Biden Administration Cleans Up Outstanding Unresolved Regulatory Issues
By Jill Desjean, Director of Policy Analysis
As President Joe Biden’s term nears its end, the administration took several actions during the final week of December and into early January resolving outstanding regulatory issues that hadn’t yet been finalized.
By withdrawing these rules, the current administration closes the door for the incoming Trump administration to rewrite the proposed rules and finalize them without going through the negotiation rulemaking process, effectively forcing the incoming Trump administration to start the regulatory process from scratch if it wishes to regulate in this topic area.
Notably, the entirety of the student loan debt relief effort undertaken through negotiated rulemaking at the end of 2023 and the end of 2024 was withdrawn. The effort, which included debt relief for borrowers with debts outstanding for longer than 20 or 25 years, those whose outstanding balances exceed their original principal balance, and those experiencing financial hardship, among others, were negotiated in two separate sessions and released as proposed rules in two parts - one in April for the majority of the provisions and the other in October of 2024 for borrowers experiencing financial hardship.
A court ruling prohibited the Department of Education (ED) from issuing final rules on the April proposal, but no final decision had been made on the legality of that proposal as of the date ED withdrew its proposal. ED was clear in withdrawing student loan debt relief proposals that it has not abandoned its position that it has the authority to cancel student loan debt but, rather, that in the limited time it has before the new administration takes over, it wants to focus its energy on other priorities. Those priorities include “court-ordered settlements and helping borrowers manage the final elements of the return to repayment following the Fall 2024 end of the 12-month on-ramp period designed to assist borrowers who were unable to make their payments or who needed more time to access information to determine the right repayment plan for their circumstances.”
ED also terminated action on three issues — cash management, accreditation, and state authorization — from its Program Integrity and Institutional Quality rulemaking session. These topics had not reached consensus during negotiations, and proposed rules had not yet been issued.
ED also managed to squeeze in final rules on the remaining topics from the Program Integrity and Institutional Quality rulemaking session — Return to Title IV Funds (R2T4), distance education, and TRIO programs. Read NASFAA’s deep dive on what made it into the final rules here.
Having trouble keeping up in this ever-changing environment? See NASFAA’s updated 2023-24 Negotiated Rulemaking Sessions & Outcomes chart and debt relief web center, including our Debt Relief Timeline, and read Today’s News for the latest updates.
Publication Date: 1/9/2025
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