Cardona: 'No Matter What's Coming, I Have Confidence' in the Higher Education Community
By Maria Carrasco, NASFAA Staff Reporter
As the Department of Education (ED) prepares for a change in administration in the new year, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Wednesday told attendees at the Federal Student Aid (FSA) Virtual Training Conference that “despite whatever storm may be brewing,” he has confidence in the higher education community.
“Thank you for your commitment to our nation's students, and despite whatever storm may be brewing or whatever fears or uncertainties you may have, remember what we were able to do four years ago when we were concerned about the pandemic's impact on education,” Cardona said. “We didn't only get through it, we thrived. We have higher aspirations. We accomplished so much. No matter what's coming, I have confidence, and I never bet against our country's educators and leaders to do the right thing for students.”
During his keynote, Cardona also took a moment to thank the financial aid community for their work during a tumultuous year with the rollout of both the 2024-25 and 2025-26 FAFSA. He noted that this year more students are receiving federal student aid and federal Pell Grants compared to last year. He also highlighted other initiatives from the Biden administration, including the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plan.
“I can't thank you enough for your dedication and partnership, especially for everything you've done over the last 12 months to keep students applying and making sure that bridge from high school to college is set in stone despite the challenges that we faced,” Cardona said.
Following Cardona’s remarks was a federal update led by Tamy Abernathy, director of FSA’s Policy Coordination Group, and Melanie Storey, FSA’s director of Policy Implementation and Oversight.
Abernathy began the presentation by discussing ED’s updates in negotiated rulemaking, including an overview of the department’s student loan debt relief negotiated rulemaking committee.
In April, ED published its first set of proposed draft rules to provide student loan debt forgiveness to subsets of borrowers. In late October, ED published its proposed draft regulations to provide student loan debt forgiveness for borrowers experiencing financial hardship. Abernathy noted that the comment period for the October proposed draft regulations ended on December 2. NASFAA submitted its own comments on the proposed regulations.
Additionally, Abernathy highlighted ED’s program integrity and institutional quality negotiated rulemaking committee, which focused on federal TRIO programs, accreditation, cash management, distance education, Return of Title IV Funds (R2T4), and state authorization. In July, ED published proposed draft regulations on federal TRIO programs, distance education, and R2T4, but they have not yet issued final rules and it is unclear whether they will do so before the new administration is in place.
Abernathy also touched on the SAVE repayment plan, which currently is facing legal challenges, and noted that borrowers who are currently enrolled in the SAVE plan have been placed in a non-interest accruing forbearance. Additionally, she reminded attendees that the institutional reporting deadline for gainful employment (GE) and financial value transparency (FVT) is January 15, 2025.
NASFAA has created a resource of all 2023-24 negotiated rulemaking sessions and outcomes, along with an explainer of what could happen to Biden-era regulations under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.
Storey focused the presentation on an overview of both the 2024-25 and 2025-26 FAFSA cycles. She noted that FSA has created a temporary solution for identity validation issues students from mixed immigration status families faced in the 2024-25 cycle and confirmed that this solution will also be in place for the remainder of the 2025-26 cycle.
She added that FSA has no plans to implement any form of restricted status for students or contributors without an SSN in the 2025-26 FAFSA cycle. FSA will inform stakeholders as the department works on this issue, Storey said.
Storey also reminded attendees that batch institutional corrections functionality via the Electronic Data Exchange (EDE) will be available for both the 2024-25 and 2025-26 FAFSA in quarter one of the new year.
“We're hoping that now in 2025-26 a number of the significant errors that we were facing have been solved,” Storey said.
Other sessions during the day focused on Common Origination and Disbursement (COD), foreign gift and contracts recording, certification procedures and administrative capability, ED enforcement actions, and more.
During the StudentAid.gov walkthrough session, FSA presenters noted several future updates coming to the website. Notably, the TEACH Grant Certification Form and the Total and Permanent Disability application will be added to the website in the next year. FSA is also working on a single sign-in process where students will be able to log in to both StudentAid.gov and their loan servicer website using their FSA ID.
Additionally, FSA is working on enhancing security of student and contributor information. Lastly, FSA will be redesigning the My Aid webpage to improve the user experience and provide more useful data to students.
Stay tuned to Today’s News this week for updates from the FSA Virtual Training Conference.
Publication Date: 12/5/2024
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