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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION 

AFFORDABILITY AND STUDENT LOANS COMMITTEE 

SESSION 2, DAY 2, AFTERNOON 

November 2, 2021 

On the 2nd day of November, 2021, the 

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

to 4:00 p.m., before Jamie Young, Shorthand Reporter in 

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

P R O C E D I N G S 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, everyone. 

My name is Brady Roberts, and I'll be facilitating this 

afternoon. I'm looking forward to picking back up the 

great discussion on PSLF. But first we have a 

presentation from Professor Rajeev Darolia on interest 

capitalization. So with that, Raj, I'll turn it over to 

you. 

MR. DAROLIA: Thanks, Brady. So just 

for the folks now watching online, what I'm going to 

present today is just an explainer about interest 

capitalization. A couple notes on some things that have 

been discussed already this morning, so I'll be able to 

actually be able to present some information on close 

schools and some descriptive statistics on that tomorrow. 

I will refer folks to the presentation that I did the 

first couple of slides at the October 5th presentation 

from the first session, and that should be available on 

the Department of Education website. That just pulls some 

highlights from the GAO report that was discussed I think 

both orally and in the chat earlier this morning, and I 

will say that that GAO report is going to be the best 

source of information for borrowers at close schools 

because that data that report is going to have data with 

bars at their schools. Whereas what I can present 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

tomorrow is going to be just more about the broad student 

bodies, some of these schools for where we have data. 

Another thing I wanted to mention because this was this 

was brought up this morning and it was a request actually 

tried to, it came from last time for me as well, it's 

just about trying to find information on faculty 

workloads, things like travel times and Dixie might have 

talked about this as well. I did actually try to find 

information about this. What I would say is that 

information was not available in the circles that I could 

look for. I did reach out to a number of researchers who 

are experts in the space, and most of them pointed to 

policies that are in either university or state or 

sometimes healthcare policy documents. So that's what 

we're looking for right now in that but didn't try to 

find some kind of systematic information on the average 

travel time and things like that; I cannot find that data 

existing at scale to really inform policy. So with that 

said, let me go ahead and take you guys through some 

examples with interest capitalization. These are going to 

be general examples. Again, I don't think there's a lot 

of points of contention among the group about some the 

policy levers. But please feel free to stop me at any 

time if there's any questions. I'm trying to think here 

where I'm going to write on my laptop to be able to pull, 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

sort of draw attention to certain things on the slides. 

So just some term definitions. Again, I think most folks 

in this call understand this, but what we're talking 

about when we talk about interest capitalization is when 

there is unpaid interest that accrues over time and is 

added to the principal amount of the loan. Some common 

reasons we're going to have unpaid interest in student 

loans are periods of nonpayment. So, for example, periods 

of deferment or forbearance, and some of this is going to 

depend on the loan type. And then something that's come 

up a fair amount is just the payments being less than the 

amount of interest accrued on an IDR plan. I'm going to 

show just some special examples from both of these things 

here in a moment. Some examples of things that can lead 

to interest capitalization currently listed out, you're 

not going to read through. And again, I know there's a 

number of proposed changes that I've not included on 

here. And then in some plans, unpaid interest is 

subsidized by the Department of Education for some time. 

Some plans the types of loans it's for the entire period 

of (inaudible). So this first chart is an example of a 

capitalization chart. This is actually from the economic 

hardship deferment request that the U.S. Department of 

Education puts out. So the first row here you're going to 

see is just interest repaid in total or sorry, the 
 

 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

interest is paid with no capitalization. So that's just 

first row here. The loan amount in all three scenarios is 

thirty thousand dollars. As you can see here in this 

first row, there's zero dollars in capitalization. 

Because of that, we can think about the outstanding 

principal never exceeding that in which it started out 

because there was no interest added on to that. Monthly 

payment of three hundred and thirty-three dollars per 

month, in this in this scenario, 120 payments for 10 

years, total repaid forty one thousand seven hundred. Now 

we can also think of a scenario in which interest is 

capitalized at the end. In this case, you can see that 

that capitalized interest is eighteen hundred dollars 

now. How they got to this $1,800 in this document, six 

percent interest rate assumed, and there was a deferment 

or forbearance at the beginning of repayment. So we can 

think about that unpaid interest is really that first 12 

months in this in this in this scenario. Take that 

$30,000 principal, multiply it by a six percent interest 

rate, you get $1,800 in unpaid interest, which then in 

this second scenario is added on to that principal. So 

that's how you get to the $31,800, as you can see that. 

And what it does is that increases the monthly payment 

and the total amount repaid. So these are both in 

addition-- or larger than in a scenario without interest. 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

(Inaudible). And then this final scenario here, where 

interest is capitalized quarterly and at the end, what 

we're going to see here is when we have more capitalizing 

events and when we have them earlier, we're going to see 

a larger amount of capitalized interest, a larger, 

outstanding principal, larger monthly payment, the number 

of payments is going to stay the same. We're also going 

to have a total nonpayment. So what are the intuitions 

just to think about here that you might think about is 

kind of the more number of capitalizing events, 

especially the earlier they are the kind of more that a 

borrower will pay over the life of their loan. All else. 

So just to show this in a little bit more detail and an 

example more closer to IVR type plans, create another 

fictional example, this time her name is Charlotte, and 

I'll show you first without interest capitalization. What 

I'm going to show you is kind of for each period what the 

payment looks like with these different sort of pictures 

of capitalization scenarios. I want to be clear, I'm not 

modeling any specific IVR plan right now, but this is in 

spirit like an IVR. So this borrower has an income of two 

thousand per month, income-protected at 150% of the 

poverty line. $1,610 a month, which means that 

discretionary income is $390 a month. We're going to put 

an income share assessment on there of 10%, which is kind 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

of the standard right now, which means that every month, 

Charlotte is going to pay $39 under a sort of an IVR 

type. Now, if we look at kind of how much interest would 

be due in that period, we take the principle at the 

beginning of the period, we're going to assume it's 

$28,000 in this in this scenario, we're going to multiply 

that times the interest rate, which in this case is 3.73% 

the current interest rate annually. We're going to divide 

that by 12 to have that monthly amount, and we're going 

to say that multiplying these two things together, 

Charlotte is going to owe $87 in interest for this 

period, but she's only paying $39, so that would mean 

that her principal paid that month is $0. She's got $48 

of unpaid interest. Alright. So then if we look at the 

principal at the end of that period, it's unchanged from 

before because Charlotte didn't pay down any of her 

principal. All of that payment went to interest, and 

there's even some interest unpaid in this year. In the 

scenario, we're going to assume that there's no interest 

capitalization. So because of that, we may extend this to 

the rest of these 12 periods. What we're going to see, is 

that down through this whole time period, Charlotte's 

principle is never going to increase. She's also never 

making a payment to principal, and so every month she has 

$48 that are in interest that's unpaid in each month. But 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

without capitalization, that never gets that added onto 

the principal. So because of that, her principal will 

continue to be $28,000 throughout this period. And if she 

continued to never make payments that exceeded sort of 

interest due, then she would never reduce that principal 

throughout the (inaudible). So this is just the kind of 

set up an example without interest capitalism. Now let's 

assume instead, that Charlotte has monthly interest 

capitalization. And again, this is just a fictional 

scenario that to demonstrate what can happen. So in this 

case, her monthly payment is going to be the same as it 

was in the prior scenario. She's going to pay $39 per 

month. But in interest capitalization, that forty eight 

dollars in unpaid interest, accrued interest, gets added, 

gets added to the principal. So at the end of first 

period, she'll owe $28,048. Now, as you can see here, 

this is where sort of interest compounding really starts 

to lead to balances increasing because then if we come 

over here to period two Charlotte's starting principle is 

going to be that $28,000 plus that $48, again multiplied 

by that same interest rate. You can see then over time as 

we go down the time period, her monthly payment, or 

sorry, her monthly interest due, sort of implied interest 

due is going to increase, even though her monthly payment 

is staying the same. Still during this period, not 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

covering principle. But because the payment implied due 

increases, the unpaid interest is also going to increase 

over time. And as you can see then, the principal is also 

increasing. So again, sort of the intuition that you can 

think about is that earlier capitalization events and 

more frequent events, all else equal, are going to 

increase principles over time. Now we can see some other 

basic examples here. I'm just doing interest 

capitalization of period six and twelve instead. In this 

case, you can see that interest is added or capitalized 

at the end of period six, and so for the first six 

periods, we see basically a similar scenario to what we 

saw with without interest capitalization. But then at the 

end of that sixth period, it's added on and then you can 

see that interest payments due are larger from that point 

on as are unpaid interest amounts well. And then here 

added more interest. And so even though this does 

increase the principal and increased payments for unpaid 

interest over time, relative to the slide before where it 

was capitalized on a more frequent frequency, you're 

seeing that this dollar amount, the principal at the end 

of this period is actually lower. It seems like a small 

amount because we're only doing a year here, but 

obviously over time, this can really add up. And then 

similarly, if we just had interest capitalized at the end 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

of the period at the end of this whole period, in this 

case period twelve, the overpayment in this example, we 

could see that again with fewer capitalizing events and 

later we keep for longer the unpaid interest constant and 

keep the longer, the principal constant and the amount of 

interest. So this was just a quick and simple explanation 

of how we might think about interest capitalization. But 

I do not have access to and I'm not sure if there was a 

data request put in for this, is really kind of detailed 

data raise on thinking about who owns what types of 

interest, who's getting interest capitalized or not? 

That's just data that I don't have access to, but 

hopefully this provides a little bit more of an explainer 

for those of you trying to think about the difference 

between interest capitalization and accrued interest or 

how we think about capitalizing events. Hoping this 

provides some information to help. So I'm happy to answer 

any questions that folks have. I know I probably went 

through that quickly, but again was trying to move very 

quickly, given that I'm not sure if there's any points of 

contention with it. 

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah, Daniel. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: So just a question, 

Raj, I know earlier, I don't remember who said this. It 

may have been someone from the FFEL side. I know 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

typically loans are set up so that interest is paid 

before principal and this is a question for the 

Department as well as for you, Raj, do we know of any 

examples where the counter takes place, where a principal 

is paid in a monthly payment prior to interest? And is 

that application of payment statutory or is there, I'm 

seeing you shake your head yes, Jennifer. So it is 

statutory in definition? 

MS. HONG: Yes. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: It is. 

MR. DAROLIA: I can say more broadly, 

this is the common way that lenders apply payments to 

loans, I can't say off the top of my head if this never 

exist in other cases. But I think in cases where that 

would exist, it would be something where basically 

interest is waived or not. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Alight so even in your 

first example, that borrower would still at the end of 12 

months, have outstanding interest unpaid, which at some 

point needs to be dealt with. So while it's not on your 

chart per say, right, as part of addition to principle, 

there is still outstanding interest of whatever, you 

know, whatever the $48 times 12 is, it still needs to be 

addressed at some point in the borrower's repayment. 

MR. DAROLIA: That's exactly right. So 
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you can think of it as, you know, in a situation where 

the borrower never makes a payment to principal and has 

uncredited interest kind of accruing over time, one way 

to think about that is part of the loan forgiveness at 

the end of the period, right, if we kind of extend it 

back to two hundred and forty periods, one way to think 

about that, if they never kind of reduce that sort of an 

unpaid interest amount at the end, that would be 

implicitly forgiven as well. I don't know the tax 

implications, frankly, of that or not, if that's taxed or 

not. But yes, that would be sort of an implicit 

forgiveness or subsidy whatever's on pay. (Inaudible). 

MR. ROBERTS: Any other questions? 

There was one in the chapter, I think it actually got 

answered mid-presentation, so. Misty, yeah. 

MS. SABOUNEH: This was brought up 

earlier, but I just wanted to revisit. Is it possible to 

cap the total amount of interest accrued based on the 

original loan amount, either Secretarially or I couldn't 

say 'it could never grow more than the original amount' 

or '40% of the original amount.' I think the example 

earlier was the $6,000 loan debt that turned into 

$22,000. The protection said it never grew higher than 

the original, it'd only be 12, but it would still be a 

lot lower than twenty two. But I think there may have 
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been discussions in the past about this, but wanted to 

see my thoughts on that. 

MS. HONG: Yeah, I think I touched on 

this earlier. We brought it up in terms of, you know, 

having a basis for justifying any sort of cap. So I think 

we did explore that. So I, we're open to ideas in terms 

of the discussion for ICR, if and maybe we could explore 

that further then. 

MR. DAROLIA: I will say that one of 

the scenarios I'll show you for IDR is with the interest 

cap of the 10 year standard repayment plan, so that was 

just something that I'll, they'll have later for you when 

we talk. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: And this speaks to what 

I was going to raise. The other the other question is, is 

it possible to reduce the interest rate if in fact the 

borrower is not paying the total amount of interest? Is 

it possible in that IDR period to actually lower or 

reduce the interest rate to zero so that payments applied 

during that period would apply directly to principal? 

MS. HONG: Let me take that back, 

Daniel. 

MR. ROBERTS: Anything else for Raj or 

Jennifer on this topic, otherwise we'll resume with where 

we left off prior to lunch, which was issue papers four 
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and five proposed reg text on PSLF. Alright. Thank you 

again Raj for that presentation. Appreciate it. So with 

that, I'll turn it over to you, do you want to reshare 

the screen again just to refresh folks what we were 

discussing or do we do folks want to jump right in and we 

actually didn't have any hands right, prior to lunch, but 

we can jump back in on that topic if we still have 

discussion there. 

MS. LILLY: Can I ask a clarifying 

question? My understanding was with for the first 

section, we were just discussing the definitions section 

that seemed to be as far as Jen got us. So we're going to 

discuss the rest of it going forward, right? 

MS. HONG: Yes, yeah. 

MS. LILLY: I just wanted to make sure 

I understood the parameters. 

MS. HONG: Yep, so we'll queue, we'll 

queue the right text. Oh, I see Carol's hand, which 

reminded me that's where I think, Carol was a final 

comment. 

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah, you were our final 

comment too but Carol, go ahead. 

MS. HONG: Yes. 

DR. COLVIN: I actually have a request 

for Raj before he takes off? If, can he make sure that in 
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the information that he provides later this week on, I 

think it's on closed full disclosures that both the 

public and nonprofit institutions are included at the 

eight digit O.P.I.D. number, not just the six digit, so 

that we could have that information. 

MR. DAROLIA: Yeah, I'll be restricted 

to what I have in the data, but I'll do it at the kind of 

(inaudible). 

MR. ROBERTS: And Jen, if you wouldn't 

mind just dropping that in a chat for the for the record, 

and then I'm seeing also a few other requests coming in 

there, if you just want to take a look at that, Raj, 

before you have to hop off. So unless anyone has any 

final thoughts on interest capitalization, I think Carol 

and then we have the right text to refer back to for 

PSLF. 

MS. HONG: Yeah, if we could cue the 

right text, thank you. I think, big thank you to Raj for 

preparing these presentations, I think these examples are 

very helpful to my question regarding the attestation by 

employers for their contractual employees. I think Daniel 

provided a very concrete example of how that would look 

on a college campus, for example, but the question was 

really meant to be broader than that. So if anybody has 

further feedback or thoughts on it? Thank you, Daniel. 
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That was that was helpful to know that there may be some 

barriers there. Well, I see some hands going up so I'll 

go on mute. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, yeah, I see 

Bethany and Persis, I just want to make sure we didn't 

forget Carol so I have you written down as well. Bethany, 

go ahead. 

MS. LILLY: I just want to add on that 

point, I mean, I think one of the other proposals that 

was made was to allow individual borrowers to certify, 

and I think that addresses the concerns that Daniel 

raised. I think that addresses other things. I, as 

Heather said, they are going to certify under penalty of 

perjury that this is in fact what's going on. So I feel 

like this would be a very good, compromised position that 

would allow, you know, address those problems and allow 

folks to kind of certify, so just mentioning that again. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks Bethany. Persis. 

