Make Your Voice Heard On Student Loan Policy With Public Comment

As the Trump administration seeks to reshape federal student aid regulations, Americans should know that they can make their opinions heard in a meaningful way. Regulations are like laws, where a federal agency implements a statutory change enacted by Congress. Regulations are developed through a process called negotiated rulemaking, which allows the public — that means you — to influence student aid policy at several stages.

Although I have never served on a negotiated rulemaking committee, I am often asked by committee members for my insights into the proposed regulation, related data and relevant historical knowledge. I have also submitted numerous public comments, many of which have led to changes in proposed regulations.

The most effective method is submitting a substantive public comment that:

Even after a final rule is published, it can still be blocked by Congress or challenged in court if it is found to exceed the agency’s legal authority.

What is negotiated rulemaking?

There is a hierarchy of several different types of federal government policies that affect federal agencies and the public.

Members of the public can get involved and influence the outcomes at several stages of this process. This includes speaking at a public hearing, participating directly or indirectly in a negotiated rulemaking committee, and submitting one or more public comments on the proposed rule after a draft rule is published in the Federal Register.

Information about pending and proposed higher education policies can be found on the U.S. Department of Education website. Federal agencies must publish a Regulatory Plan annually in the fall and an Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions semiannually in the spring and fall. Existing regulations may be found in the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations.

How negotiated rulemaking works

The negotiated rulemaking process can take anywhere from a few months to over a year.

An expedited process might involve:

• One month to form a negotiated rulemaking committee
• One month for committee meetings
• A few weeks for the NPRM to be published
• A 30-day public comment period
• Publication of the Final Rule one month later

This results in a minimum timeline of four to five months. In most cases, the negotiated rulemaking process will take much longer.

Formation of a negotiated rulemaking committee

Often, the U.S. Department of Education will hold public hearings before commencing the negotiated rulemaking process. The purpose is to receive recommendations on potential topics to be addressed through future rulemaking sessions. Speakers are usually selected on a first-come, first-served basis, and are limited to speaking for just four minutes.

Concurrently, or in a subsequent notice published in the Federal Register, the U.S. Department of Education will announce their plan to establish a negotiated rulemaking committee to prepare proposed regulations for a specified set of topics.

The Federal Register notice will seek nominations for non-federal negotiators to serve on the negotiated rulemaking committee. The negotiators are representatives of organizations or groups with interests that will be impacted by the proposed regulations. These stakeholders can include colleges, students, borrowers, loan servicers and public policy advocates, for example.

People can self-nominate to serve on the committee, but the committee members are selected by the U.S. Department of Education.

The committee aims to reach consensus on the details of the proposed rule before the start of formal rulemaking. Consensus means every member of the negotiated rulemaking committee is in agreement, not a majority vote. If even one member of the committee objects, consensus has not been reached.

If consensus is reached, it is used to draft the text of the proposed rule. If consensus is not reached, the U.S. Department of Education can write the proposed rule however it wants, though usually the proposed rule is similar to what was discussed during the negotiated rulemaking.

Public comment period

The proposed rule is published in the Federal Register as a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). The NPRM is assigned a Docket ID and will include a public comment period that is typically 30, 45, 60 or 90 days. This is often referred to as a notice-and-comment process.

Public comments are submitted online through regulations.gov or reginfo.gov. The NPRM may include a button for submitting public comments to the docket. As the name suggests, public comments will be published and available for the public to read through these portals.

For example, proposed regulations concerning eligible employers for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) are currently in a public comment period that ends on September 17, 2025. The new regulations propose to exclude employers that engage in activities with a “substantial illegal purpose.”

Final rule

After the public comment period closes, the U.S. Department of Education must review the comments. The department then publishes a final rule in the Federal Register. This final rule responds to the substantive public comments in the preamble and may make changes to the regulations. In some cases, the issues raised or changes are significant enough that there will be a new public comment period.

The Higher Education Act of 1965 requires the final rule to be published by November 1 for the new regulations to go into effect on the following July 1.

In some cases, new regulations can go into effect earlier. The Secretary of Education has the authority to implement new regulations sooner. There nevertheless may be practical considerations, such as the time it will take loan servicers to implement a change.

Writing an impactful public comment

Typical NPRMs may receive a few hundred public comments. Controversial and polarizing issues tend to get more public comments, as many as 150,000. Often, these public comments aren’t substantive, but rather expressions of support or opposition to the proposed rule.

The U.S. Department of Education is required to respond only to substantive comments. A public comment is not a vote in favor or against the new rule. Non-substantive comments like this will be disregarded.

Eliminating duplicate and near-duplicate public comments will leave only about 10 percent of the submitted public comments, of which only a few hundred are substantive. So, massive numbers of public comments are unlikely to slow down the process.

Substantive public comments are designed to help the federal agency make more informed decisions and typically feature:

• Factual, unbiased information, often highlighting relevant data from government or other databases.
• Analysis of the proposed regulation, offering insights and perspectives that were not discussed in the NPRM.
• Identification of flaws, such as errors and omissions in the NPRM.
• New issues that are not addressed in the original NPRM.
• Challenges to the federal agency’s legal authority to issue some aspects of the proposed rule.
• Suggestions for alternatives to the proposed regulation that are more effective or less expensive.
• In-depth discussion backed by relevant data and reasoning.
• Opinions supported by evidence.

Ways new regulations can be blocked

Even after a final rule is published, new regulations can still be challenged.

• The Congressional Review Act (CRA) allows Congress to overturn new regulations within 60 legislative days of publication by passing a joint resolution with a simple majority. (If vetoed, a two-thirds majority will be needed to overturn the veto.) Sixty legislative days is typically four to five calendar months. If the 60-day period spans the end of a session of Congress, the 60-day count gets reset for the next Congress.
• After the 60-day period, Congress can modify or repeal regulations by passing new legislation.
• Regulations can also be blocked by litigation under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) on the grounds that the regulations are arbitrary, capricious, vague, an abuse of discretion or exceed the agency’s statutory authority. Regulations must act within the confines of the statutory authority. Lawsuits are generally filed after the final rule is published in the Federal Register to ensure that the regulations are considered “ripe” for judicial review.