y'all are still expecting in May of '24, according to 

your regulatory calendar, is when we'll likely- we're 

expecting to see that for public comment.

MS. ABERNATHY: So, we- I'm not sure 

that that's the right date. We are gonna work on this and 

try to get the NPRM out as soon as possible. I know that 

there was a unified agenda that was published, but I'm 

not sure that was in most- the most current unified 

agenda. So that's above my pay grade, so I don't really 

know the answer to that question. But I can't commit to 

May, but I can commit that we will definitely communicate 

out, and we will communicate to you on the areas in which 

we received consensus. You'll be seeing those parts of 

the NPRM. So hopefully, it's sooner rather than later.

MS. JEFFRIES: Thank you. So, on 

behalf of FMCS, I do want to commend you all on a very 

long and diligent several months here that you have 

dedicated your time and expertise to, assisting the

Department in moving some changes forward that will 

benefit the student loan borrowers. We appreciate being a 

part of it. It was- this is not an easy task, and this is 

not one of the easier reg negs that have- has been 
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Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

approached. Okay? So, you all need to be very proud of 

the work that you did and the advocacy that you've done 

for your constituencies, and Department for listening to 

these people and offering opportunity for this 

collaboration and engagement. We look forward to further 

communication. And, if there are next steps in the circle 

back, we'll be happy to do what we can, moving forward. 

So, with that, I want to thank you all and call an end to 

this negotiated rulemaking. And congratulations on a 

number of consensus areas that you did reach. Thank you.

 
93

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

Zoom Chat Transcript

Student Loan Debt Relief Committee - Session 2, Day 2, Afternoon, December 

12, 2023

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

may be present.

PM 

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

I would encourage the Department to amend 682.403 in any way to 

make clear that it does not apply to Department-held FFEL loans. I 

have proposed changing the title, which I think is one simple way to 

effectuate this, but that it could be done in other ways as well.

12:31:48 From P-Sherrie Gammage 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone: 

Could you reshare part B again so that I am clear prior to 

voting?

From Tamy Abernathy - Director, Policy Coordination Group, ED to 

Everyone: 

(1) First entered repayment 20 or 25 years ago. (i) The 

Secretary may waive the outstanding balance of a loan if the loan 

first entered repayment on or before July 1, 2005, and the borrower 

only received loans as an undergraduate student or a Federal 

Consolidation Loan or Direct Consolidation Loan that repaid only loans 

the borrower received as an undergraduate student.

From Waukecha Wilkerson to Everyone: 

My camera is not working at the moment, but I am here.

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Assistance Orgs to Everyone: 

Can you please send the language around?

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

Reacted to "Can you please send ..." with ���

From P - Wisdom Cole, Civil Rights Orgs to Everyone: 

Reacted to "Can you please send ..." with ���

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

+1 - strongly support helping the identified groups. “No” votes 

are about the proposed language, not the proposed recipients.

From A-Susan Teerink - Private, Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone: 

Reacted to "+1 - strongly suppor..." with ���

From (P) Angelika Williams: Private Nonprofit Institutions to 

Everyone: 

Reacted to "+1 - strongly suppor..." with ���

From P-Sherrie Gammage 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone: 
94

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

Reacted to "+1 - strongly suppor..." with ���

From P- Kyra Taylor, Legal Assistance Orgs to Everyone: 

That’s right, Jessica— it should be a reference to 30.70 the 

compromise reg.

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

I think Jessica is correct.

From (A) Edward Boltz (Consumer Advocates) to Everyone: 

Is the median income used here national, state or more localized?

From (A) Edward Boltz (Consumer Advocates) to Everyone: 

Lawsuits for money owed (including student loans), have not been 

included on credit reports for several years, since lawsuits do not

include Personal Identifying Information and therefore can't be 

accurately (even at the low bar used by Credit reporting agencies) 

matched. That certainly means that the adverse actions graph is much 

worse for student borrowers.

From Jalil Mustaffa Bishop to Everyone: 

Thank you!

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

Thank you!

From P-Sherrie Gammage 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone: 

Thank you!

From A-Susan Teerink - Private, Nonprofit Institutions to Everyone: 

thank you.

From Jalil Mustaffa Bishop to Everyone: 

Tamy, can you put your questions in the chat, so we know exactly 

what to respond to?

From P - Wisdom Cole, Civil Rights Orgs to Everyone: 

Reacted to "Tamy, can you put yo..." with ��

From (A) Edward Boltz (Consumer Advocates) to Everyone: 

If the hardships questions could not be provided months ago, they 

could have been asked weeks, days, hours, or minutes ago. Or now.

From Jalil Mustaffa Bishop to Everyone: 

I asked what the Dept needs from us at least 5 times throughout 

these sessions regarding hardship and did not get an answer.

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

+1 Jessica and Rich

From P-Sherrie Gammage 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone: 

Reacted to "+1 Jessica and Rich" with ���

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

I’m open to extending to another session after the department has 

language so this can move along as we enter the election year.

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

Reacted to "+1 Jessica and Rich" with ���

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

Removed a ��� reaction from "+1 Jessica and Rich." 

From (P) Angelika Williams: Private Nonprofit Institutions to 

Everyone: 

Seeking hardship for student loans based on age varies because of 

multiple diverse factors. (1) Individuals facing extreme financial 

strain due to unexpected situations like disability, long-term 

unemployment, or health issues may opt for assistance or forgiveness 

regardless of their age. (2) Others might pursue forgiveness after a 
95

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

lengthy tenure in public service or qualifying fields, usually after 

making consistent payments for over 10 years. (3) Additionally, 

borrowers nearing retirement age might seek aid due to fixed or 

reduced income, posing challenges in repaying their loans during 

retirement.