MS. YU: So this is something I was 

doing on a little bit over lunch, but I was thinking back 

to the enumerated categories of types of employment that 

were discussed before. And I'm wondering if there is a 

way for the Department to provide more of a catchall 

category. I'm a little concerned about the people who 

were missing just because we're not thinking of them as 
 

 

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we're enumerating lists and whether or not there can be 

some kind of broader public service category that can be 

included, maybe at a sub-regulatory level or through 

Department guidance, as these things arise, as opposed to 

limiting ourselves to these very specific categories that 

that are listed in the statute. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks Persis. Carol, I 

saw you added something in chat, but did you want to, did 

you want to ask that as well? 

DR. COLVIN: No, that was just the 

request that I made earlier. 

MR. ROBERTS: Understood, thank you. 

Alright, thank you. 

MS. HONG: Okay. Any further questions 

about or comments regarding the employer attestation 

under subparagraph three at the bottom of Page Three? 

Well, if not, we can move forward. On Page Four, there's 

been no changes there since the last iteration. However, 

on the top of Page Five, you'll see an addition of the 

phrase of 'will be considered to have made' under 

subparagraph two. Just to loop back on one of the issues 

that was raised regarding counting rehab payments. We 

were unable to incorporate that suggestion because the 

statute does not allow us to count payments made while in 

default. However, we have captured the issue regarding 
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accounting forbearance as well, switching between 

repayment plans and have included that (inaudible) as 

well. 

MR. ROBERTS: Jennifer I'm seeing 

Carol's hand, is that okay? 

MS. HONG: Of course. 

MR. ROBERTS: Go ahead Carol, and then 

Marjorie. 

MS. HONG: I'll pause there. 

DR. COLVIN: I did have a concern when 

it comes to certain repayment plans not being included 

for PSLF consideration. I know that the requirement is 

the equivalent of 10 years or 120 payments at the 10 year 

standard rate. But when borrowers leave school a lot of 

times when they're going through exit counseling, they 

are advised to consider graduated repayment plans or 

income driven or income based outside of those that are 

allowed. Is there some mechanism to alert them that this 

is going to greatly affect their eligibility for public 

student loan forgiveness? Public Service Loan 

Forgiveness? Or is that something that could be 

considered that before they accept that type of repayment 

plan that that would be clearly notated and defined for 

them? 

MS. HONG: I mean that’s certainly 
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something that the institution can do. 

DR. COLVIN: But that's that would be 

depending on the institution to do it, and we would want 

to make sure that before every student borrower accepts 

that, that there would be maybe as part of exit 

counseling or when they're contacting their loan 

servicer, make sure that it's a requirement that that be 

disclosed to them before they choose those loan repayment 

options. 

MS. HONG: Right, so remember, we have 

a disclosure piece for lenders for guarantee agencies at 

the end that we had proposed, we changed it slightly to 

make it actually put a finer point on it. And I'll get 

that, I'll get to that. That's at the very end. But thank 

you for raising that, Carol. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Marjorie. 

DR. DORIME-WILLIAMS: So this is about 

sort of just this section generally and more of a 

question. And Jennifer, I understand that you said sort 

of due to statute, there are things that you can't 

change. And so what I'm trying to understand is we have 

all of these different plans that bars are part of, some 

qualify and some don't. And it's not based on the amount 

that they're paying. And so I guess it's not clear to me 

why we can't just have a standard ten years of payments, 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

120 payments, however they were made, would count towards 

this. And I guess I'm just not understanding why we can't 

do that. 

MS. HONG: We are. Yeah, no, that's 

absolutely something that we're proposing to change right 

here. So we've actually, so the eligible repayment plans 

are at the beginning of the proposed--but if you are on 

page, under the payment counting, yes, on Page Five. 

Everything that came under that, remember, that's 

proposed right text that we came into session one with 

and that is opening up counting, being able to make 

multiple installments that equal the full schedule, full 

schedule amounts due for a monthly payment, that's all 

new language. Everything in red is all new language that 

we're proposing. And we put this forward in session one, 

we haven't changed that. So there's romanette one, just 

paying the full amount, right. Romanette two you can pay 

multiple installments that equal the full scheduled 

amount due for a monthly payment under the qualifying 

repayment plan. The current regulations don't allow for 

that. Three, you can pay a lump sum or monthly payment 

amount equal to or greater than the full scheduled amount 

in advance of the borrowing scheduled payment due date 

for a period of months not to exceed the period from the 

Secretary's receipt of the payment until the borrower's 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

next annual payment restart date under the Qualifying 

Repayment Plan in which the borrower is enrolled. So to 

your point, Marjorie, that is something that we're 

proposing to change and we're expanding that for 

borrowers through this language. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. I just want to 

make a brief note that Alyssa is joining the table on 

behalf of Financial Aid Administrators at Post-secondary 

Institutions and Persis, go ahead. I think you're still 

muted. 

MS. YU: Thank you. Sorry about that. 

So this goes back a bit to both Marjorie and Carol's 

points a little bit, and that's, you know, one of the 

issues that we've seen is that borrowers get steered by 

their servicers into forbearances or into extended 

repayment plans. And so borrowers don't realize that they 

are not in qualifying repayment plans. And so I think we 

have many documented instances of this ,right. We have 

the CFPD lawsuit, we have a number of attorneys general 

lawsuits on this point, and it would be good to see 

language that would allow for borrowers to get credit for 

time when due to the malfeasance of somebody else, they 

have not been in qualifying repayment. I think, we'll 

point again to the regulatory language that Suzanne 

introduced earlier from the Student Borrower Protection 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Center, which has proposes some language to address this 

particular issue. But I think it's really important to 

know that borrowers don't know what's qualifying and when 

their servicers steer them wrong. They shouldn't be 

punished for that time. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Persis. Bethany, 

Dixie, and Alyssa, I see your hands, but actually, I 

think, Heather, just being as this, she's (inaudible) is 

it okay? Okay, Heather, go ahead. 

MS. JARVIS: Thank you, I'd like to 

reiterate what folks are saying right now, which is that 

the counting of individual payments towards the 120 is 

set out in the statute in order to capture a 10 year 

period of public service. Congress wrote the statute and 

declared that the Secretary shall cancel the debt of 

people who have been in public service for 10 years and 

then set out the statutory scheme of counting 120 

payments as a proxy for that service, and it is meant to 

be driven by service. So while I appreciate that the 

language we're looking at now certainly is much more 

expansive and includes far more payments than what had 

previously been allowed, it still creates this it's still 

the same problem that FSA and the servicers have been 

dealing with since the program was first enacted, and 

that if you are looking at the weeds the whole time and 
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every single payment, then you're not looking at the term 

of service and giving that as much credit as it should be 

given in order to effectuate the statutory intent. I also 

wanted to ask why the Department takes the position that 

payments made under a rehabilitation plan are not 

permitted to be counted by the statute. So my reading of 

the statute is that the Department and the Secretary may 

not forgive loans that are in a default status. Loans 

must not be in default if they are to be forgiven, but 

there's nothing in the statute that I see, and if I'm 

missing it, please directly to it, that shows that that 

indicates that payments made on a defaulted loan cannot 

be counted. 

MS. HONG: So, yeah, I believe that 

provision is how we're interpreting counting the payments 

toward forgiveness programs so that it is counting toward 

forgiveness, but I can let our Exchange Council weigh in 

on this a little bit later. But I do believe that that is 

the interpretation that we're taking because the payments 

apply toward a forgiveness program. 

MS. JARVIS: Appreciate that. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Heather. Bethany, 

go ahead. 

MS. LILLY: So I'm going to build off 

of Heather's point a little bit here because, and the 
 

 

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points that Persis and others have made previously, 

because I, reading over the statutory the regulatory text 

that you're proposing, can you tell I usually deal with 

statutes and not regs? So for instance, the very, very 

first bullet here, paying the full schedule amount due 

for a monthly payment under the qualifying income, a 

circumstance that I am very well aware of is a payment 

not getting counted because somebody at the beginning of 

the month was employed by one public service organization 

and by the end of the month was employed by a different 

public service employment employer. But when their 

payment was made, they were not employed. And so the 

person is not counting this this month, where you have 

qualifying employment on both sides of the month as a 

qualifying payment. And so we're getting into these very 

wonky little things where I would really like to see 

something about making sure and I can propose some, some 

regulatory text here, but something that specifically 

says, getting at what Heather was raising, you know, the 

point of this is we're trying to verify that you've been 

in public service, you know, employment for 10 years and 

we want to, you know, so long as I don't want to miss 

those cases, I don't want to get so technical that we're 

missing those cases. And so I really would like to see 

some kind of catchall language. And again, I can think 
25 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

about how to propose that. It sounds like Heather might 

have some ideas, but I just want to echo that I think we 

need that because I don't want folks to get caught in 

these technicalities when they're really doing everything 

that we're asking them to do. 

MR. ROBERTS: Jen, did you want to 

respond? Otherwise I see Dixie your hand. 

MS. HONG: Yeah, no, we'd be happy to 

see. I just want to be clear that you don't see the 

current proposed tax, the proposed tax before you as 

capturing those scenarios. 

MS. LILLY: I don't because you're not, 

it's so, this is the problem when you have any type of 

regulatory language, right? Like, I know that the 

Department or at least the servicers position on this 

payment is that it doesn't count. Perhaps that's 

different than the Department that the services are 

serving as representatives of the Department in these 

contexts. So if that's not the Department's position, 

that's great. But the regs are the way the Department 

expresses that position. And I don't, you know, I would 

have that question about this the very first bullet here 

like paying the full schedule a month due for a monthly 

payment under the qualifying repayment plan. Great. Does 

that include payments made when an individual is not 
 

 

26 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

technically employed at that time by public service 

employer, but will be during that month? Like and that's 

it's very technical, it's very wonky. I think you're 

trying to get the language to cover those circumstances. 

That's very clear that the Department wants to be 

generous with this, but I just don't know that it 

captures that without some type of catchall. Does that 

make sense? 

MS. HONG: Yes, and yeah, if you could 

get us some language that you feel is more encompassing, 

that would be helpful. Also, I just wanted to point out, 

we're going to get there, but at the top of Page Six is 

the language that we brought to session one regarding the 

quest for the number of months under this section that 

the borrower would have been obligated to make had the 

borrower not received a deferment of forbearance. I just 

want to make sure that you have that language in terms of 

getting credit for those. -

MS. LILLY: It must be somebody who's 

normally in a payment like who's regularly in a normal 

payment plan isn't in forbearance or default, like is 

just making their monthly payments and they're 

transitioning. 

MS. HONG: Yeah, no. I'm sorry. This is 

separate from the issue you (inaudible) but it was raised 
27 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

earlier and I just wanted to point it out in terms of 

switching. If a borrower is put into forbearance, we're 

still trying to catch and count those as payments. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Jennifer. Dixie, 

go ahead. 

MS. SAMANIEGO: Yeah, so I just wanted 

to hear from Jennifer or anyone from the Department what 

the goal is with the changes that have been made to the 

tax we've seen right now, what's the Department like what 

is the goal? Which folks are you trying to impact the 

most? Because from the tax and from what people have been 

saying, I don't want to repeat every single thing, but 

there are going to be a lot of people on this list with 

these cases, and so I want Jennifer and the Department of 

Education to articulate clearly what the intention is 

with these changes. Who are you going to impact the most 

and who will you miss? So I just I want to make that 

clear. I want the Department to answer that just so that 

we all know that the Department knows who they're 

impacting the most and who they will a thousand percent 

miss. 

MS. HONG: I'm happy to answer that, 

Dixie, I mean, this entire I mean, I can talk about the 

rule making generally, but certainly for PSLF because I 

mean the idea about serving the borrower and the student 
 

 

28 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

is a major tenant of this rule making generally for all 

the issues that we have on the table. All the discharge 

issues, trying to automate where we can automate, try to 

make it easier, remove barriers for the borrower and for 

PSLF, making it more accessible, being clear on who and 

what is eligible, trying to streamline the process, 

trying to make it an easier, clear process for the 

borrower. This is about the borrower. This is about the 

students and making sure that if you're eligible, if you 

work these 10 years in public service. That you will get 

your forgiveness on your loans. That is the intent behind 

this rulemaking. That is the intent behind the changes 

that we're making for PSLF. The intent is to remove any 

barriers that borrowers are facing and to really ensure 

that if you are entitled to this forgiveness that you 

receive it and you receive it in a timely way. That's 

what we're trying to streamline and we have to balance 

that against what the statute provides. We have to ensure 

that it is in fact a public service-- that role that 

they're working full time, as we define it. We've tried 

to define that and ways to ensure that it reaches all 

different kinds of areas, jobs, professions. We want to 

be inclusive of contractors. We want to make sure we 

consider the full scope of jobs and people that are 

working in public service, and we want to be sure that we 
 

29 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

adhere to the statute while providing this benefit for 

students. That is the intent. That's been the intent as 

we've put our minds into this. 

MS. SAMANIEGO: Brady, if I can answer 

that, it wasn't a question, but I have thoughts. I 

appreciate that and I appreciate the intention of the 

Department. However, the impact is what is important 

here. Your intention can be as pure as you want it to be. 

Can your intention be to (inaudible) students but an 

impact? It's not happening, unfortunately. And you 

mentioned in a timely manner. Ten years, ten years is not 

a timely manner, right? Like you go from one period of 

your life into another one in 10 years. Like for me, in 

10 years, I could possibly be a parent and I can have an 

entire career in 10 years, and I could possibly be buying 

a house or not be buying a house because I'm most likely 

going to go into public service. And I would not, it 

would be a while before I would have my loans forgiven. 

And so, the Department wants to lessen barriers for 

folks, but doesn't realize that all of these little itty 

bitty like exceptions and you know, these rules and the 

regulatory language that we're looking over, it itself 

poses a barrier to people. And the Department, and I will 

continue saying it, has not focused enough in my own 

opinion as a student enough on the challenges it faces on 
30 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

communication. Yes, the Department wants to do, wants to 

service the borrower in a timely manner, right? Wants to 

center them, and it still fails in communication time and 

time again, over and over again. And even folks who are 

experienced in public service have said this to me and 

PSLF, right? I work with folks who are like in loan 

forgiveness, right? They're making their payments and 

they're all like, I still don't understand it. And these 

are seasoned professionals. These are people with 

multiple degrees, right? Like, they're not like. So, 

there are some there is a disconnect, a large disconnect 

that the Department of Education says it recognizes but 

won't do anything to change. Thank you. Won't do anything 

to change. And so yes, you want to. You want to give loan 

forgiveness to borrowers in a timely manner. But 10 years 

will never be a timely manner. It will never be 10 years 

of a life. You are in a different point in your life in a 

decade. And so that's not a timely manner, and the 

Department has not valued enough communication. And so 

these folks who are literally servicing this entire 

nation in different capacities, they're not being 

serviced. And so, intentions or well and all, but the 

impact actually matters. And so I appreciate your 

comments, but I want the Department to do more than just 

recognizing that there is an issue, right? You can't just 
31 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

recognize a barrier and not want to actually dismantle 

it. 

MS. HONG: So real quickly, Dixie. Yes. 

