The U.S. Education Department (ED) announced Thursday that it will hold negotiated-rulemaking sessions to implement the higher education portions of the recently passed budget reconciliation law, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
ED said it will hold two rulemaking sessions, one in the fall to address student loan changes and one in late fall and winter for changes to the Pell Grant program. The schedule signals that it is unlikely changes to the programs will take effect next summer, as Congress intended.
To kick off the process, the department will hold on August 7 a public virtual hearing to gather ideas on approaching the changes. The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) plans to submit recommendations. (The department will also accept comments via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at Regulations.gov.)
The education secretary will use the submitted suggestions to prepare draft regulations and submit them to the neg-reg process.
Critical dates
The department will host five-day sessions September 29-October 3 and November 3-7 to address student loan-related changes (the panel taking on the task is named the Reimagining and Improving Student Education, or RISE, Committee); another panel — dubbed the Accountability in Higher Education and Access through Demand-driven Workforce Pell (AHEAD) Committee — will to address Workforce Pell, institutional and programmatic accountability, and other issues during five-day sessions December 8-12 and January 5-9.
However, to implement the changes by July 1, 2026, as set by the new law, requires the publication of the final regulations by November 1. It may be a full year later — July 1, 2027 — that the changes are implemented.
Panel members and topics
ED will select members for the two committees from individuals nominated by groups involved in the Title IV programs. AACC plans to submit nominees.
A notice to be published in the Federal Register outlines the areas each committee will discuss.
For the AHEAD Committee, they include:
- Changes in institutional and programmatic accountability measures, including loss of Direct Loan eligibility for certain programs with low earnings outcomes for two out of three years, and financial value transparency and gainful employment
- Establishing program eligibility requirements for a new Workforce Pell Grant for students enrolled in programs that last a duration of eight to 15 weeks, are transferable to a recognized postsecondary credential or degree, are approved by the state governor, and have strong outcomes
- Exclusion of Pell Grant assistance for students who receive grant or scholarship aid covering their entire cost of attendance or for students with a student aid index in excess of twice the maximum Pell Grant award
The proposed issues for negotiation in the RISE Committee include:
- Phase-out of graduate and professional PLUS loans
- Establishing new annual loan limits for graduate and professional students and parent borrowers, and implementing new lifetime borrowing caps
- Simplifying student loan repayment plans into a standard repayment plan and a single income-based repayment assistance plan for new borrowers, eliminating the income-contingent repayment plan, and streamlining requirements for income-based repayment plans for existing borrowers
- Institutional flexibility to apply lower annual limits for student and parent borrowers for selected programs of study
- Modifying loan rehabilitation, including allowing defaulted borrowers to rehabilitate their loans a second time and setting minimum monthly payment amounts for such loans, phase-out of unemployment and economic hardship deferments, and limitations on a borrower’s ability to receive a general forbearance