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Graduate Student Borrower to Everyone: 

Reacted to "Seeking hardship for..." with ��

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Graduate Student Borrower to Everyone: 

I sent the Department two Federal Reserve studies showing that 

when a borrower still owes debt near retirement, they typically have 

not received a wage benefit associated with a college degree.

From Tamy Abernathy - Director, Policy Coordination Group, ED to 

Everyone: 

As you discuss categories of borrowers it would be helpful to 

understand more about how different thresholds or criteria would be 

chosen. For example, there have been ideas around older borrowers or 

borrowers in default. It would be helpful to understand more about the 

rationale behind what age we should look at. Or what’s a proper amount 

of time to consider in default, and why.

 

It is also helpful to hear more about how some indicators might 

be used as a factor within a larger analysis. For instance, we do not 

think Pell Grant receipt on its own would-be sufficient grounds for a 

waiver. But it would be helpful to consider how receiving a Pell Grant 

might be one factor among others. What other factors would you 

consider alongside it to look at hardship? The same is true for a 

joint spousal consolidation loan. How would that be used in a larger 

analysis, and why would it be used that way?

From Tamy Abernathy - Director, Policy Coordination Group, ED to 

Everyone: 

Another thing to talk through is what data we would need and how 

we would get it. For example, we’ve heard some stories about borrowers 

with significant expenses related to caregiving or medical needs. But 

those factors aren't included in the Department’s administrative data.

 

The final thing to consider is how to determine the amount of 

relief that would be appropriate given those factors and analysis. For 

example, borrowers might have different levels of medical expenses. 

How do we figure out how to connect the given hardship factor to what 

amount of relief is appropriate?

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Graduate Student Borrower to Everyone: 

Replying to "Another thing to tal..."

 

Thank you.

From A- Sarah Butts, 4-Year Borrowers to Everyone: 

I submitted a proposal on student debt relief for essential and 

public service workers, inclusive of workers who do not qualify for 

PSLF.

From A- Sarah Butts, 4-Year Borrowers to Everyone: 

Ask: Forgive/ cancel remaining student loans for borrowers who 

completed 10 years of public service and already qualify for PSLF 

forgiveness, but nonetheless have remaining or “hanging loans”.

Ask: Automate the process of qualifying for PSLF and eliminate 
96

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

applications, when the Department of Education knows who qualifies. 

Make the PSLF eligibility and forgiveness for public service workers 

automatic.

From A- Sarah Butts, 4-Year Borrowers to Everyone: 

Ask: We request that the Department of Education issue rules as 

previously promised, on Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) for 

public service and public interest professionals who are currently 

ineligible for the PSLF program, due to the tax status of their 

employer(s).

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Graduate Student Borrower to Everyone: 

Jalil coming in.

From P -Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone: 

+1 Wisdom - FAFSA ensures that loans only go to people with 

financial need, if that hardship is not a sufficient threshold in this 

context, then what might be.

From P-Sherrie Gammage 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone: 

Reacted to "+1 Wisdom - FAFSA en..." with ��

From P -Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone: 

could we do a temp check on possible future session?

From (P) Angelika Williams: Private Nonprofit Institutions to 

Everyone: 

I do not agree, or I am not understanding. A student is 

considered for Unsubsidized Loans as demonstrated by the FAFSA. This 

is a non-need-based student loan where the interest is charged during 

in-school, deferment, and grace period.

From P-Yael Shavit-State AGs to Everyone: 

Reacted to "could we do a temp c..." with ���

From (A) Edward Boltz (Consumer Advocates) to Everyone: 

Reacted to "could we do a temp c..." with ���

From A-Jalil Mustaffa Bishop-Graduate Student Borrower to Everyone: 

We have till 4:15

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

Reacted to "could we do a temp c..." with ���

From P -Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone: 

some of the questions that Ben put forward would be really 

interesting to pursue - perhaps we could get them in writing and 

another meeting set to discuss?

From P -Lane Thompson - state officials to Everyone: 

+1 Jalil we are ready to serve.

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

Reacted to "+1 Jalil we are read..." with ���

From John S. Whitelaw, (he/him) P -- Students with disabilities to 

Everyone: 

Lots of data about the intersection of age and disability. For 

folks who do not qualify for TPD.

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

You have the authority to cancel any and all.

From (A) Edward Boltz (Consumer Advocates) to Everyone: 

As to medical and caregiver expenses, the Department could have 

the US Trustee program at the DOJ pull that information from 

bankruptcy petitions.

From P - Ashley Pizzuti - 2 Year Borrower to Everyone: 
97

Negotiated Rulemaking – 12/12/23.

Are they a success? Maybe not yet, hope we can get there.

From P-Sandra Boham (TCU, HBCU, MSI) to Everyone: 

I apologize, I have another meeting.

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

Over 30,000 people have filed demand letters directly with the 

Department of Education expressing their hardship and need for 

cancellation. Please respond to them.

From P-Sherrie Gammage 4 Year Borrowers to Everyone: 

Replying to "Lots of data about t..."

 

Exactly! And the intersection of age, disability and social 

security. At the end of their earnings life cycle, that is all the 

rationale the dept needs IMO for the forgiveness of a minimum of 

20,000 in debt as outlined in the proposed regulations we voted on 

today.

From A - Benjamin Lee - FFEL to Everyone: 

happy holidays all