You know, we are on board and we're trying, we're here 

today. We're here for the second session. We were very 

intentional about who we have on this committee in terms 

of student borrower representation, the one hundred and 

twenty months to 10 years as stipulated by Congress. We 

can't do anything about that. But everything that we can 

do something about, I feel like we have already executed 

in terms of the PSLF waiver, the temporary waiver, that 

is under way in terms of operations and communications 

that's underway. So yes, sometimes the government takes 

time because of this, because we want to make sure that 

we have the input of everybody at the table. We want your 

input. We want your voice. And that's why we go through 

this process. And that's why the statute requires this 

process of negotiations and we embrace this process. We 

really do. And I realize it may take a while, but we've 

already executed, at least on the PSLF front. We've we 

are providing relief, really unprecedented relief. Again, 

people have been encountering these barriers, we've 

attempted to remove them and we want to make some of 

these changes permanent. Back to Bethany's point, I just 

want to point you to Page Four in the middle-- paragraph 
32 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

A-- during the month for which I want to have you look at 

that and let me know if that kind of captures the issue 

you that you were concerned about. Thank you. Thank you 

for your comment Dixie. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright and Alyssa I see 

you, but I just to reiterate, I mean, any ideas and 

solutions as it relates to this process, please don't 

hesitate to put those in chat, raise your hand and say 

them and then obviously send them to us so we can 

communicate them out. We do want to deliberate those, but 

thank you for that conversation. Alyssa, please. 

MS. DOBSON: Sure. And I apologize for 

my end, this looks wonky with my camera. I'm in the 

office today and have borrowed technology, so sorry if it 

looks weird to you as well. I just wanted to bring up 

something that hasn't been mentioned yet, but I think is 

really important as far as the structure and difficulty 

with which students had achieving PSLF. If you remember, 

I want to say it was about 10 years ago, maybe 2011 or so 

that we moved to the three year cohort default rate and 

that put institutions into some institutions into a bit 

of a panic. And numerous default management companies 

came onto the scene and their intent while kind of seemed 

like it was helping the students, their main goal was 

helping the schools and their main goal was stopping the 
33 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

default and many times and again, because they were 

growing so rapidly given that that quick transition from 

one year to three years. A lot of the people who were 

helping these students weren't properly trained. And so a 

lot of times the end goal was the easiest goal, which was 

many times before deferment or forbearance. Rather than 

taking into any consideration the type of payment plan 

that the student should go into given future 

opportunities, it wasn't even a part of the discussion. 

And I think that's another thing that we do need to keep 

in mind as we're working towards these more student 

centric sort of means and ways of counting payments and 

considering incorrect payment plans and perhaps even no 

payment at all, if that was the way that they were 

advised. It does seem as though, no matter who they turn 

to, whether it was their servicer or if they had a 

default management company outreaching to them that the 

available help wasn't necessarily the best, nor was it 

necessarily in the in the student's interest, but rather 

the school's interest. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Alyssa. Joe, I 

think I see your hand next. 

MR. SANDERS: Yeah, so I want to pick 

up on Persis and I'm sorry, the Financial Aid 

Representative, Alyssa, who just went, their comments 
34 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

about how students get steered into the wrong repayment 

plan. First thing you know, I've made a note to myself 

based on this discussion today to go back and look at 

ways to just remove consideration of repayment plan 

because that might just alleviate all these problems. I 

think the paper that Persis mentioned by Student Borrower 

Protection Center may have something on this. And maybe 

that's a way that we can get through these problems, and 

I'm happy to look for concrete solutions on that front. 

The other thing I'll put out there is that, you know, 

State AG's have done extensive work, as everybody knows, 

on forbearance steering that includes servicing that 

includes default management. And so to the extent that 

State AGs have data showing that specific borrowers were 

steered. Is there a mechanism or a provision similar to 

like a Borrower Defense Group discharge application where 

AGs could come to the Department and say, we think these 

borrowers should have these payments credited? 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Joe. So it did 

the, it swapped around on my screen again so Michaela, I 

think I had you next, but you're on the bottom of the 

list, but I'm going to, you got three minutes. 

MS. MARTIN: Perfect thank you, I think 

I'd turned off my camera for a second and I messed up the 

order. I had just three points to touch on. One was that 
35 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

the conversation around payments on defaulted loans. 

There is a letter that I'll put in chat that also came 

from a series of U.S. Senators and Congress folks that 

also acknowledges that that the need for those temporary 

provisions within that waiver surrounding consolidation 

to be included and not start over that timeline. I'm not 

sure that that is in this, that we will keep that 

availability to consolidate with having your timeline 

start over. That's kind of the first two, and then the 

third, Suzanne put in a PDF that has some really great 

regulatory suggestions, including kind of an answer to 

the issue we're having around during the month for which 

a payment was made, where we could expand that to look at 

also the annual hours within a year. So we're not so 

focused on did you transition jobs or did you do this or 

were you not actively employed for that particular month? 

And will it or will not count? When for the whole rest of 

the year, you've been at full time employment and in 

that, you know, in the aggregate, you would have reached 

that, but you're not having particular payments count 

because of this being really stuck in the month for which 

that payment was made. And so I really just wanted to 

highlight that PDF, and there's some other really great 

suggestions within there that I hope that maybe that can 

get sent out and considered. And then I'll also put that 
 

 

36 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

waiver. But again, ensuring that some of those temporary 

things within the waiver are included as permanent 

changes within this regulation. 

MS. HONG: So, Michela, just remember 

I’m trying to keep all your questions in my head right 

now. So the first one, remember the consolidation-- you 

have until October 31st, 2022 to do that. So, so long as 

the borrower consolidates by next year, they can avail 

themselves of that benefit. 

MS. MARTIN: What about after? And why 

is that? Why are we not considering that for permanent 

modification to the regulations? 

MS. HONG: I don't believe we can. I 

think we've done everything that we can in terms of 

making everything that you see here is making permanent 

what we can from the waiver. You know, there're some 

flexibilities with the waiver that we simply don't have 

normally. We're making that waiver, it's a temporary 

waiver. So, the things that we're making permanent are 

the payment counting and then to a lesser extent, the 

deferments and forbearances. Yeah, and well --

MS. MARTIN: I thought that the waiver 

couldn't permanent because we were the permanent 

rulemaking body. Or am I misunderstanding that process? 

Like the waiver, can't be permanent, but we could make it 
 

37 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

permanent by putting it in this. 

MS. HONG: Right, but--We're waiving 

statutory provisions through the PSLF waiver due to COVID 

to provide that consolidation opportunity for borrowers. 

That's not something we can do through this rulemaking. 

But we're pretty much doing mostly everything else that 

we can. Everything, everything else that we can do, we're 

doing. Meaning having the authority to do and I see Soren 

has his hand up, so --

MR. ROBERTS: I was going to say yeah, 

Soren, if you wanted to jump in. 

MR. LAGAARD: Thank you. I just, 

thanks, Jen. I just wanted to quickly address Michaela, 

one of Michaela's points on a point made earlier about 

default and the rehabilitation agreements that 

unfortunately, just as Jen noted, the statutory text 

clearly says that we can cancel any eligible federal 

direct loan not in default and rehabilitation agreements 

are made and those nine payments are made while you are 

in default. So just wanted to address that and follow up 

on that. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks Soren and thanks 

Michaela and Joe for dropping those notes in the chat. 

Carol, go for it. 

DR. COLVIN: Two quick questions on, 
 

38 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

and this is in regards to default. It's possible that a 

student, who would be deemed eligible for before, 

receiving well, if a student made 120 eligible payments, 

and at the time of making those payments, their 

organization was not eligible, later, they fall into 

default. Based on this language, is there a way that they 

would be eligible to be considered once this rolls out, 

if their profession is now considered under this 

guidance, or if their organization were later approved, 

if they're in default, but they were eligible after 

making 120 payments, could those be considered? Is that 

addressed anywhere in this language? 

MR. ROBERTS: Jennifer or Soren if you 

have an immediate response, go ahead and unmute. 

Otherwise, Carol if you just want to drop those in chat 

if they need some time to think on that. 

MS. HONG: Yeah I just, so, Carol, the 

borrower is in default when at the time that the borrower 

is applying for --. 

DR. COLVIN: Right, if the borrower 

were in default at the time that their either their 

profession or their organization became eligible, but 

they had already previously made the payments required in 

order to be eligible. 

MS. HONG: It would seem to me that 
39 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

they would not if they've gone into default, that they 

would not be eligible, but I don't know if Soren has more 

to add to that. 

MR. LAGAARD: I agree with Jen, but you 

know, this is something we can take back if you can map 

out the exact scenario that you're envisioning here and 

we can take a look at it. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright thanks, Carol. 

(Inaudible) pop that in the chat. Persis, I see your 

hand. 

MS. YU: Yeah, no, I think this is an 

excellent point, and I just want to emphasize it some 

more that, you know, we're making, we're expanding the 

definitions and the eligibility for Public Service Loan 

Forgiveness in the ways that people can qualify. But 

we're doing so in a way that is consistent with a statute 

that has existed for more than 10 years. And so it seems 

like, but for the fact that the Department had previously 

had a very restrictive way of, you know, defining Public 

Service Loan Forgiveness, these folks would have gotten 

Public Service Loan Forgiveness and they would have 

qualified. And I think that's why it's so important. I 

mean, again, coming back to retroactivity, I think these 

folks would have qualified. But for the way that the 

Department previously defined it, which was more 
40 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

restrictive than the statute required. So I think I would 

really urge the Department to go back and look to see 

ways that if someone would have done something, maybe 

they would not have defaulted, right? And so I think 

that's a really important thing to consider and to try to 

find a way to get relief for these borrowers. 

MR. ROBERTS: Suzanne? 

Suzanne: Yeah, and then another 

scenario where default could be implicated, where I want 

to understand why we couldn't extend it. What if someone 

is in repayment for five years, you know, defaults and 

does rehab and gets back into good standing? I mean, why, 

why wouldn't we credit them for that time? Even if you 

know I'm proposing even just even on a slightly narrower 

view, I don't see why, if at the time of applying for 

PSLF, the loan was not in default, I would still think he 

would be able to count that 10 months that they were in 

rehab if they actually got out of it at minimum. I also 

agree with Persis that we should be more expansive, but I 

wanted to flag that as well. 

MR. ROBERTS: Does the Department want 

to respond? 

MS. HONG: No just, we're taking this 

in. 

MR. ROBERTS: So I'm not seeing any 
41 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

more hands right now, if, Jen I'll turn it back over to 

introduce the next section of the oh, Joe, I'm sorry I 

see your hand. 

MR. SANDERS: Sorry, just very quickly. 

To go back to that point, and I'm sorry if I'm repeating 

stuff other people have said, but now qualifying 

repayment plans and the problem of forbearance steering, 

I don't see anything in the statute that would restrict 

making any kind of payment plan qualifying, and I think 

that the Department did some of that with the waiver. 

Could we just either have qualifying repayment plan mean 

like any repayment plan or just eliminate that term? It 

looks like we've got a lot of red ink around, on this 

issue, paper about what qualifying repayment plan means, 

the term only appears five times. So it seems like. I 

don't know. It seems like there's room here if I'm 

missing something, and there's a reason that we can't 

just eliminate qualifying repayment plan, let me know. 

Otherwise I'll probably put together some text and send 

it over and see if maybe it works. 

MS. HONG: So, Joe, the statute does 

define an eligible federal direct loan. 

MR. SANDERS: Yeah, but that doesn't 

mention repayment plan. Let me pull it up again. 

MS. HONG: Right. And they do define 
42 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

repayment plans as well. Under M. 

MR. SANDERS: Under M. Okay, I'll take 

a look at that. 

MS. HONG: Ok, yeah, yeah. Have a look. 

MR. SANDERS: Thank you. I'll take a 

look. Yes, thank you. 

MR. LAGAARD: Yeah, this is Soren, and 

we'll we're happy to, yeah if you've got something to 

send over, take a look. Thanks so much. 

MR. ROBERTS: Great, thanks. So, Jen, 

I'll turn it back over to your team if you want to 

reshare the reg text. 

MS. HONG: Yes. And while we're pulling 

that up, I just want to be sure I did tag back to Bethany 

regarding the language in the middle of Page Four under 

borrower eligibility, but we added this language after 

hearing from a public commenter during the month for 

which the borrower satisfied the 120 monthly payments 

described under paragraph C13I of this section that they 

(inaudible) I mean you could chew on that Bethany-- just 

trying to see if that --

MS. LILLY: I was going to follow up 

with you separately in writing because I think that might 

be more useful and productive than this discussion. But I 

will just say, in short, because it's limited to the 
 

43 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

month for which the borrower makes (inaudible) satisfied 

the monthly payments, it seems limited to just folks who 

are applying for discharge, not to payments that may or 

may not count. And so that is my short response, but I 

will give you some more detailed responses in writing 

because I think that's just more productive than us going 

back and forth at this point. 

MS. HONG: Sounds good, thank you. 

Okay, so we left off here on (inaudible) forbearances, 

Okay, also under page, under deferments on Page Five. I 

just want to see something happened here. Yes, okay. 

Deferring or forbearing payments on my copy B 

accidentally dropped off. You see it here. So this was 

proposed in session one. I don't know. It accidentally 

inadvertently got dropped off of my draft, but, so I just 

want to be sure that that's there's these two deferments 

captured there. There was a question in session one 

regarding the cancer deferment. The deferments are 

statutory, so we would not have the authority to further 

add to that piece. Well, also, we wanted to address the 

issue on being improperly placed into a forbearance just 

to note that we have the inherent authority to make 

account corrections. So where we identify issues with 

this, we can make those corrections administratively. In 

other words, we don't need to include them in the 
44 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

regulatory text. So subparagraph three at the bottom of 

the page---

MR. ROBERTS: I'm seeing a few hands 

Jennifer, if you, so Bethany, I saw your hand go up but 

it's down. Do you want to? 

MS. LILLY: I just realized we maybe 

we're not waiting, we're getting further down, but 

specifically on the on the deferring or forbearance 

payments, just so that I'm clear in my understanding this 

is limited to just one deferral deferring or forbearance 

payment for up to 12 months when you're in service? The 

formatting on this is a little all over the place. So I 

just I'm trying to make sure that I understand this is. 

It's that the text is limited of sub sorry, little sub B 

is limited by the text of sub A below it, right? 

MS. HONG: When you say limited, you're 

so A, yeah, A corresponds to five. 

MS. LILLY: Okay, so the aside from the 

following Department payments that are covered in sub 

four Sub B is just one type of deferment or forbearance 

payment, right? 

MS. HONG: A is, correct, yeah. 

MS. LILLY: Okay. To the discussion 

that we've all had, I just want to flag, I would support 

proposals that have been made to just say all deferring 
45 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

or forbearing payments and default payments, but that's 

that has been thoroughly discussed at this point. I just 

wanted to make sure I understood this what the proposal. 

MR. ROBERTS: And, Jennifer, if you're 

able to pause just a brief, I see Joe's hand. 

MS. HONG: I'll take Joe's comment. 

MR. SANDERS: Thanks, Jennifer. I take 

your point about having the inherent authority to redo 

the payment count. I'm wondering and I mentioned this 

earlier to the extent you can comment on this now. How 

does a how does a borrower get that in front of the 

Department? Right, or state AG or anybody else who has 

evidence of borrowers being improperly placed in 

forbearance. Right I'm a borrower, my servicer told me, 

yeah, you're good to go in PSLF no worries. Alright, but 

I'm in the extended repayment plan. How exactly? The 

current mechanism for a borrower to address that going 

through a servicer or, you know, going to the ad 

ombudsman, you know, are not particularly accessible, 

although hopefully those things are changing. And maybe 

this is outside of the scope of the negotiated rulemaking 

here, but I'm just, yes, you guys have the authority, but 

borrowers don't have a way to access that right now. So 

for your consideration. 

MS. HONG: Right, so we we're thinking 
46 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

about that in terms of the reconsideration process, if 

anywhere. So either in the reconsideration process, or to 

the extent that the Department is made aware of this or 

noticed any kind of patterns or practices that we can 

identify and redress, we will do that. But it seems like 

the reconsideration process may be a good place for that 

to arise. 

MR. SANDERS: And by reconsideration, 

you're talking about the limited waiver or something 

else? 

MS. HONG: No, the proposed 

reconsideration that borrowers can receive on Page Six. 

