President Joe Biden's backup plan on student debt relief has been flooded by the same message as the Department of Education gears up to enter negotiated rulemaking to forgive federal student loans.
With only one day left to submit a comment to the department, more than 13,300 comments have been addressed to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, all calling for the same thing. Student loan borrowers are asking that anyone with federal student loans be eligible for up to $20,000 for forgiveness and demanding that the administration enact the relief before September.
When the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Biden's one-time forgiveness plan in June, the president vowed to "provide student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible, as quickly as possible," through negotiated rulemaking. The process, also known as "neg reg" or "reg neg," is one that many federal agencies use to draft regulations. The Education Department has applied it in the past to write rules from sexual assault at schools and colleges to school discipline.
Negotiations typically begin with public input. The department held a public hearing on Tuesday for people to share with the federal government what it is they believe officials should focus on when they deliberate student loan debt relief. People can also submit their views online before the comment period closes on July 20.
Since the negotiated rulemaking page for Biden's student loan relief plan went up on July 6, tens of thousands of people have left comments on what topics they want the negotiated rulemaking committee to address. Many of the comments appear to be a copy and paste template that reads:
"I support broad-based student debt cancellation and urge the Biden Administration to use the Higher Education Act to provide debt relief to as many people as possible. It is essential that debt relief provides at least up to $20,000 per borrower and that it is available to everyone who has federal student loans. Families are depending on the relief already proposed: over 26 million people have applied and 16 million have been approved.
"I also urge the administration to enact this relief as quickly as possible to ensure millions of Americans can financially recover from the pandemic's aftermath and have a healthier future. Swift action is needed as the pause on federal student loan interest and payments end on August 31, 2023. Restarting the student loan system without debt cancellation will make the student debt crisis worse."
The same message has been left by signatories from Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Once negotiators representing different stakeholder groups have been selected, the talks will begin. It will be up to them to make a unanimous decision on what the regulation should say. If the committee cannot reach consensus, members will specify where those discrepancies are and department officials will take those into consideration when they take over and write the regulation.
Although there is a possibility that the future committee members agree to take up the $20,000 debt forgiveness per borrower proposed in the public comments, it is highly unlikely that relief will be enacted before student loan payments resume. The moratorium on student loan interest and repayments in set to expire at the end of August.
Borrowers have been able to put off paying back their loans for more than three years thanks to the federal pause that was enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it was extended nine times, Biden announced in June that it would not be extended again. The Department of Education said that loans will resume accumulating interest in September and payments will have to start again in October.
But "reg neg" takes months, and sometimes years. Even after a committee is selected and if a consensus is reached, the department has to seek public comment on those final rules before they can be implemented. Plus, if a new administration is elected in 2024, the process could be halted or forced to begin again.
