Official Announcement of Intent to Host Negotiations, Accept Negotiator Nominations, and Revise Regulations on Two Topics Published in Today’s Federal Register
Overview
This morning, the official announcement regarding the U.S. Department of Education’s intent to host a single, three-day session of Federal Negotiated Rulemaking was published in the Federal Register.
The notice, entitled Negotiated Rulemaking Committee; Negotiator Nominations and Schedule of Committee Meetings (www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-05-12/pdf/2025-08157.pdf) , states that in response to the Department’s prior request for public comment on specific revisions to Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), Pay As You Earn (PAYE), Income Contingent Repayment (ICR) regulations, the comments received during two public hearings (April 29th and May 1st), and 750+ comments (www.regulations.gov/document/ED-2025-OPE-0016-0001/comment?sortBy=postedDate&sortDirection=desc) received through the eRegulation portal; that the Department will host a new round of Federal Negotiated Rulemaking Monday, June 30 – Wednesday, July 2, s0s5.
The Department’s published announcement states,
After considering the information received at the public hearing and the written comments, we have decided to establish the Student Loans and Affordability Committee (Committee) to address the following topics:
1. Refining definitions of a qualifying employer for the purposes of determining eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
2. Revisiting family size, restructuring repayment plan provisions, including the alternative repayment plan, and certain other provisions of the July 10, 2023 rule.
For more information on the pending negotiations, CSPEN recommends that you consider bookmarking the following Department of Education webpage (www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/higher-education-laws-and-policy/higher-education-policy/negotiated-rulemaking-for-higher-education-2025-2026) .
What’s Next
The Federal Register notice details the negotiator nomination process, the identified groups of constituencies the Department is seeking nominations from to participate in the negotiations, and the deadline for submission of qualified nominees to be submitted for consideration as participants in the negotiations by Monday, June 2nd.
CSPEN is in the process of reviewing the over 750 comments submitted by last Thursday’s, May 8th public comment deadline and will provide an update on not only the comments made in relation to the two topics the Department seeks to negotiate in this first round of 2025-2026 Federal Negotiated Rulemaking, but also, the details of additional comments provided for Department consideration as the basis for additional negotiations.