So in the event I'm sorry, Page seven under G, which 

we'll get to. But that was actually what we put forward 

in session one. 

MR. SANDERS: Yeah. Ok, got it. Thank 

you. 

MS. HONG: Mm hmm. 

MR. ROBERTS: Jen do you want to just 

finish walking through the text? Persis, I see your hand, 

but it might help just to guide the overall discussions 

if we get to a convenient stopping point in the proposed 

reg text and then --. 

MS. YU: I just had a I just had to 

follow up on what Joe was saying. Because I think I mean, 
 

 

47 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

I think Joe's point is correct, that it would be very 

administratively burdensome for a borrower to raise these 

types of issues, and they are they are widespread, which 

is why we've seen numerous, you know, state and federal 

regulators suing for these practices. And borrowers are 

not in the best position to raise these issues. And the 

Department is in a much better position to know 

widespread abuses in this format, which is again, why I 

think going back to the language that's been proposed by 

this, (inaudible) Borrower Protection Center, that they 

have language that would capture when the Department 

knows of abuses that it could apply time for these 

forbearances, and so I think it's important to not put 

the onus onto individual borrowers to prove that 

malfeasance happens when they're in the worst position to 

try to prove this. 

MS. HONG: Yeah, I mean, I just 

emphasize again that to the extent that we are able to 

identify certain practices, the owner of a single 

borrower, we will redress those issues and take your 

comment into consideration. So there's not a whole lot 

more left, but I will keep going forward here. Let's see, 

a minute. Okay. So, yeah, at the bottom of Page Five, 

the piece on the service as a member of the U.S. Congress 

is not qualifying on employment. We just move that from 
 

48 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

an earlier place in the regulatory text. So Page Six, and 

edit to subparagraph two Roman one. We added the clause 

after suggestion by the negotiators, again to flag the 

automated process where applicable, and that is under two 

romanette I, a borrower shall provide information about 

the bar's employment and employer on a form approved by 

the Secretary.' And then the language we added was 'which 

must generally be certified by the employer, except when 

the Secretary possesses sufficient information to 

determine the borrower's employment and employer.' And 

then right under that, we just changed 'signature' to 

'certification.' Page Seven. This is again pointing to 

the reconsideration process, notwithstanding Persis' 

comment, where we said that a borrower or any other 

entity could flag the issue about forbearances for us. We 

changed at the end of paragraph G, we changed 90 to 180 

days for those that were denied requesting 

reconsideration again to give individuals extra time. And 

then right under that, just right under subparagraph two, 

just minor technical edits to make that section a bit 

smoother. From what we provided in session one. And then 

finally, you see a section on reporting out for the 

guarantee agency on Page Eight. I want to draw your 

attention to where we are flagging for guarantee agencies 

to report more information about the borrower to the 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Department through NSLDS. We decided that this was the 

best way to address improved borrower (inaudible) because 

it will allow us to conduct direct outreach and minimize 

additional work for FFEL lenders while ensuring 

consistency of information sent to borrowers. So we'd 

appreciate some feedback from Jaye and others on that 

piece. Originally, we had it under lender disclosures. 

After further analysis, we found that this would be the 

actual, more accountable and consistent way from the GAs 

on the information that they're providing. 

MR. ROBERTS: And that that covers all 

the reg text, four issues four and five, right, Jennifer? 

MS. HONG: Yes, that brings us to the 

end of the reg text. 

MR. ROBERTS: So in that case, Justin, 

go ahead. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Yeah thanks so much. So 

I want to talk a little bit about the application, not 

required language, I understand there's no changes to 

that, but just want to take a second to underscore a 

point I think I've made a bit yesterday that I think we 

need to be more intentional when we're talking about 

automation here and forward thinking. I think here I 

would love to see Shell forgive rather than made. But to 

the extent that Department is uncomfortable with Shell, 
50 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

at least match it with the other language it's using in 

the application not required kind of provisions in CSD, 

for example. And just say the Secretary forgives alone 

under the section without an application to the borrower. 

I mean, we already had if the Secretary has sufficient 

information, I would love there to be language that would 

ensure and encourage the Department to obtain that 

information and continue improving its processes for 

making sure an application is not required, but that that 

might take some additional creativity. But I would just 

encourage the (inaudible) match other similar language 

and other regulatory requirements. Thanks. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks Justin. Joe. 

MR. SANDERS: Sorry, it took me a 

second to get to my mute. Okay. Two things. One, I like 

this idea of the Department doing the outreach on the 

FFEL loans, is the idea here that instead of the FFEL 

servicer being required to tell the student, hey, you're 

in the wrong one for PSLF now the Departments going to do 

it. Is that correct? Or am I missing that? 

MS. HONG: That is not quite correct, 

we originally had put this under their notification, but 

frankly, there's no good way to enforce that and to 

ensure that they're providing good quality information. 

So the idea is that they're reporting back to us what 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

they provided to the borrower. 

MR. SANDERS: They're - okay. 

MS. HONG: And NSLDS. 

MR. SANDERS: Okay, and so after the 

limited waiver opportunity, and maybe I'm in the wrong 

place again here, so bear with me. After the limited 

waiver opportunity is over, the previous version of this 

said like, oh, they have to tell them you're in the wrong 

loan. But now they have to tell you if the borrowers, 

they have to give you a bunch of information that would 

that you could use to determine whether the borrower is 

in the wrong loan. 

MS. HONG: Correct, so, so currently 

there's nothing currently there (inaudible) then in 

session one, we say what about we're going to notify them 

about the PSLF, direct them to the website. But after 

further analysis, our Office of Federal Student Aid said, 

hey, actually, they're more accountable to us if we do it 

this way and we can ensure that the information they're 

providing is more consistent. 

MR. SANDERS: Okay, and (inaudible). 

But there's no require they just have to tell, and we're 

at the very bottom of the last page, number four is what 

we're talking about, is that right? 

MS. HONG: Very end of Page Eight. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MR. SANDERS: Very end of page eight, 

yeah, right, yes, okay, that's right. Okay, yeah. And 

then, what does the Secretary, I mean, is there anything 

in here that would force the Secretary to do anything 

with the data that's come in. 

MS. HONG: Well, again, remember, we 

generally don't want to force the Secretary by 

regulation, but certainly the Secretary has the authority 

then to follow up on these issues. 

MR. ROBERTS: Mm hmm. The limited way 

of opportunity is great. I think it's awesome. The 

problem is that it's only a year long, and I know you 

guys are probably constrained by statutes that you can't 

necessarily extend that forever. But I'm just wondering 

what happens to FFEL borrowers after that. And, you know, 

where, so I like the idea of reporting to you guys, I 

think I need to do a little more thinking and I'm 

interested to hear what other people think about this, 

like what should happen to FFEL borrowers that don't make 

the waiver? So and with that, I've been going on forever, 

so I'll stop. 

MS. HONG: Yeah, I think it's a good 

question, Joe, but we're hopeful, we're hoping that some 

borrowers avail themselves of this opportunity within 

this year. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Joe. Jaye, you're 

up. 

MS. O'CONNELL: I think I got a little 

more confused in that conversation, so I think we 

understood that this change to be in lieu of the 

disclosure, which we've heard they don't help, people 

don't read them, not effective that we, as FFEL holders 

guarantee agencies would have increased data points that 

we provide to the Department. So then we would you would 

make changes to NSLDS to accommodate new let's say 

history-type information. And that would be for the 

purpose of you making notices? I think that's where I 

got confused in the earlier conversation with Joe. So you 

would be looking at data that we provide and saying, 

Okay, well, this combination or are you using it to 

evaluate eligibility? Or to hold us accountable? I think 

I'm just lost in the purpose. Because I was reading off 

the note that said it was about notices. 

MS. HONG: Yes, I think the 

accountability comes in with the consistency of 

information. It is, you know, the ability to conduct the 

outreach that we need to conduct based on the information 

provided to us through NSLDS. And just like you said, a 

disclosure that may not be very meaningful for people. 

MS. O'CONNELL: Okay, thank you. 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MR. ROBERTS: So saw a few hands, but 

Jeri, you're up next on my screen. 

MS. O'BRYAN-LOSEE: I just want to say 

I have gotten my email from the Department of ED saying 

I'm one of the 550,000 people that's going to be 

reevaluated. I've heard nothing from nothing from my 

fellow people, but I did hear from the Department of ED. 

But I will tell you, and it speaks a little bit to what 

Joe was saying. This terrifies me that we have a year to 

get a hold of all of the FFEL people. I mean, I give 

student debt clinics every one of our paydays, and I'm 

getting hundreds of inquiries and hundreds every day ever 

since the announcement came out and people who were so 

earnt from their experience while they were in repayment 

before and trying to do things correctly. Just the 

emotional burden of trying to get over 'I tried to do 

this once I was told I was an idiot and I can't do this 

now. Why do I believe it now?' is huge and like I got my 

email, I'm looking for it because I know to look for it, 

but for people who can't look for it or don't look for 

it, I'd like to see a commercial from the Department of 

ED after every freaking SoFi commercial where people are 

going to lose public service loan forgiveness options if 

they if they go that way. I mean, I'd like to see 

billboards. I'd like to see the Goodyear Blimp making 
 

55 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

rounds. Any way we can get this out because this keeps me 

up at night for those 550,000 people at least who are 

going through that. And so any way that any way we can 

get the word out, I'm happy for my tax dollars to go 

towards billboards and commercials. I think the more we 

can get that information out, the better. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Jeri. I think I 

see Daniel's hand next. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Thank you. Yup. And 

this speaks to I again, I would love and I know I imagine 

Jennifer, you're looking for this from your colleagues 

and the Department, I'd love an update on where we are in 

terms of the waiver and what the process has been and 

what our status is, so. 

MS. HONG: Can you put that in the 

chat? And I meant to loop back with you we're trying to 

get that information --

MR. BARKOWITZ: Great thank you. The 

other question I have, and again, I'm just I'm reading 

the statute for the enabling law, for what is the text is 

the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. I'm wondering 

about the consolidation issue and specifically if the 

clock reset that occurs in consolidation. I believe that 

is not statutory because again, looking at the way it's 

laid out, it's 120 payments. But it doesn't say anywhere 
56 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

in statute that as long as the original payment and the 

follow on repayment both categorize or classify as 

eligible repayment periods, I wouldn't necessarily see a 

need to start the clock again. So I wonder if that is an 

issue that can be addressed that if it's possible for us 

to ignore the clock restart for consolidation where the 

payment period, the payment plan before and the payment 

period after payment plan after both qualify. 

MS. HONG: So I mean, we've explored 

our authority to do this. So yeah we'll take your comment 

and continue to explore but we've really, what we're 

presenting here is, you know, everything that we've been 

able to do to date and have explored our legal authority 

to be able to do. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Okay, and again, I'm 

just I'm trying to see where in statute again, what I see 

is a need to be in one of the payment plans and need to 

make one hundred and twenty payments, but not any mention 

of consolidation as a reset. So that would be that would 

be a strong suggestion on my on my part. I think that 

would go far to alleviate some of the concerns. Not all, 

certainly, but some of the concerns of the temporary 

waiver. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Daniel, so I see 

Misty's hand and then after that, I think we're just 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

going to have a quick 10 minute break. Justin, keep your 

hand up (inaudible) after the break but then once we're 

through with the discussion, we'll do a quick temperature 

check on four and five as well as your ideas and 

solutions and suggested text for the Department and then 

move to the next issue. So Misty, three minutes and then 

we'll go on break. 

MS. SABOUNEH: I just wanted to add to 

the need for communication from the Department of 

Education around this PSLF waiver. I was listening to a 

call with a student recently who was scammed by a company 

saying that the student qualifies for Public Service Loan 

Forgiveness and the student was paying auto debit into an 

account over a year-long period that was really going 

nowhere, and so increasingly, with this one year waiver, 

students are very confused. They're getting scam calls 

all the time. And unless I've missed this, I don't think 

we know who the actual federal servicer is going to be 

who'll be servicing this program, which is one additional 

kind of ambiguous pieces to this. So the more 

communication, the better, the more consistence. And we 

as institutions, I think, would also want to partner 

whenever possible to get communications out from brands 

that they trust and that they know it's their school, 

maybe there's a joint effort in that because we don't 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

want anyone to miss the opportunity where they qualify 

for this. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, thank you, 

Misty. We're just going to a quick 10 minute break, so if 

we just want to be back at 2:40, sorry, I was a bit 

overdue on that one. And then Justin, we'll get to you 

and then we'll pick back up at 2:40. Alright, welcome 

back, everyone. It is 2:40 right now, so we're about 50 

minutes out from public comment. So if you if you did get 

a confirmation email to speak, feel free to log on a 

little bit early just so we can get you all set up, but 

we'll start that promptly at 3:30. So I saw Justin's 

hand, but Jennifer, I know that you wanted to return to a 

previous question, so, go ahead. 

MS. HONG: Yeah, I just want to put a 

finer point on Daniel's question about restarting the 

clock after consolidation. I want to make it clear that 

we are doing that through these proposed regulations so 

long as underlying loans are eligible. We can't do it for 

FFEL. So, that’s the limitation-- is the eligible loans 

for PSLF. So that is the limitation we're facing. That's 

why we're providing it through the temporary waiver 

through next year. But we are stopping the restart on the 

consolidation clock through these proposed regulations 

for other qualifying loans. So, just want to make sure 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

you have the right answer on that one. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: Thank you for that 

clarification. I appreciate that. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. Justin, go 

ahead. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Yeah, thanks. Jennifer 

I appreciate that it's actually part of the question that 

I one of the points that I want to ask about here. And I 

guess is it is there a is there something statutorily 

that is preventing the Department from chaining together 

what would otherwise be qualifying payments? I guess 

irrespective of the fact that, you know, a loan was 

consolidated into a qualifying loan at a certain point, I 

guess. Does that question make sense? 

MS. HONG: Could you talk more about 

that-- chaining together payments? (Inaudible) your 

question. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Sure. I guess I'm 

wondering, you know, for payments made on a loan that's 

eventually consolidated to a direct loan, for instance? 

Is there a reason the Department can't essentially count 

the full string of qualifying payments? And maybe if I 

misunderstood Daniel's question. 

MS. HONG: Oh, so long as those 

underlying loans qualify, we are counting those through 
60 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

these proposed regulations. 

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, the last point, 

this was my own negligence. I forgot to circle back 

prior. But Jennifer, you had asked, I think asked about 

this. I had raised a point that there are certain 

Veterans Serving Organizations that we believe are still 

currently embedded, even with this proposed regulatory 

text. And just to make clear the basis for that under, 

under our understanding, it's because most Veterans 

Serving Organizations are considered 501C3s and they we 

don't believe that they would fall under kind of the 

other organization provision I'll call it here because 

there's still a stipulation that it needs to be public 

service work as defined in the regulatory text here. And 

when we look there on the definition of public service, 

you know, we don't see a way for, you know, the services 

provided by a veteran service organizations. We're not 

seeing that included. So that's kind of the basis for why 

we think organizations that might be 501C19 Veterans 

Serving Organizations, for instance, aren't included 

here, but we'd be happy to submit language. But again, I 

think we just want to be clear on where the Department 

would prefer to see this fixed in the regulatory text so 

that we can provide helpful language. So apologies that 

we're a little out of order on that, but. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MS. HONG: No apologies. I actually 

want to be clear as well in my guidance to you regarding 

the definition of military service, because I think that 

this definition applies to those non-C3 organizations 

that serve the military and veteran organizations. If you 

could take a look at that again to see whether that 

definition may encompass those organizations that you're 

referring to. And if not, we can put something forward. 

MR. ROBERTS: Okay yeah, and that was 

one of our potential understandings of that language. And 

so, you know, to the extent that that's what we're trying 

to do there, we might just you might offer an alternative 

language and I'm going to sub in my alternative who I 

think would like to speak on this quickly as well, 

thanks. 

