RISE Neg Reg Committee Continues Despite Government Shutdown
By Maria Carrasco, NASFAA Staff Reporter
The Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) committee met on Tuesday for another day of negotiated rulemaking, continuing discussion on key provisions regarding loan limits, repayment plans, loan proration, loan rehabilitation and deferment, and more of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA).
Starting Tuesday’s meeting, Jeffrey Andrade, deputy assistant secretary for policy, planning, and innovation for the Office of Postsecondary Education, gave an update on the status of the committee’s meeting this week. As of Tuesday morning, Congress did not pass legislation to continue funding the government past Tuesday, Sept. 30. However, Andrade said, the RISE committee will continue to meet in person this week and will ultimately not meet virtually in October as previously announced in the Federal Register.
Andrade noted that the Department of Education (ED) chose to continue this week’s in-person meetings due to the importance of the statutory deadlines under OBBBA.
“The department has determined that the current negotiated rulemaking and certain other regulatory functions will continue in the event of a lapse of appropriations to ensure that otherwise funded programs at the Department of Education are not prevented or substantially impaired from executing the programs as authorized,” Andrade said.
Tamy Abernathy, the committee’s federal negotiator, also gave opening remarks, thanking negotiators for their work so far.
“The whole purpose of why we engage in negotiated rulemaking is to make sure that the department has it right,” Abernathy said. “This is our first pass at the regs, and admittedly, the OBBBA is an extremely voluminous bill with a lot of moving pieces and parts, and it's going to take the village that we have in this room and the public to make sure that we get every piece and part correct.”
Part of Tuesday’s morning discussion focused on unresolved issues from Monday’s session, particularly concerns regarding the definition of a professional student and which programs are considered professional programs.
Earlier Monday, negotiators discussed how graduate and professional students should be defined, given that the OBBBA establishes distinct annual and aggregate borrowing limits for each credential level. Under OBBBA, graduate students will face an aggregate cap of $100,000 with an annual limit of $20,500, while professional students will have a $200,000 aggregate limit and a $50,000 annual cap.
Abernathy noted on Tuesday that while yesterday, ED said the list of professional programs in ED’s proposed regulation is generally “exhaustive,” ED is now saying the list is not exhaustive. ED also agreed to return to the question of the professional student definition later during this negotiating session after a caucus of negotiators returned with a request to do so. Negotiators submitted their own language on this issue to ED, which the committee will review on Wednesday.
In the same conversation around definitions of professional and graduate students, during Monday’s session, several negotiators raised concerns about students who may pursue joint professional and graduate degrees – for example, a student pursuing both a J.D. and M.B.A.
On Tuesday, ED proposed new language that, if a student is enrolled in a program that awards both a graduate degree and a professional degree, the student would be considered a professional student if more than 50% of the credit hours in that program count toward the professional degree.
Abernathy asked negotiators to consider whether that number should be higher, such as 75% or below 50%. Alexander Holt, a negotiator representing taxpayers and the public interest, expressed concerns that changing the percentage number could incentivize students to enroll in dual degrees to get the professional loan limit, which is higher than the graduate loan limit. He and other negotiators noted that ED should research what an appropriate percentage of credit hours would be to define a professional degree.
Another remaining question from Monday’s discussion was whether the additional loan limits for students enrolled in certain health professions programs (also known as the Health Education Assistance Loan, or HEAL) are impacted by the new graduate and professional loan limits.
Abernathy noted on Tuesday that the HEAL limits are not authorized in the Higher Education Act (HEA) because those programs initially fell under the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services. Because the loan limit provisions of the OBBBA amend only the HEA, the department does not believe they impact the additional HEAL borrowing eligibility. However, ED is currently in the process of confirming that interpretation with Congress.
The discussion on Tuesday then moved to the creation of the new income-based repayment plan, dubbed the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), under the OBBBA, and a new standard repayment plan, where repayment length is based on the total amount borrowed.
Negotiators had several questions on how the pending litigation on the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plan would impact the creation and implementation of RAP. For example, Ashley Naporlee, a negotiator representing legal assistance organizations, consumer advocates, and civil rights groups, expressed concerns that SAVE and REPAYE plans – which are both currently enjoined – were not explicitly mentioned in several parts of ED’s proposed language concerning the implementation of RAP and the new standardized plan.
Abernathy said ED is drafting language with the currently available repayment plans, which do not include SAVE or REPAYE plans due to the ongoing litigation.
Abernathy delivered a response to a question Jenna Colvin posed on Monday related to the new lifetime borrowing limit. She and Andrade explained that the concept of a lifetime limit is a new one, and possibly explains some of the confusion. They clarified that aggregate limits include only loans borrowed for a specific type of study, meaning undergraduate aggregate limits include only loans borrowed for undergraduate study, graduate aggregate limits include only loans borrowed for graduate study, and professional aggregate limits include only loans borrowed for professional study.
Lifetime limits, on the other hand, apply to cumulative borrowing at all levels of study. They also reiterated that the new $257,500 lifetime borrowing limit includes the same legacy provisions as apply to annual and aggregate borrowing limits.
The discussion on Tuesday ended with another caucus on the definitions of professional and graduate programs. The RISE committee will meet again on Wednesday to continue its discussion, Abernathy said, with multiple “pulse checks” on where consensus stands.
Stay tuned to Today’s News for more updates on negotiated rulemaking.
Publication Date: 10/1/2025
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