By Hugh T. Ferguson, NASFAA Managing Editor
Correction: A previous version of this story said borrowers currently enrolled in the SAVE repayment plan who do not move to a new repayment plan within 90 days of notification from their loan servicer would be moved to the new Repayment Assistance plan (RAP). They will be automatically placed into the Standard Repayment Plan or the new Tiered Standard Repayment Plan.
Officials from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) joined the NASFAA 2026 National Conference just one day before monumental federal student aid policy changes take effect, as financial aid professionals eagerly awaited additional guidance and clarification on the regulations they’re tasked with implementing.
On the second day of NASFAA’s annual convening, financial aid professionals heard directly from Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent in a fireside chat with NASFAA President & CEO Melanie Storey. Just hours before, on Monday evening, ED released its final regulations from the Accountability in Higher Education and Access through Demand-driven Workforce Pell (AHEAD) committee, as well as updated guidance following a temporary stay impacting key parts of ED’s narrowed professional degree definition — two developments Kent briefly addressed in his remarks.
NASFAA is currently working on a deep dive of ED’s accountability rules, which will be available in an upcoming edition of Today’s News. Additionally, NASFAA will hold a special session during its virtual summit that will delve into ED’s final rules on accountability for low earnings outcomes.
These accountability regulations were developed after the enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which Kent referred to as the Working Families Tax Cuts Act. According to Kent, since the accountability rule is considered a "market-moving rule," the department had to publish it after the stock markets closed, which is why it was released at 5:15 p.m. on June 29.
“For the first time ever, we are going to be starting an accountability framework that launches tomorrow, where every single institution, whether you are public, private, non-profit, proprietary, whether you offer Ph.D.s or whether you offer a certificate program,” Kent said. “What the American people expect is that if they send their son or daughter to enroll in college, then they should be slightly better off than if they never attended. I think it is a pretty low bar, to be honest.”
There are many competing priorities for aid offices to sort through this summer. Kent stressed that there isn’t currently an immediate urgency for schools to address these new regulations and explained that the first data reporting period will begin this October and that the department will first begin calculating new earnings tests in 2027.
In other late-breaking news, Kent explained how the department was complying with a recent court ruling that temporarily halted the implementation of a portion of ED’s (ED) narrowed professional degree definition from its Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) final rule.
Kent explained that ED's tight timeline for implementing the rule may have made it difficult for the court to fully register the nuances around the department’s work to define a professional student, which could have led to the temporary pause. ED will now take some time to further explain to the court how its definition was developed and will work to ensure the court is more comfortable moving forward, Kent said.
To provide aid offices with more guidance on the court’s order, the department issued an electronic announcement on Monday evening clarifying how schools should treat professional degree programs for loan limit purposes. These codes are temporarily eligible for the higher professional degree program loan limits during the stay, until the case is heard in full and a final ruling is made.
Kent also shared updates on the repayment landscape and an upcoming negotiated rulemaking session.
The next rulemaking session will be the department’s sixth committee under the second Trump administration and will focus on regulatory reductions that will touch on the process for campus mergers, consolidations, and closures.
Regarding the repayment landscape, Kent devoted most of his time to the latest developments in the SAVE plan, but also touched on the department’s efforts to simplify the loan rehabilitation process. Kent explained that the department is working to make the loan rehabilitation process frictionless so that borrowers aren’t required to rely on paper applications that can take up to a month to complete when the process should only take minutes.
The department has emphasized its focus on returning borrowers to repayment, which has been complicated by ongoing legal disputes over SAVE.
Kent said that he empathized with borrowers who are confused and frustrated by the repayment landscape and said that SAVE was simply broad student loan forgiveness in disguise.
Beginning on July 1, servicers will begin contacting borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan, telling them to move to a “lawful” repayment plan. Servicers will contact up to 250,000 borrowers per week and give them 90 days to select a new repayment plan. If they do not choose a plan, they will be moved to the *Standard Repayment Plan or the new Tiered Standard Repayment Plan.
Kent explained that the onboarding process has given SAVE borrowers plenty of time to think about their move to another plan since they first began receiving communications last July that explained the plan was going away.
To get a sense of how schools operate, Kent said he has also prioritized visiting several schools throughout his tenure. Storey thanked Kent for engaging with aid offices directly and recognized that for some schools, it can feel unsettling to have ED visiting campus, but encouraged them to engage with the department to share their stories of how policy and implementation play out on campuses.
Kent explained that his campus visits were incredibly informative and that real-time feedback is important for developing department policies. He also stressed that ED has the same goals as financial aid administrators: helping and protecting students.
“This is a partnership, this is not a ‘gotcha’ moment. As long as financial aid administrators and institutions are implementing the law as best they know it and are making a good faith effort, we are going to take that into consideration,” Kent said.
On Tuesday, attendees also engaged with additional department officials during a listening session.
NASFAA encouraged participants to share information that the department could take back and follow up with answers and further guidance.
While financial aid professionals have experienced significant frustration with the rollout of OBBBA, providing constructive feedback will enable the department to provide resources in the most time-efficient manner.
During the session, ED explained its process for developing webinars, listening sessions, and FAQs. And while the breadth of information was appreciated, attendees said the number of resources outside of a central hub made it difficult to easily identify official guidance from the department. Several listeners encouraged ED to consolidate its final and updated guidance in a single place to make navigation easier for aid offices.
Attendees also requested clearer guidance on loan limits for borrower-based academic years, as well as on the schedule of reductions (SOR).
Another suggestion was for ED to ensure that visual materials such as webinar slide decks, match the verbal guidance, with one attendee describing inconsistencies around SOR guidance as “destroying [their] life.”
ED officials said they are working on an FAQ focused on SOR and requested patience in the timing of the delivery to ensure the FAQs are correct.
Questions over the recent guidance related to the temporary stay (link) over professional degree loan limits trickled into the listening session, specifically over how schools should proceed in the coming days, as many are on the brink of disbursing loans to students. ED said an institution can use its judgment as to what to do in the interim, noting they have the ability to limit loans for certain programs — a flexibility that ED detailed in a Dear Colleague Letter late last week.
Attendees also shared that proactive outreach to former students navigating student loan repayment was challenging, particularly in helping borrowers connect with their servicers. In some instances, attendees shared, borrowers were on hold for over an hour. They also shared concerns with SAVE plan borrowers who could overwhelm the system, as ED plans to begin notifying 250,000 students every two weeks about the next steps for being moved into a new repayment plan, which raises concerns over adequate servicer staffing.
There were also issues with the consistency and accuracy of NSLDS, and requests that the FSA handbook be in PDF format.
ED explained that the vision for the FSA handbook is to make it easier to search, and they have been reluctant to go back to where rolling out live updates could be more difficult. Acknowledging that the search function doesn’t work well, the department requested additional feedback from attendees to help determine whether to revise the electronic handbook.
Our Today's News team is on the ground in National Harbor, keeping you up to date on NASFAA 2026 sessions and special events. Be sure to follow our social media channels, where you can share your experiences and connect with your colleagues. Check out all of our conference news coverage and stay tuned to Today’s News for more throughout the conference.
Publication Date: 7/1/2026
Susan J | 7/1/2026 2:27:26 PM
I feel the pain of that person with the "destroying their life" comment. As a header school, I've disbursed loans based on prior guidance that has now changed. Those 352 comment codes have caused more confusion on who is a legacy borrower. And now the stay is breaking my brain on what to do, specifically with Physical Therapy students.
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