MR. ROBERTS: And just for folks who 

are tuning in, it's Emily DeVito. But first, Jaye I see 

your hand. 

MS. O'CONNELL: So, just a couple of 

things, so going back to the NSLDS data, this may be a 

little bit in the weeds, but in terms of for us all to be 

successful in getting you the data that we have 

available, it would be great if we could be consulted as 

part of the development of how that how that happens, how 

we report and such. The other thing I wanted to just 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

follow up on Misty's comment about scams, and just as a 

pretty small FFEL (inaudible), we are getting some calls 

from borrowers where they're asking, they're asking us if 

we've contacted them or people in their family. And we 

have we are not. We have no record of contacts, so we're 

not exactly sure what the form of this scam is. But 

something seems to be happening since the announcement of 

PSLF. So they're getting calls from a third party that is 

not VSAC who's saying they're VSAC. And it's around this 

topic, so I think in light of the comments, the 

communication, in the absence, some of the bad actors 

tend to pop up in these situations, and we're starting to 

get a sense that that could be happening. 

MS. HONG: Thank you for that flag Jaye 

--we'll definitely make note of that. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks Jaye. Joe, go 

ahead. 

MR. SANDERS: I just want to return to 

Page Five and again thinking about forbearance steering. 

I went back and I looked at M and I see what you're 

talking about, where am defines M of the in the statute 

1087 defines the repayment plans. And I'm wondering on 

Page Five of the current issue paper you have, you have 

some deferments that are listed there. Cancer deferment, 

Peace Corps service deferment. And I'm wondering what 
 

 

63 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

authority you have to include those deferments and how 

broad that authority is or isn't? So that may be a 

question for Soren or Jennifer, I guess. 

MS. HONG: So those are, and Soren 

please jump in, those are lifted from the statute, so. 

MR. LAGAARD: Yeah. Just when I was 

going to say, Jennifer. That's correct. 

MR. SANDERS: And are those in M or are 

those somewhere else? 

MS. HONG: I believe they're elsewhere, 

we can dig that up for you. 

MR. LAGAARD: Yeah, we could get that. 

MR. SANDERS: That's fine. It's in the 

same, it's in the --

MR. LAGAARD: (Inaudible) 455, yeah, 

but not maybe M. 

MR. SANDERS: 20USC 1087E? 

MR. LAGAARD: Oh yeah. Yeah, I think 

that's the equivalent in the code. 

MR. SANDERS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, 

right, Okay. Are there have you considered in that where 

you pull those from, are there other forbearances or 

deferments that you could include here? 

MS. HONG: Not so much deferments. 

Possibly forbearance. Did you have something that you had 
64 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

(inaudible)? 

MR. SANDERS: Yeah, so, you know, I 

mean, I'm thinking about like, OK, like how can we fix 

forbearance steering with like without having to dig 

into, like, you know, review all the phone calls and like 

see what the borrower was told and make it easier, right? 

So I had suggested earlier getting repayment plans. Okay, 

that doesn't work. You've got those repayment plans that 

you have to consider there. Is there a way to add in more 

forbearances and deferment so that if people had gotten 

steered into these things, it wouldn't matter? And I can 

do more research on this, but I wanted to, you know, pick 

your brain. 

MS. HONG: Yeah, we did our analysis of 

this and this is where we landed in the proposed 

language. If there's something else that you're aware of 

or --

MR. SANDERS: I'm just thinking you've 

got a lot of people out there that have a lot of time 

spent in forbearances because the servicers gave them bad 

information, and so I'm trying to correct for that. What 

about the Department's, you guys have the authority and 

I'm going to get the terminology wrong to like to settle 

any loan that you want to. Settlement and compromise 

authority or something like that. Is there any way that 
65 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

that could be leveraged to account for forbearance 

steering in an administratively streamlined fashion. 

MR. LAGAARD: That's an interesting 

question, we can take it under consideration. I don't 

know if Jen had anything else to add to that. 

MS. HONG: Yeah, I think if we count 

all forbearances equally... can create a large loophole in 

the program, so we landed here on these to reflect when 

someone gets put into forbearance automatically, or 

they're doing something that we think aligns with PSLF. 

So, for example, economic hardship, you'd have a zero 

payment on IDR anyway and military service you're doing 

PSLF-eligible work. So again, this is where we landed. 

These are the ones that we think are most pertinent and 

relevant to this program. 

MR. SANDERS: Right, and I can give you 

guys something concrete, but what about something along 

the lines of moving away from forbearances to talk about 

repayment plans, right? Somebody is in an extent, you 

have TEPSLF but there's a question there on 

appropriations, correct? So if no more money is 

appropriate, that will eventually run out. And would it 

be possible to leverage a compromise authority to say, 

cover all repayment plans? Anyhow, I'm putting that out 

there, let me do a little more thinking on that and see 
66 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

if I can get you guys something more concrete. 

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah, thanks, Joe, you 

just want to, if you wouldn't mind, I know there's a few 

unanswered questions. I just want to populate the chat 

with those just so we can have a record of those. Thanks, 

Emily, go ahead. 

MS. DEVITO: Hi, good afternoon, and I 

appreciate your patience with us, Jennifer, as we really 

just try and nail down as intense so we can best provide 

insight into what would define separately military active 

service that's long qualified and also what would capture 

military service organizations and veterans service 

organizations. So circling back to that, the definition 

provided for military service that first covers active 

duty, I'm sorry, U.S. Armed Forces and National Guard, 

and then goes on to divi- to define veterans of those 

organizations. So long as such, services are provided 

because of the individual status as being a member. Could 

you share what is that trying to capture? What would a 

veteran of the armed services or National Guard, what 

service would that be, is that intended to capture a VSO 

employee or VSOs that are not otherwise captured in the 

501C3 definition? And what in general is this trying to 

capture outside of the qualified employer of US-based 

federal, state, local government organization or agency? 
 

67 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MS. HONG: Right, so this is really--

and we could do some wordsmithing on it further. This is 

really intended to capture those VSOs as nonprofits 

serving the armed forces or veterans, even if they aren't 

C3's. Do you have, yeah, specific organizations in mind 

that you want to share? I mean, because that might be 

helpful. 

MS. DEVITO: Yes. And so particularly 

and as I shared last session, this please understand this 

is not exhaustive, but the two that I'll just name 

happened to be some of the largest. They encompass a 

large number of employees in the VSO space, being 

Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and Disabled American 

Veterans (DAV) who also both are some of the primary VSOs 

responsible for working with the VA directly, as with 

accredited representatives who process VA, or claims for 

veterans. And also, what I would want to share is also 

these employees, like any VSO 501C3s that are already 

captured are largely we employ veterans but are not 

entirely. So, these are these are employees, a lot of 

military spouses, military family members who are 

employees of these organizations. So that was the first 

red flag in this verbiage if it's intended, only to apply 

to veterans who are working for these organizations. But 

I think you already provided clarity where I think if we 
68 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

could provide some recommended language to capture VArecognized Veteran Service Organizations that are 501C3s 

separately from active-duty service and the eligibility 

that's acquired there. 

MS. HONG: Yes, that was the intent 

here. 

MS. DEVITO: Okay, well, great, so 

we'll look forward to that. 

MS. HONG: Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Emily. Bethany, 

go ahead. 

MS. LILLY: Hi, I wanted to go back to 

Joe's questions about specifically the forbearance 

payments, because you mentioned that you wanted to 

include circumstances in which people are forced into 

forbearance effectively. And one of the circumstances we 

discussed in the last session that I don't see on this is 

when folks are transitioning from one payment plan to 

another. I'm not sure if I'm missing it, but it seems 

like it should be under that sub V on Page Five, since 

that's where you're trying to capture those. So I just I 

wanted to flag again that that's something we'd like to 

see included. And I would just again urge the Department. 

I understand you've done your analysis. I'm really 

looking forward to seeing Joe's and Joe's suggested 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

revisions. But I this is one of those things where I 

really think any type of flexibility you can give here, I 

mean by definition of folks are going into forbearance, 

they're probably not in the best circumstances. And so 

flexibilities that we can provide there are really 

important. And so just flagging again, that that is 

something where anything the Department can do to expand 

that authority, I think, would be really important. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Bethany, so I see 

Persis and Michaela, I'm just keeping my eye on the 

clock. Right now, it is three o'clock, so I think we'll 

likely move into just a quick temperature check after 

those two comments unless any other folks have some final 

words. And then I just want to again encourage folks who 

are signed up for public comment to log on early just so 

we can transition right into that and get as many of 

those as we can. So with that, Persis, go ahead. 

MS. YU: Thank you. So I again want to 

speak to support Joe's comment using I like his idea of 

using settlements and compromise authority to create this 

broader exception so that we can include forbearance time 

and extended repayment time. I think we have a lot of 

examples. I mean, the entire purpose of the TEPSLF 

program and of the waiver is because we know that these 

problems exist. And so then to go back to Jennifer's 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

comments, this creates a big loophole. I think the way 

that you solve that loophole is through better servicing 

contracts. And I think you can use accountability through 

the servicing metrics in order to ensure that that --

MR. ROBERTS: Persis I think you might 

have muted yourself just halfway through. 

MS. YU: Ah, I'm sorry about that. So 

hopefully where I left, where I got muted was in saying, 

Jennifer mentioned that there she was concerned about 

loopholes, right? And so I think the way that you ensure 

that loophole that doesn't become a loophole is that you 

have better servicing and you have better you have better 

enforcement of your servicing contracts. We know that 

there's a lot of problems and it comes back to 

accountability. So I think it's okay to provide this wide 

flexibility if you both have servicing contracts that 

provide for accountability of the servicers, but also not 

to be a broken record, but this comes back to Income 

Driven Repayment, right? Make Income Driven Repayment the 

most accessible, easily accessible, affordable repayment 

plan so that borrowers don't need to use the extended 

repayment plan, so it's easy to get borrowers into Income 

Driven Repayment instead of getting them into 

forbearance. I think that's the way that you solve that 

problem of loopholes is making the things that borrowers 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

should go into more functional. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Persis. So, 

Michaela you're going to be our last comment on this 

issue and then do a quick temperature check. 

MS. MARTIN: Yes. Of course, I want to 

echo what (inaudible) just said, but also what Jennifer 

is describing that if folks run an IDR, then they had a 

zero payment and so like essentially they could just do 

that instead. If they're functionally like the same, I'm 

not sure why we couldn't just include the forbearances 

(inaudible). All that I wanted to add there, so thank 

you. 

MR. ROBERTS: And feel free to populate 

that in the chat as well. So there's obviously a great 

deal for the Department to consider right now. So again, 

just the thumbs is just a really read of how people are 

feeling in the room. And then again, just to remind 

everyone: thumbs down serious reservations. And we just 

ask, people, if you haven't shared a serious reservation 

that might be an idea or a solution or proposed 

regulatory text to feel free to go off of mute and just 

quickly voice that. And then anything you want to send 

along or put in chat would be super helpful. Jennifer go 

ahead. 

MS. HONG: Well, I was just going to 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

suggest that maybe we should do the temperature check, 

split it up in terms of like the application --

MR. ROBERTS: Because yeah, because 

this is involving two issues. So we're going to start, 

we're going do it twice, right? So everyone (inaudible). 

The first will be to issue Paper Four, which is 

regulatory text as it relates to improving the PSLF 

process. And then again, we're going to do it for issue 

Paper Number Five, which is PSLF eligibility. So as much 

as you can tailor any suggestions and thoughts to a 

particular issue paper is very appreciated. Yeah Joe, go 

ahead. 

MR. SANDERS: Sorry, I'm just where the 

division of the two papers I only have one PDF this time 

is that am I totally off base here? 

MS. HONG: So, no, you're absolutely 

right, and I don't mean to further confuse, but so since 

we can't split up the regulatory text, we presented the 

concepts in session one. We put them in regulatory text 

for session two. But I know that there was kind of more 

discussion on the eligibility piece. Just I think in 

order to stay organized here, if we could take up the 

concepts that are encompassed under issue four, which is 

more about improving the application process and take a 

temperature check on that, and then take a temperature 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

check on the employer eligibility piece. That would be 

helpful if that makes sense for people. Does that make 

sense to you Joe? Like --

MR. SANDERS: There's employer eligi --

. Oh, sorry. 

MS. HONG: We took it all together, but 

we didn't really like the employer attestation-- all that 

is new to session two. So I just kind of wanted to pull 

that apart and see how folks are feeling on that. 

MR. SANDERS: Okay, so we've got 

employer. Eligibility, right, the sort of the for-profit 

questions, all those questions around your employment and 

then you've got everything else. 

MS. HONG: Yeah, improving the 

application process, payment counting, stopping the clock 

restart, all those issues are in issue four which has to 

do with streamlining the application process. 

MR. SANDERS: Okay, I got it. 

MR. ROBERTS: And Susan, I see your 

hand. 

Suzanne: Yeah, I don't get it, so I'm 

just going to be candid about this. So I know now when 

we're in session one and we're in concept mode, that's 

one thing. But now we have text. So if we're going to do 

temperature checks, I think we should be tracking a 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

particular we should have the text up on the screen so we 

really know what we're temperature checking. Otherwise I 

think we may not be all on the same page. 

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah, I think so, so it's 

really just if you can basically, given the proposed 

regulatory text that is in that PDF-- as it relates to 

issue paper four, which is improving the application 

process. And then five, which is employer eligibility. 

Necessarily, it's not going to be a complete kind of 

separation of the two. But if you can just tailor those 

ideas and solutions and suggestions-- if you do have 

serious reservations-- to one of those two tracks. 

MS. LILLY: Okay, I'm sorry, I'm with 

Suzanne on this, I'm just confused, like if you can, Joe 

helped out with the big picture concepts in terms of so 

what is what like, I'm happy to do a temperature check on 

the whole thing. I'm happy to do a temperature check kind 

of working through the text. I just I'm with Suzanne on 

this. I'm sorry. 

MS. HONG: We could do a temperature 

check on the whole thing. I think for me, just coming 

away from this, I just want to be really clear on where 

people are on the reg text, if there are things that are 

holding them back and what those issues are. So if we 

could articulate that at the end, I think that we could 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

do it--take it up as a whole on the proposed regulatory 

text that's before you. 

MR. ROBERTS: And Carol I see your 

hand, but that's the (inaudible) your question, but I 

think we'll go with that if it's okay with that. 

DR. COLVIN: Would it be possible to 

just pull up the document and walk through the sections 

and do the temp checks that way so that we know this 

section, this is what we're temp checking. 

MS. HONG: Well, I think so, I think 

Jen, we can do it either way, but we can do one for the 

entire document and then folks can add suggestions or, 

and Jennifer I'll defer to you on this, if it's more 

helpful for the Department to go section by section. 

MS. HONG: If that's more helpful to 

people we can do it section by section, sections of the 

reg text. 

MR. ROBERTS: Vanessa if you want to 

scroll to the top, oh no okay you're at the top. Great, 

thank you. And Jennifer, again, I'll defer to you to tee 

up the exact section that you want to solicit a 

temperature check on. 

MS. HONG: Sure. Let's take a 

temperature check on definitions, everything from the 

beginning on Page One through School Library Services, 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

and then let's stop there at qualifying employer. 

MR. ROBERTS: And if you wouldn't mind 

unsharing the document for a few seconds, just so I can 

see everyone's thumbs, if they wouldn't mind. Alright, so 

for those folks who currently have their thumbs down, if 

you just wouldn't mind coming off of mute or raising your 

hands for us to get the order of people speaking. And 

just briefly share if it's anything new or anything to 

add potential solutions or ideas for the Department. So 

Justin, we'll start with you. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Yeah, I won't belabor 

the point. Our concern is around the definition of 

military service, and so we'll follow up with additional 

regulatory text (inaudible) thanks. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Justin. Marjorie. 

