ACTION NEEDED: Proposed Rules on Student Debt Relief Based on Hardship (US Department of Education)

This is an opportunity for student loan debtors and their allies to voice their opinions about student loan debt relief. Tell them your stories and explain how this rule will help yourself and others. It can make a difference.  

The Secretary of Education proposes to amend the regulations related to the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA), to provide for the waiver of certain student loan debts.  

The proposed regulations would specify the Secretary’s authority to waive all or part of any student loan debts owed to the Department based on the Secretary’s determination that a borrower has experienced or is experiencing hardship related to such a loan. 

DATES: The Department of Education must receive your comments on or before December 2, 2024.

ADDRESSES: Comments must be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at Regulations.gov. 

The specific page to make your comment is at https://www.regulations.gov/document/ED-2023-OPE-0123-32489. Once you get to that page, hit the comment button and make your comment. We suggest writing your comment out, then cutting and pasting it into the comment section.

Information on using Regulations.gov, including instructions for finding a rule on the site and submitting comments, is available on the site under ‘‘FAQ.’’ If you require an accommodation or cannot otherwise submit your comments via Regulations.gov, please contact regulationshelpdesk@gsa.gov or by phone at 1–866–498–2945.

After you submit your comment, you will receive a receipt like the one below.  

SAVE borrowers get 6 month pause—maybe you can too. (Debt Collective)

 

The US Department of Education just announced that everyone enrolled in the SAVE plan will have their student loans paused in a zero-interest forbearance for at least six months as the extreme right wing assault on student debt relief plays out in the courts.

The SAVE application is back online. If you are not currently enrolled in SAVE—and want to keep your payments paused—you may want to consider applying for Income-Driven Repayment and choosing the SAVE plan: https://studentaid.gov/idr/

The SAVE plan is by no means a solution to the student debt crisis—and we have many critiques for it as a plan. But for debtors desperate to avoid payments for even just the next few months, applying for SAVE to have your payments paused might be an option that works for you.

NOTE: Months spent in zero-interest SAVE forbearance are not being counted towards PSLF or IDR.

Sign our petition to pause all student loans and have the pause count towards PSLF/IDR.

 

ADD YOUR NAME HERE

 

If you are a few months away from getting full cancellation through PSLF, it might be in your best interest to enroll in a different payment plan and make those few monthly payments until you get full cancellation. You can also explore the complicated “buy back” program. More information on both here.

"50 Over 50" Debtors Announce First 'Older Debtors' Action in Washington, D.C. (Debt Collective)

Related links: 

Discharge Our Debts Before We Die (Debt Collective)

The Student Loan Mess Updated: Debt as a Form of Social Control and Political Action

How College Broke the Labor Market (PolyMatter)

Related links:

The College Dream is Over (Gary Roth)

Credential Inflation Makes College Degree Not Worth the Cost (Randall Collins)

College Meltdown 3.0 Could Start Earlier (And End Worse) Than Planned 

Higher Education, Technology, and A Growing Social Anxiety

The Student Loan Mess Updated: Debt as a Form of Social Control and Political Action

Student Loans and a Brutal Lifetime of Debt

A People's History of Higher Education in the US

Breaking the Chains of Debt and Contingent Labor (Debt Collective and Higher Education Labor United)

Join us on July 31 as we host a deep dive discussion into two related crises facing higher ed workers and students alike: debt and labor contingency. 

Often presented as both institutionally inevitable and as individually shameful, spiraling debt and rising labor precarity are in fact insidious products of policy decisions, and together they are eroding the conditions that make genuine higher education possible. Yet these widely shared and intersecting chains of debt and labor contingency also have the potential to bring us together: as faculty, students, and workers, in new ways.

How can we grasp the systems of debt and labor precarity that bind today’s academy in a way that can allow us to unleash potential for liberatory education, in the classroom and beyond? And how can our unions and pedagogical strategies help create alliances between students, faculty, and other campus workers—not by shamefully avoiding talk of our “delinquent” debt or “adjunct” status, but by placing them front and center?”

Speakers: Joe Ramsey, Chair of Contingency Task Force, Higher Education Labor United and Faculty at UMASS, Boston; Jeri O’Bryan-Losee, United University Professions (SUNY)

Facilitated by Jason Wozniak, Debt Collective

Co-Sponsored by Higher Education Labor United

 

Related links:

 

The Power of Recognizing Higher Ed Faculty as Working-Class (Helena Worthen) 

 

I Went on Strike to Cancel My Student Debt and Won. Every Debtor Deserves the Same. (Ann Bowers)

The Student Loan Mess Updated: Debt as a Form of Social Control and Political Action  

 

DEBT STRIKE!

 

 

Debtors’ Protest in DC May 22 calling President Biden to "Fund Education, Not Genocide" (Debt Collective)

 

Now, more than ever, we need to stand up for a reparative, debt-free education that liberates our collective possibilities – not pushes us further into a violent war machine. That’s why on May 22, we are going to Washington D.C. to call on the President to use his executive powers to fund education and liberate student debtors, not to accelerate war. We need the President to FUND EDUCATION, NOT GENOCIDE.

If you are planning to come to D.C., please sign up on the THIS LINK so we can keep you looped into the plans.

WHAT: A Debtors’ Assembly and March to Capitol Grounds to call on Pres. Biden to FUND EDUCATION, NOT GENOCIDE.

WHEN: Wednesday May 22, 2024 at 12pm EST. We will have lunch and brief in-person training.

WHERE: We will meet outside the Department of Education at the Eisenhower Memorial (540 Independence Ave SW, Washington, D.C. 20202) at NOON!

WHO: Debtors from across the country – including you! We will also be joined by

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI)
Rep. Cori Bush (MO)
Layla Elabed (Uncommitted)
Tariq Habash (former Department of Ed appointee who resigned in protest)

Lily Greenberg Call (Jewish-American political appointee to resign from the Biden-Harris administration over its policies in Gaza)
Maddy Clifford (Debt Collective)
Tiffany Loftin (Debt Collective)
Harriet’s Wildest Dreams
Students organizers from Georgetown and NYU
 

HOW: Get to D.C.! Are you joining us from NYC? Sign up here to get your *free spot on the bus! Details: We are meeting at 7am at Atlantic Barclays. There will be coffee and donuts. Masks encouraged. We will head back to NYC at 7:30pm. Email Victoria@debtcollective.org with any questions.
Are you joining from Philly or Boston? We’re sending folks by train. Reach out to nick@debtcollective.org to get support for getting train tickets.We have a bunch of folks from Philly and folks from Boston you can join with on the train ride down!

HOW: Get Trained for Action !

Those interested in engaging in civil disobedience or supporting folks during the action, please join our upcoming training on Monday May 20th at 7pm ET on zoom)


SEE YA ON THE STREETS!

The Debt Collective
https://debtcollective.org