DR. DORIME-WILLIAMS: So for this 

section, it was just the language about non-(inaudible) 

employment, and so the 2.5 credit hours, if we could find 

another way to do that or just remove the language 

altogether. 

MR. ROBERTS: And I'll just reemphasize 

just putting that in chat as well is super helpful, just 

so we have it on the transcript. Daniel, go ahead, sorry. 

MR. BARKOWITZ: I'm just going to ditto 

Marjorie, I'm going to plus one. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Jennifer, you 

good for the next section? 

MS. HONG: Yes. How about we take 

everything from the qualifying employer through our 

eligibility, and we can start on Page Six, or D as 

forgiveness (inaudible). So again, the new language on 

employer attestation, under qualifying employer, and 

then, you know, not much has changed from session one 

under borrower eligibility. So actually, you take it. 

MS. LILLY: Just to clarify, we're 

doing it until C, borrower eligibility right? 

MS. HONG: Through, through C, to D. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, thank you, 

Vanessa. And then again, if people just want to quickly 

do a show of thumbs with thumbs down indicating serious 

reservations about that second session section. Alright, 

and if folks wouldn't mind coming off, raising your hand 

and coming off of mute, and then again, just as before, 

sharing how they could go from reservations to living 

with this this section with any ideas, modified text, 

anything. Justin, go ahead. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Yeah, I'll probably be 

quick here because there's plenty, I think, and there's 

lots of the people that need to talk, but again, this is 

somewhat in conjunction with our concerns about the 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

definition of military service to the extent that we're 

not going to cover VSOs there. We would want them 

potentially somehow included in the language encompassed 

here. I think we I also have some, we also have some 

concerns about just generally missing groups of folks 

that should be included. Again, we talked about VA 

caregivers in a program at VA. We are aware of other 

groups that that I think people are looking to have 

included as well. And so I kind of all of that's at play 

for us, but I'll let other folks speak to what I would 

imagine be of the same concerns. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Justin. Bethany, 

go ahead. 

MS. LILLY: Ditto on Justin's concerns. 

I mean, I think it's all stemming from the same place. I 

would like to see the elimination of the for-profit 

restriction in the qualified employer definition. I'd 

like to see, as I mentioned, some catchall terms in terms 

of payments counting, and I'm happy to follow up with reg 

texts, proposed reg texts after this because I think 

that's the most useful here. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Stephanie. 

Persis, go ahead. 

MS. YU: Mostly ditto Bethany. Strike 

is a is not a business organized for-profit and include 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

time counted for forbearances and extended repayment, 

especially where we have evidence of steering. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright, and Joe. 

MR. SANDERS: Same as Persis. Any place 

where we have evidence of forbearance steering, bad 

service information of repayment plans, there needs to be 

some way to consider those borrowers. And consider that 

time as qualified. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Jennifer, do you 

have everything you need for the second session? Section, 

sorry I keep saying that. 

MS. HONG: Yes, thank you, Brady. 

(Inaudible) everything from D again, not a whole lot of 

changes from the first session. D at the top of Page Six-

- forgiveness amount all the way to the end. Again, with 

the new change right there-- is really about the FFEL and 

the outreach and the FFEL reporting. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. One more time. 

I'm seeing it. I think I'm missing one or two. Alright, 

great. Thank you, everyone. Alright, well, Justin, thank 

you for putting your hand up again. Anyone who has 

serious reservations feel free to raise your hand and 

then come off of mute, and then we'll give you a chance 

to voice some. So Justin, go ahead. 

MR. HAUSCHILD: Yeah, thanks. Apologize 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

if you guys hear the train in the background. But here 

just talked about some concerns regarding the 

application, not required language. I think that that 

should be we should be consistent in how we're using that 

language across regulatory provisions here. And it should 

be the Secretary forgives alone, if not Shell, so thanks. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Justin. Joe. 

MR. SANDERS: Yeah, I'd like to move 

away from making the FFEL lenders disclose, because I 

think traditionally they haven't done a good job of it 

and it's not necessarily effective, so I think that's 

good. I like the Department getting more information. I 

think that's good. But then I want to see like what kind 

of follow up is going to happen for these borrowers? How 

are we going to do something for the barbers, I 

understand the Secretary wanting to keep discretion, but 

you know, from the borrower perspective, having them get 

some sort of, some way of letting them know, hey, you're 

in the wrong loan if you want PSLF. So I think they're 

positive developments, but that I still don't see a fix 

on that last piece. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thanks, Joe. And Alyssa. 

MS. DOBSON: I, yeah, I did put some 

comments in the chat that sort of also defined the 

concern here, but I think that we do need to consider all 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

periods of forbearance. I know people have expressed 

where there's evidence of students being led, but that's 

not always going to be apparent to these students. These 

students feel like they were helped. They avoided an 

issue, right? They couldn't make their payments. And so 

they were led towards forbearance as the easiest, 

achievable good outcome for seemingly all parties. And I 

think without including all periods of forbearance, 

you're going to miss out on a lot of students who didn't 

necessarily make that choice on their own and weren't 

properly counseled and ended up there. Additionally, you 

know, if you capture some people who weren't led to 

forbearance maybe landed there intentionally, there's 

usually generally underlying issue that that made them go 

there anyway. And so that's my concern in a nutshell. I 

think we should include them all. 

MR. ROBERTS: Alright. Thank you, 

Alyssa. So we have only about 15 minutes left, so I 

wanted to give the Department an opportunity if they 

wanted to just cue up the PDF for Borrower Defense. I 

know that's another one that encompasses multiple issues, 

but again, I just wanted to remind folks who are logging 

on for public comment. Try to log on sooner just so we 

can have naming conventions and all that worked out. And 

we'll transition right into that at 3:30. 
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MS. HONG: So let me, before we queue 

anything up, let me tell you what you have before you. 

You have three documents related to Borrower Defense 

repayment. The first document is concept suggestions with 

input from Joe and the state AGs. There's also language 

there from 2016 and then also language from the Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau. These are just concepts that 

we are embedding within or considering with regard to 

aggressive and deceptive recruitment. The second document 

that you have is actually proposed regulatory text, and I 

think we'll start there by way of introduction. So that 

okay, so put a pin in that and then the third document 

you have is proposed language on misrepresentation and 

proposed language specifically to amend the generalprovisions section of our regulations, which are separate 

in part from Borrower Defense, but we would have a crossreference in Borrower Defense referring back to those 

regulations as they are, as we've already defined in this 

reg. And so those are the three documents that you have. 

Why don't we start and we can just go over the major 

headings of how we've organized it so you can have a 

taste of that, and that is for Vanessa queuing up the 

document that says proposed regulatory text for issue 

Paper Six, Seven, and Eight Borrower Defense to 

Repayment. We could start having a look at that. Perhaps 
83 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

you guys can digest it overnight and you can have a 

fruitful discussion in the morning. Perfect. Okay, so 

this section lays out the different subparts of Borrower 

Defense. You see an amendment in subpart D, and 

specifically we've changed it to specifically reflect 

Borrower Defense Repayment in the direct loan program. So 

that's one page, if you turn the next page, 206, is 

existing language. Now, we are still contemplating how 

the introduction of this new set of regulations will 

affect existing Borrower Defense to Repayment regulations 

from 2019 and 2016. While we would want to replace that 

language, we e don't know that we can do that yet. So 

this applicability, we're just adjusting the 

applicability for the 2019 regulations-- for those loans 

first dispersed on or after July 1st, 2020 and before 

July 1st, 2023. Oh. Again, because the section that 

follows the new section that we're proposing in the next 

page on Page Three is the new text. So this lays out 

(inaudible) for Borrower Defense to repayment. And this 

is Subpart D, a new Section 685-400. And just to be sure, 

these provisions for Borrower Defense to repayment, may 

be (inaudible) applies to Borrower Defense applications 

received on or after July 1st, 2023 and to applications 

pending with the Secretary on July 1st, 2023. So if we 

plan to effectuate these regulations on July 1st, 2023, 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

anything, any loans that are in the queue before the 

Secretary and any applications received. So we're moving 

away from loan disbursement to any applications received 

on or after July 1st, 2023, and applications pending with 

the Secretary on July 1st, 2023 are subject to these 

regulations. Maybe I'll pause there because I see Josh's 

hand's up. 

MR. ROVENGER: Just a quick technical, 

very technical question slash point. So, so very much 

appreciate the idea that the new regs will kick in with 

all applications pending as of July 1st, 2023. I think 

there needs to be to the extent the Department feels 

that it can't go further with just having the regulations 

apply to all Borrower Defenses. I think there needs to be 

an additional clause in 685-206 E, because as of right 

now, I think alone, that was dispersed between 20, July 

2020 and July 2023, and that is subject to a Borrower 

Defense application after July 1st, 2023 would 

technically be governed by both of these provisions. And 

so I think there needs to be some sort of additional 

clause in 685-206 E, essentially saying unless there's an 

application, unless an application for such a loan is 

submitted after July 1st, 2023. 

MS. HONG: I understand your point, 

Josh, I think that's okay though, because I think the 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

idea here is so long as the new regs apply to those 

loans, the idea is that a borrower would be able to avail 

themselves of the proposed regulations. 

MR. ROVENGER: Yeah, I guess I guess 

I'm just concerned about the potential for confusion in 

the future of somebody alleging that the old regulations 

apply to those loans, if 206 E is saying that because of 

the loan disbursement date, the old regulations would 

apply. And so I guess I think so to the extent 206 E is 

not intended to apply to any loan that is then subject to 

a Borrower Defense application after 2023, I think that 

should also be clear in 685-206 E, just so there's not 

that confusion. 

MS. HONG: Right, if you have suggested 

amendments, please drop them in the chat. 

MR. ROBERTS: Well, Jennifer, I'm 

seeing I'm seeing Jessica's hand up, and I just want to 

ask you how you look in the last five minutes, if you 

want to just jump into Q&A on this first issue paper or 

this first, sorry, this first paper that was sent or do 

you want to finish just queuing up the other two for 

jumping into discussion tomorrow? 

MS. HONG: Well, maybe we take 

Jessica's and then we can just put a pin in everything. 

MR. ROBERTS: Sounds good, yeah. 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Jessica, go ahead. I think you're still muted right now, 

Jessica, sorry. 

MS. BARRY: Oh, thank you, getting 

towards the end of the day. Thank you for taking my 

question and this might be a bigger discussion for 

tomorrow, but I'm just confused and maybe it's just me, 

but when we started the conversation, you were talking 

about retroactivity and being able to apply this to 

claims before July 1st, 2023. Do pending claims fit into 

that category since that conduct happened well before 

July 1st, 2023, or they were filed before July 1st, 

2023?. Does the Department have authority to do that? 

MS. HONG: Yes, you have the authority 

to do that, and those are the applications that we want 

to encompass in this new process, those that are 

currently before the Secretary. Ok, great, Brady if 

you're okay, I can keep going for another minute or so 

until, or did you want to, wait at 3:30 is when the 

public comments begin? 

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah, I was going to say, 

we have three minutes left, so if you want to, if there's 

anything you want to tee up in 180 seconds, go for it. 

Otherwise --

MS. HONG: I can do a real quick 

overview. So, Page Three--the scope and purpose pending 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

and received applications as of July 1st, 2023. The next 

page, I'll just go over the general headings. You can 

have that in your brain tonight. Page four, this is the 

Borrower Defense general requirements. We're going to get 

to Page Five tomorrow, and then that's when the other 

documents will become relevant. So if we could spend the 

morning talking about this representation and what we're 

doing here on Page Five. Page Six is a group process for 

Borrower Defense. This is how we laid it out. So the 

general group process for Borrower Defense on Page Six 

and Seven. Page Eight is an individual process, or 

Borrower Defense eight and nine. Page Ten is a new 

process that we've proposed, you might recall from 

Session one, using information that the Secretary has in 

his possession, group process based on prior Secretarial 

final action. Page Eleven, a process for institutional 

response for institutions that want to take a look at 

that. Page Twelve, the adjudication process is outlined. 

Twelve, Page Twelve and Thirteen. Fourteen, Page 

Fourteen, sorry, Vanessa, thank you for manning the 

document, reconsideration process. Page Fifteen is 

released. And then on Page Sixteen and Seventeen at the 

very end we've laid out some examples there and we will 

get into this more. Page Eighteen, recovery from the 

institution. And Page Nineteen is just you know standard 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

language regarding cooperation from the borrower. Page 

Twenty, transfer to the Secretary Borrower (inaudible) 

recovery and Twenty-one's severability. So that's the 

overview. I look forward to working with you tomorrow. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, and I 

appreciate you teeing that up so quickly. I hate to eat 

into the public comment period, so I appreciate that and 

we'll jump right into that at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. But I 

think we are just about on time. So if someone would 

mind, could you let in the first public commenter? And 

again, for folks who are watching the livestream, feel 

free to keep logging in. I know that we have some folks 

in the waiting room, but you can log into more time and 

we can get to your comment. 

MS. MACK: Brady, I have admitted Mr. 

Chris Aldridge representing himself. 

MR. ROBERTS: Hey, good afternoon, Mr. 

Aldridge. Can you hear me? 

MR. ALDRIDGE: I can. 

MR. ROBERTS: Great. If you're 

comfortable, feel free to come off a video. Otherwise, 

feel free, you have three minutes. 

MR. ALDRIDGE: Okay, give me just a 

moment to see if I can get the video moving and grooving 

here. Share, I can share screen or --
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MR. ROBERTS: It should be in the lower 

left, but don't worry about it, it's not, it's not 

working. There we go. Perfect, we can see you. 

MR. ALDRIDGE: Very good, very good. 

Okay, thank you. I'll foreshadow my comments, 

paraphrasing a recent quote from Secretary Cardona. 

Borrowers, who devote a decade of their lives to public 

service, should be able to rely on the promise of public 

service loan forgiveness. The system is not delivered 

that promise for public service workers who had our back 

during the pandemic. The Biden Administration is showing 

that we have their backs too, but in practice, PSLF has 

absolutely no integrity if its policies, procedures and 

acknowledgments divide public services public servants 

into categories by loan type. Even under the current 

waiver, my FFEL spousal consolidation loan does not 

qualify to be consolidated into direct loan. The current 

waiver picks what it will forgive by administrative 

convenience, not by the merits of public service or 

sacrifice. Further, the committee's policy documents 

deplete of this topic despite spousal consolidation 

appeals presented among the 480,000 responses to DOEs 

public RFI to guide this committee. Secretary Cordova, 

President Biden and this committee can make the PSLF 

program whole for myself, my family and other spousal 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

loan holders. The department estimates 120,000 loans of 

this type, some short term solutions. During this waiver 

window purchase our federally grant guaranteed loans and 

forgive the balances or bypass consolidation blockers for 

FFEL spousal consolidations by utilizing the groundwork 

proposed for FFEL treatment in Borrower Defense Document 

Six, Page Five under the treatment of FFELP, come to 

terms with FFEL constituents and striking a chord before 

the waiver ends. Please. Or purchase our federally 

guaranteed loans and loan history and transfer us to a 

direct loan counterpart. Some long term solutions The 

Department should urge the President to work with the 

Legislature to move two 2021 companion bills: Senate HR 

10-98 and the 117th Congress HR 24-60, which seek to 

right the wrong of the 109th Congress who abandoned us. 

Separate spousal consolidations allow for reconsolidation 

to direct the program and therefore eligibility to PSLF. 

These bills have true bipartisan sponsorship, and they've 

died in the Education of Labor Committee for the last 

four years. The iron is hot for a win by this 

administration. And last, please ensure inclusion in PSLF 

policy and procedures of factoring FFEL, including 

spousals, as truly federally-guaranteed loan programs for 

services of debtors. Be remembered as the administration 

who threw an undisputed touchdown for PSLF and not the 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

one that died at the one-yard line because they didn't 

pay attention to detail and execute. My name is Chris 

Aldridge. My wife and I have been qualifying public 

servants for 20 years. I have recently been denied PSLF. 

I will again under this waiver. Our experience is 

identical to the experience of Bridget Kennedy, who 

you'll get to, you will speak here, speak today at the 

conclusion of the session. The current waiver --

MR. ROBERTS: That's 3 minutes, Mr. 

Aldridge. 

MR. ALDRIDGE: Thank you for your time. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment. 

MS. MACK: Brady, I have now admitted 

Ms. Laura Mlyniec. 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, Ms. 

Mlyniec, how are you? 

MS. MLYNIEC: I am good, how are you? 

MR. ROBERTS: Good. Well, you have 

three minutes for public comment. 

MS. MLYNIEC: Thank you so much. My 

name is Laura Mlyniec. I am an actually I was a first 

generation college student and I was a beneficiary of the 

Pell Grant system. I currently work in higher education 

as an academic advisor. So I work with students every 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

single day discussing and dealing with financial 

struggles of financing their education. Back when I 

graduated high school, I was one of the millions who 

believed that education would help me move beyond my 

parents' paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. However, when I 

graduated, my first paid position in education was a 

$20,000 a year job in Downtown Philadelphia in 2004. By 

the end of that year, that position--with a master's 

degree level required-- a position with no pay raise. 

Therefore, I enrolled in a master's program while working 

full time with a different institution. After graduating 

with an additional $450, $45,000 in loans, I learned 

about the public service loan program and luckily knew 

that my employer qualified as a nonprofit. My FFEL loans 

(inaudible). At that point, I asked (inaudible) an email 

through their online portal and over the phone what I 

need to do, anything, to qualify for PSLF program. I was 

told to just enroll in the income driven program, which 

ended up making me pay a higher percentage of my monthly 

income, which was very low at the time. And while 

watching my balances rise (inaudible) the interest rates. 

In 2017, I submitted my first PSLF paperwork. And months 

later, I learned that I did not qualify as my loans were 

not in the right type of loan. Upon further conversation 

(inaudible) I consolidated my loans to a direct loan, 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

increasing the balance and losing over seven years of ontime payments. Sixty days ago, I submitted my final 

TEPSLF application, which was finally accepted and my 

loans transferred to fed service, fed loan servicing. The 

timeline for my payment is to actually be reviewed and 

(inaudible) my payments through, it's a mystery, I don't 

know. That's just my in-progress story. That doesn't 

include the fact that life happens around your loan 

forgiveness or your loans that you take out. I've 

married, I've divorced, I switched jobs, working at two 

Ivy League institutions as well as other very highly 

recognized education institutions. I've remarried, I've 

dealt with chronic illness and infertility, funded my own 

IVF journey and dealt with spousal unemployment. 

MR. ROBERTS: I'm sorry, we need to 

move on to the next commenter. 

MS. MLYNIEC: Thank you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment. 

MR. DAROLIA: I am now admitting Mr. 

John Hawkins from the Texas Hospital Association. 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, Mr. 

Hawkins. Can you hear me? Hey, good afternoon, can you 

hear me? Mr. Hawkins? 

MS. MACK: Audio is connected. 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah, Mr. Hopkins, can 

you hear me? Do you want to let in the next? Thank you. 

MR. DAROLIA: Yeah. I will admit now 

Ms. Darcy Gray representing herself and I will try to 

message Mr. Hawkins. 

MR. ROBERTS: So, Mr. Hawkins it looks 

like we've got you set up, we'll come back to you, but 

Ms. Gray Can you hear me? 

MS. GRAY: Yes. Can you hear me? 

MR. ROBERTS: I can hear you just fine. 

You have three minutes for public comment. 

MS. GRAY: So my name's Darcy Gray. I 

was a previous student of Brooks Institute of 

Photography. I filed for Borrower's Defense in November 

of 2016, and I'm still waiting to get any kind of answer 

on my application. It's been very difficult. I tried to 

buy a house a couple of years ago and wasn't allowed to 

or couldn't get financing because of the status of my 

loans, and I've had a hard time finding housing. I had to 

live with my parents for a while. The apartments I can 

get, I have to pay a very high deposit and they're not in 

the best areas of town, but I just it would be a great a 

great relief to finally get some answers on my loans 

after waiting for going on five years now. I know we've 

been working really hard on it, it just would be nice to 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

have an answer. Thank you so much for your time. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you so much for 

your comment. Mr. Hawkins, if you are ready, are you able 

to hear me still? 

MR. HAWKINS: Yeah, can you, can you 

hear me? 

MR. ROBERTS: I can hear you just fine. 

You have three minutes, go ahead. 

MR. HAWKINS: Great. Good afternoon. My 

name is John Hawkins. I'm here on behalf of the Texas 

Hospital Association, representing more than 500 

hospitals in Texas. I'm here to testify about an issue 

with the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program that is 

specific only to California and Texas physicians. 

Although California and Texas physicians should be able 

to participate in the program under the statutory 

language passed by Congress, the Department 

unintentionally narrowed the program when the 

implementing regulations were written to require 

participants, and in our case, that would be physicians, 

to be hired and paid by a nonprofit hospital. So the 

regulation, unlike the law, actually requires this direct 

employment. California and Texas have long standing state 

statutes, known as prohibitions on the corporate practice 

of medicine, that prohibit hospitals from directly 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

employing physicians. So as such, these physicians are 

not W-2 employees. In Texas, the most common arrangement 

is that physicians are employed by independent non-profit 

entities under state law that are certified by each 

hospital's physician medical staff governing board to 

provide care in the hospital. We believe Congress has 

been clear about the intent of the program and the need 

to fix it. The California and Texas congressional 

delegations have sent letters to the Department asking 

for this fix. Legislation has been negotiations led by 

Congressman Harder, Senators Feinstein and Cornyn, and we 

would submit to you that that legislative language is the 

regulatory fix for proposing to the Department. We want 

to close by saying that physician counterparts in all 

other 48 states are able to access this program, and 

physicians in Texas and California shouldn't be 

disqualified because of the unique state prohibitions and 

studies show that California and Texas will experience 

two of the largest shortages of physicians over the next 

decade, and this program would be very helpful to address 

that gap. We urge you to consider our proposed solution 

and thank you for your time. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Hawkins, 

for your comment. 

MS. MACK: Brady, I'm now admitting Ms. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Amanda Martinez, Unidos, U.S. 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, Ms. 

Martinez, can you hear me? Ms. Martinez, are you able to 

hear me? 

MS. MARTINEZ: Yes, I can hear you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Great. If you're 

comfortable, feel free to put on your video, but 

otherwise you have three minutes for public comment. 

MS. MARTINEZ: Starting now? 

MR. ROBERTS: Yeah, whenever you begin 

speaking. 

MS. MARTINEZ: Okay, sorry, here we go. 

Good afternoon. My name is Amanda Martinez. I'm 

representing Unidos U.S., which is the nation's largest 

Latino civil rights and advocacy organization. As leading 

advocate on education policy, we represent the 

perspectives of Latino students, specifically in higher 

education. And so we're hoping that you take all of our 

comments in consideration as you discuss specifically 

students and borrowers. When you're discussing borrowers 

with some college and no degree, Latinos are often likely 

to fall into this group due to facing a widening college 

completion gap. Latino struggle to complete as they 

contend with environmental and institutional barriers. 

And so for students who don't complete their degree, 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

often, repayment can be more difficult. One analysis 

showed that about almost half of Latino undergraduates 

who did not finish their degree had defaulted on their 

loans within 12 years of graduating. This is at a higher 

rate than their white counterparts. We see really the 

worst outcomes at for-profit colleges. Latino students 

continue to be overrepresented in the sector, and they 

tend to hold the most debt from these institutions, 

experience the worst outcomes in college completion and 

student loan repayment. Any change to making the Borrower 

Defense to loan repayment rule easier for borrowers will 

definitely help Latino students and borrowers. So we were 

especially pleased by the committee's discussion on this 

topic and supports as efforts to adjudicate Borrower 

Defense claims by groups. Regarding the Public Service 

Loan Forgiveness program. The Department of Education 

should make the program simple and easy to enroll in and 

receive forgiveness. Latinos make up about 18% of the 

U.S. workforce and are more likely to be public service 

workers: about 9% make up teachers, 29% make up medical 

professionals, 15% are frontline workers and 16% of are 

active duty military. When they may be eligible for PSLF, 

many are not aware of the program's eligibility 

requirements due to barriers and student loan repayment. 

Borrower outreach and poor counseling by loan servicers. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

When borrowers are aware of PSLF, this could provide 

direct relief to the community. So Unidos supports as 

proposed changes to PSLF application process, and we want 

to lift up the following changes. We really supported the 

borrower’s ability to appeal the Secretary of Education's 

decision to deny their loan forgiveness and the 

Secretary's ability to certify our borrowers employment 

with internal information to simplify the application 

process. Lastly, 30 seconds great. Lastly, on Income 

Driven Repayment program, which is intended to expand 

borrowers repayment options and support lower income 

borrowers, it's just not reaching Latinos. We found in 

recent data that in those enrolled in the 2011-2012 

academic year who began repayment within five years, only 

about 18 percent of Latinos Latino borrowers were able to 

uptake this program. While being enrolled in the program 

can afford affordable payments and also lead to higher 

debt, --

MR. ROBERTS: That's three minutes, 

(inaudible) I'm sorry. 

MS. MARTINEZ: I'm out? Okay, thank 

you. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your public 

comment. 

MS. MARTINEZ: Thank you. 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

MS. MACK: Brady, I've now admitted Ms. 

Brigid Kennedy representing herself. 

MR. ROBERTS: Hey, good afternoon, Ms. 

Kennedy. Can you hear us? Looks like she's still, great. 

Can you hear us, Ms. Kennedy? 

MS. KENNEDY: Yes, I can. 

MR. ROBERTS: Great. You have three 

minutes. 

MR. DAROLIA: Starting now, huh? Good 

afternoon. My name is Brigid Kennedy. As Mr. Charles 

Aldridge, who spoke before me, I'm assuming he was right 

before me, I'll be addressing spousal consolidation 

loans. About 2004, my husband and I were encouraged by 

lenders, our lenders to consolidate our direct loans into 

one large joint spousal consolidation loan. We were 

advised our payments would go down as would our interest 

rate. We quickly found out that payment increased and 

interest rate went to 7.8%. Our loans then became FFEL 

loans. As both of us are public servants, the moment the 

program began in 2007, we enrolled. Our loan debt is a 

crushing $170,000 with a monthly payment of about 

$1,500, which we overpay every month. We've always felt 

that paying the principal was fair, but we can never seem 

to rise above the capitalizing interest. About 2012, 

after faithfully paying for almost six years, we were 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

told we did not qualify for PSLF, as our loans were FFEL 

loans and made us ineligible. At no time or we ever told 

that we would not qualify for the program until that 

point. We were crushed, but we continued to make timely 

payments to the exclusion of helping to pay for our 

children's education, forcing them to take out many 

student loans of their own. We prayed that something 

would change and because we believed in the PSLF program, 

both chose to stay in public service forgoing other, 

potentially more lucrative positions. In the past few 

years, we were advised to consolidate our fall loan into 

a direct loan, thereby making itself eligible. But of 

course, our clock would reset to zero. Then we were told 

we couldn't do that because our spousal consolidation 

FFEL loan made us ineligible for direct loan 

consolidation. We've trusted the fed and our many 

servicers to guide us, but over the last 22 years, we've 

gotten nothing but misinformation every single time that 

we call. We trusted the Department of Education and FFEL 

would honor the PSLF for everyone who faithfully follow 

the rules. But we've been left behind again. We've unable 

to have our FFEL spousal consolidation loan forgiven even 

after 16 years of faithful payments and overpayment. 

We're beseeching you to please make the FFEL spousal 

consolidation loans PSLF eligible. Thank you for your 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

time today. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Ms. Kennedy, 

for your comment. 

MS. MACK: Brady, I am now admitting 

Representative Frank Mrvan from Indiana's 1st 

Congressional District. 

MR. ROBERTS: Hey, good afternoon, 

Congressman Mrvan, can you hear us? 

MR. MRVAN: I can. Good afternoon. How 

does this sound coming back to you guys? 

MR. ROBERTS: You're coming in very 

clear. You have three minutes for public comment. 

MR. MRVAN: Am I ready to go right now? 

MR. ROBERTS: As soon as you begin, 

yep. 

MR. MRVAN: Okay, I am Frank J. Mrvan. 

I'm representative for the 1st Congressional District of 

Indiana. First, I want to thank all of you for your 

commitment to public service and for your conducting this 

hearing. I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak with 

you and provide testimony as a member of the House 

Education and Labor Committee and the need to improve the 

borrowing experience. The financial burden of higher 

education continues to be a barrier for many individuals 

pursuing post-secondary and advanced degrees. This is why 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

I support the Department of Education's proposal to 

temporarily waive constricting requirements in the Public 

Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which will provide 

immediate eligibility for 22,000 borrowers. 

Unfortunately, just 2% of current applicants have been 

approved for the PSLF program. That is why I also support 

reforms on this form of on this reforms on this from the 

Department, such as automatic enrollment, which would 

ensure greater access and flexibility to loan forgiveness 

for individuals who often are misled, hindered by 

complicated requirements or denied this benefit from 

public service. Additionally, as the suspension of 

student loan payments comes to an end on January 31st, I 

firmly believe that Department must take steps to address 

frequent barriers to repayment by making Income Driven 

Repayment simpler and more impactful. Income Driven 

Repayment plans are a viable option to avoid default on 

loan payments. However, I remain concerned that borrowers 

of color and low-income individuals enrolled in this 

program are more likely to struggle with the unaffordable 

payments, complicated procedures, and a lack of guidance 

from the servicers. To help to help low income borrowers 

make payments, I support a new Income Driven Repayment 

plan that continues to cap payments at 10% of a 

borrower's income for no more than 20 years. Further, a 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

new plan should protect 250% of the poverty line that is 

applicable to the borrower's family size. This will allow 

low-income borrowers to better prioritize the challenges 

of paying their student loan debt and also budgeting for 

essential food, housing and care needs. In conclusion, I 

again appreciate your dedicated work, and as you continue 

to consider improvements to the PSLF in the ID, IDR 

program, I would encourage you to continue to ensure that 

the challenges experiences by most vulnerable in our 

communities are not overlooked. Thank you again for the 

opportunity to testify today. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Representative 

Mrvan, for your comment. 

MS. MACK: I have now added Mr. Mike 

Litt, from consumer campaign, he's the consumer campaign 

director of U.S. PIRG. 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, Mr. Litt, 

can you hear me? 

MR. LITT: Yes, I can. 

MR. ROBERTS: Great, you have three 

minutes for public comment. 

MR. LITT: Great, thank you. My name is 

Mike Litt. I am the consumer campaign director for PIRG, 

also known as the Public Interest Research Group. We are 

a federation of state-based, citizen-funded consumer and 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

student groups. I'd like to voice support for a number of 

solutions that the Department and negotiators are 

considering related to PSLF. Colleagues from my 

organization have been negotiators before, so they do 

appreciate the hard work that you're all doing. It's good 

to see the Department 's proposal for requiring 

notifications about PSLF eligibility to FFEL. We'd like 

to also suggest requiring eligibility and reliable 

progress notifications to borrowers of all federally 

backed and held loans, including direct loans. It has 

been well documented both in the news and by the CFPB 

that federal servicers routinely misrepresent progress 

towards PSLF. The special waiver period that will address 

problems faced by borrowers is much needed, but the 

problems go beyond FFEL guaranty agencies. Additionally, 

we agree that the clock for loan forgiveness should not 

be reset when borrowers consolidate their loans, that 

payments made prior to loan consolidation should be 

counted towards forgiveness, and that a formal appeals 

process should be created for students when their 

applications are denied. Finally, I'd like to speak to 

the issue of eligibility. You've already heard public 

comments from a number of people, such as those employed 

by contractors and health care services, speak to the 

need for expanded eligibility, which we support. We ask 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

that you please consider opening up eligibility beyond 

501C3 organizations and government entities to a broader 

range of organizations doing critically important work to 

serve the American public. Many nonprofit organizations 

have multiple tax statuses and staff payrolls through 

which they accomplish their public service missions. We 

do much of our public education work out of our national 

and state 501C4s, including through our publications and 

community outreach, such as our door to door canvasses, 

where we educate the public on issues related to public 

health, safety and well-being, and pass out consumer tips 

such as on how to prevent identity theft. We don't 

believe that the benefit of PSLF should be limited to 

only those who do public education in the classroom. 

Another example many of our student-run and funded 

chapters are C4 organizations that get their colleges to 

address student hunger and tackle the climate crisis and 

are training students to be lifelong engaged citizens. 

All work that should be recognized as public service. The 

organizers (inaudible) prior to serve the campus 

community, do largely similar work to those in college 

student life departments or community nonprofits. The 

lack of the same recognition of their service, fixing 

problems with applying for the left program and expanding 

eligibility would help many people who choose to serve 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

our society by pursuing work in the public service and 

the public interest. Thank you for all your work during 

these negotiations and thank you for considering their 

comments. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment Mr. Litt. 

MS. MACK: Next, we are admitting Mr. 

Brandon Clifford, who is representing himself. 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, Mr. 

Clifford, can you hear me? It looks like they aren't 

connected to audio or video, do you want to admit and we 

can work on their settings? 

MS. MACK: Sure. Next up, I'm admitting 

Mr. Winston Berkman-Breen who is Deputy Director of 

Advocacy and Policy Counsel. 

MR. ROBERTS: Good afternoon, Mr. 

Berkman-Breen, can you hear me? 

MR. BERKMAN-BREEN: Yes, can you hear 

me? 

MR. ROBERTS: I can. You have, oh great 

your video is working great. You have three minutes for 

public comment. 

MR. BERKMAN-BREEN: Great. Thank you so 

much and thank you to all the negotiators for your time. 

So I'll be very brief. My name is Winston Berkman-Breen 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

and I'm the Policy Counsel of the Student Borrower 

Protection Center. Our organization published a memo that 

Suzanne submitted for the record, and several other 

negotiators have signed it. So I hope that folks take a 

look at that, but I do want to briefly speak to what it 

covers, and I won't go into too much detail. I think it's 

important for us. I'll take a moment and remind ourselves 

that under the statute, both the spirit and the letter, 

if someone has worked in public service for 10 years, 

there's a way for their loans to be forgiven, whether 

it's the direct path and the statute, or using other 

tools in the Secretary toolkit to make sure that that 

public service worker and borrower has the remainder of 

their debt forgiven after 10 years. In the memo that's 

submitted to the record, we break down sort of three 

sections. The first are regulatory changes that the 

Department can make to fix earlier regulatory narrowing 

of the statute in a way that will maximize forgiveness 

for folks. So the most notable that's been discussed 

today is the employer definition. The statute points to 

public service jobs and the regulations point to public 

service qualifying employers and narrowed around non-forprofit employers. To maximize the folks who have the 

right under the statute to have access to Public Service 

Loan Forgiveness, we strongly support emphasizing, as 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Persis mentioned, taking away the nonprofit limitation 

and just emphasizing employers who are engaged in public 

service. I'm putting the onus, keeping the onus, I should 

say, on the employer, rather than having individuals jump 

through additional hoops to prove their qualification. 

The second bucket that we discussed in the in the memo 

are something that Joe's spoken to, as well as some 

others about industry steering or other malfeasance that 

has resulted in folks being ineligible because they're on 

the wrong loan type or on the wrong payment plan for no 

fault of their own. The Secretary has broad authority 

under the Higher Education Act under the (inaudible) 

provisions, as well as general authority to compromise 

set of loans. And I think that can be brought to bear 

where there's documented industry misconduct that results 

in borrower harm. And then the final is procedural and 

some of that's been addressed here, but others have not 

been. And then the regulations, the proposed regulations 

be attached to the memo. This is spelled out that there 

are opportunities to clarify and the procedure as folks 

apply for forgiveness, how they can either raise their 

hand if they need to, so to speak, if they need to have 

additional review for additional authority to cancel 

their debt or if they're rejected, really being very 

clear and articulate with them about why they're 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

rejected, the grounds for rejection and how they should 

request appeal. The proposed appeal language that the 

Department has already submitted is helpful, but there 

could be some additional clarifying language. So I 

encourage the negotiators and the Department to go visit 

the memo. But I do just want to ground as many folks here 

have done today, ground the conversation and the idea 

that individual public service workers have the right to 

have their loans forgiven after 10 years, and that within 

the PSLF-enacting statute, as well as all the Higher 

Education Act, there are broad tools to allow for that. 

So thanks so much for the time, and I hope that the 

Department can have an expansive view of its authority 

here. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you for your 

comment, and Mr. Clifford, are you are you still with us? 

We can see you and you are our final public commenter for 

the day. So take it away. 

MR. CLIFFORD: I was a little bit 

unprepared. I wasn't sure that I was going to get called 

on today, but I did want to share just a few comments 

from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness, you know, being 

a public service employee, myself and my wife being a 

public service employee, it's been extremely challenging 

to work with fed loan servicing to try to get the answers 
 

 

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that we need to be able to earn the debt forgiveness that 

we've been trying to pursue. The majority of the people 

that we talked to even at who is supposed to be the 

expert on public loan servicing or public service loan 

forgiveness servicing, a lot of times it's hard to get 

consistent answers. It led to my wife being on an 

incorrect payment plan and the wrong type of loan. And 

hopefully, some of the recent rulemaking guidance that 

has come out may correct that. Challenges from a 

borrower's perspective in terms of trying to get the 

public service. Loan forgiveness is there's just not a 

lot of information out there as far as people that you 

can consult with to try to get the answers you need to 

make sure that you qualify for the program. I've spent my 

entire working career almost 15 years as a federal 

firefighter, and even within those circles, it's 

difficult to get the answers that we need. You know, I'm 

encouraging the committee to look at some of the recent 

news that's come out in terms of expanding the types of 

payments, account for public service, loan forgiveness 

and helping the get up the approval rate. One thing 

that's frustrating the people that that participate in 

the program is when you read in the paper that ninety 

eight percent of people that have applied for this 

forgiveness has been denied. So it doesn't really give 
 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

that hope to individual borrowers that people are looking 

out for their best interests and working in public 

service is a calling that people have. And we just want 

to make sure that the people that do that good work and 

sometimes earn lower salaries to serve the public good 

gets the benefit of this program to the fullest. Just a 

couple other comments on waiting so long for this 

forgiveness to happen. It allows you, or sometimes causes 

you to make personal choices that make it difficult in 

your regular life. For example, with the pause on student 

loan payments that's going on now, it's made it more 

difficult because (inaudible) loan debt to be able to 

even obtain a mortgage because lenders are hesitant to be 

able to take that risk. If they don't know that that is 

really going to be forgiven. So just general comments is 

opening up the amount of payments that qualify, helping 

people who are on the wrong payment plans still take 

advantage of this, and also just a more expeditious 

processing of applications when you reach 120 payments. 

I'm really close, I'm at about 102 payments, and I want 

to see --

MR. ROBERTS: That's three minutes, Mr. 

Clifford, I'm sorry. 

MR. CLIFFORD: Sounds good. No worries. 

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you so much for 
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your public comment. And thank you to everyone who signed 

up. We actually we were able to get to every person who 

signed up for public comment today. So sorry to keep you 

a few minutes after, but we wanted to give space to 

everyone who requested time. We will pick back up at 10 

a.m. tomorrow to continue our discussion on Borrower 

Defense and thank you so much for all your hard work 

today. 
114 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Appendix 

Department of Education 

Office of Postsecondary Education 

Zoom Chat Transcript 

Affordability and Student Loans Committee 

Session 2, Day 2, Afternoon, November 2, 2021 

DISCLAIMER: 

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a 

recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate; 

in some cases, it is incomplete or inaccurate due to 

inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as 

an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but 

should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

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

in this context "at the end" refers to the end of the 

deferment, correct? 

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

answered. withdraw the question. 

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

and interest is not being accrued on the interest 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 
115 

Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Everyone: 

+1, that was a point I raised earlier 

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

It grew to $122,000 but your point remains 

From David (P) - State hi ed agencies to Everyone: 

My alternate, Suzanne Martindale, will step in for 

this section. 

From Michaela [P] Ind. Students to Everyone: 

Dixie will be e-mailing this but we have a couple 

proposed regulatory suggestions for closed school 

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

Thought / suggestion: it is possible that if a 

student's calculated IDR payment does not cover the 

interest assessed that we could reduce the interest 

rate to 0% during the period when the payment amount 

is less than the interest assessed. 

From Carol- Proprietary (A) to Everyone: 

raj,, can you pull the csd information based on the 8 

digit OPE-id level are included in whatever data is 

provided as opposed to the 6 digit OPEID 

From Justin (P) Service Members and Veterans to 

Everyone: 

+1 to Persis 

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

Switching out with my Alternate... 

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

Alyssa will be logging on... 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

+1 Persis 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

+1 persis 

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

Everyone: 

Thank you Persis. That clarifies my question. 

From Misty (P) Priv. Non-Profit to Everyone: 

+1 Persis 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

And "payment" does not require that any money be sent 

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

Strongly support that! 

From Noelia (A), Minority Serving Inst. to Everyone: 

@Heather - when you say “payment does not require that 

any money be sent” does that mean if a borrower is in 

forbearance/deferment and working in public service, 

that month will count towards the 120? 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

Kudos to ED for the PSLF Limited Waiver! 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (Ella/She) to 

Everyone: 

I haven't heard anything in specific for the PSLF 

limited waiver. It would be helpful to have ED go over 

it with us + ways the ED will connect with borrowers. 

ty 

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

Sorry, can you give the citation again? 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

@Noelia - not under current rules, no. What I'm 

referring to is that IDR plan "payments" can count 

even when calculated payments due are zero 

From Noelia (A), Minority Serving Inst. to Everyone: 

Thanks Heather! 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

So no actual money need be sent 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

+1 Alyssa - default management is a problem for 

borrowers 

From Misty (P) Priv. Non-Profit to Everyone: 

@Dixie info is here on PSL Waiver 

https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/pslflimited-waiver 

From Jennifer - ED negotiator to Everyone: 

p. 4 (c)(ii)(A) 

From Jennifer - ED negotiator to Everyone: 

under borrower eligibility 

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

And that is what I have asked for an update on - where 

we are with the temporary waiver. 

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

Alyssa is back in for me. 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

GAO on default management and forbearance steering: 

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-18-163.pdf 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (Ella/She) to 

Everyone: 

For ED: Are there plans in place to communicate with 

students about PSLF and the limited waiver? If so, 

please share that with the committee so we can give 

feedback on how effective the information being given 

out is. 

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

Back in for Fin Aid Admins 

From Justin (P) Service Members and Veterans to 

Everyone: 

+1 to Persis 

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

+1 to Persis 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

+Suzanne 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

+1 Joe 

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

+1 to Joe 

From Misty (P) Priv. Non-Profit to Everyone: 

+1 Joe!! 

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

+1 Joe 

From Michaela [P] Ind. Students to Everyone: 

+1 
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From Jeri (P) Student Borrower (she/her) to Everyone: 

+1 Joe 

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

+1 Joe 

From Carol- Proprietary (A) to Everyone: 

For ED: with the new definition of those professions 

that would qualify for PSLF, for those students that 

made 120 eligible payments and would have been 

eligible at the time of that last payment, under the 

new definition, but the student is now in default, 

requesting for ED to review to consider the student 

eligible for PSLF in spite of the current defaulted 

status. 

From Justin (P) Service Members and Veterans to 

Everyone: 

+1 to Joe and Persis 

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

I share Joe's concern 

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

Yeah, also share Joe's concern 

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

Everyone: 

I think this also speaks to the concerns Dixie shared 

about communication from the department or what the 

department is requiring others to communicate to 

borrowers. 

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

+1 Jeri 

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

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

+1 Jeri

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

+1

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (Ella/She) to 

Everyone: 

For ED: What are you doing to prepare the institutions 

who handle the loans in these programs to communicate 

and equip borrowers with useful and digestible 

information? Overall, communication plans to connect 

with students. 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (Ella/She) to 

Everyone: 

+1 Jeri 

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

Everyone: 

Still waiting for mine... 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

+1 Jeri on messaging from ED

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

(and mine).... 

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

+ Jeri

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

+ 1 Jeri on staying up at night

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (Ella/She) to 

Everyone: 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

jeri I’m with u!!! be innovative and try new ways to 

connect with folks to have the biggest impact. 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

Blimps on Sunday at NFL games advertising LWO would be 

awesome 

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

+1 Joe! 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

+1 Misty, our Dept has been investigating student debt 

relief companies 

From Will (A) FFEL Agencies to Everyone: 

Scamming is a huge issue - Joe spoke to this earlier 

as did I - during week 1 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

+1 Jaye, we've been monitoring these companies! 

https://dfpi.ca.gov/2021/08/09/california-dfpirequires-student-loan-debt-relief-company-to-pay-morethan-1-million-in-penalties-restitution/ 

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

I've also received these scam calls... 

From 

Ever

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

yone: 

to 

And scam text messages. 

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

using settlement and compromise authority is a good 

idea for solving this problem 
 

 

 

 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

From Alyssa (A) Fin Aid Administrators to Everyone: 

It seems like we need to include all periods of 

forbearances in order to capture folks who were led 

there. Between institutions, servicers, and default 

managers many student don't even know they are on 

forbearance. And if someone is intentionally on 

forbearance that should indicate some other underlying 

issue that I don't think they should be penalized for. 

Counting this as payments just makes sense. 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

+1 Bethany 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

+1 

From Joe; P, State AGs to Everyone: 

payment plan switch forbearance should count toward 

PSLF 

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

+ 1 

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

I with Joe on this 

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

I'm confused about the parameters 

From Heather - PSLF Advisor to Everyone: 

+1 Michaela regarding functionally the same as 

payments -- ED has proposed regulatory language such 

as "equivalent of payments" 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 
 

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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Point us to a section of the reg text to check 

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

Everyone: 

Could we do checks by section? 

From Dixie (P) Dependent Students (Ella/She) to 

Everyone: 

Carol has her hand raised still 

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

Concern about the 2.5 factor. 

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

Everyone: 

Qualifying employment should remove language or change 

the formula for non-tenure track employees. 

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

Same issue I brought up earlier on the 2.5. 

Consideration for contact vs. credit hr. 

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

+1 Bethany 

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

Ditto Bethany. 

From Suzanne Martindale (A) state regulators to 

Everyone: 

+1 Bethany - focus on job and who is served 

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

Everyone: 

Same with Bethany 

From Misty (P) Priv. Non-Profit to Everyone: 
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Committee Meetings - 11/02/21 

Ditto Bethany 

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

Want to remove the private for profit issue.. 

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

Alyssa is stepping in for Fin Aid Admin 

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

Josh will take the seat for legal aid 

From Jessica (P), Proprietary Schools to Everyone: 

I am subbing back in. Thanks, Carol! 

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

Possible contingent language: C) The equivalent of 30 

hours per week as determined by multiplying each 

credit or contact hour taught per week by 3.35 hours 

worked each week, in non-tenure track employment. 

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

For 685.206(e), could just add on something like, at 

the end of the clause, “except if a borrower asserts a 

borrower defense application related to the loan on or 

after July 1, 2023.”