How student-loan borrowers can help craft Biden's new plan for broad debt cancellation

• The Education Department is beginning negotiations for its new broad student-debt relief plan.
• The first round of negotiations is taking place October 10 and 11.

President Joe Biden's Education Department is about to embark on its next step to enact broad student-loan forgiveness. Borrowers can participate.

On October 10 and 11, the department will be holding the first negotiation session for Biden's new plan for student-debt relief using the Higher Education Act of 1965. These sessions are part of the negotiated rulemaking process — the Higher Education Act requires the administration to go through a lengthy process that includes a series of negotiations and periods of public comment before establishing a final rule for relief.

At the end of September, the Education Department released new details on what the negotiation sessions will look like. Along with the list of negotiators, it outlined five groups of student-loan borrowers the discussions will focus on, including those whose balances have grown due to unpaid interest, and those who are eligible for relief under targeted programs but have not yet applied.

While only the selected stakeholders will be able to negotiate the final rule, the public can still share comments on the issues raised during the sessions. According to the department, there will be time for the public to speak at the end of each day — anyone who wishes to comment can submit a request including their name and affiliated organization, if applicable to negreghearing@ed.gov no later than noon eastern time on the day of the meeting.

"We will provide information to commenters on how and when to log in to the meeting as a speaker," the department said. "We will accommodate as many requests as possible."

Those who want to watch the negotiation sessions can register here. There will be morning and afternoon sessions on both days, and information for the sessions on November 6-7 and December 11-12 will be posted closer to those dates.

Once negotiations conclude in December, one of two things could happen: negotiators reach a consensus on the language of the proposed rule, or consensus is not reached, and the department can choose to create new language or stick with the one developed in negotiations.

The proposed language will then go to the Office of Management and Budget for review, and following that period, the department will publish the rule on the Federal Register and the public will have 30 days comment. Given that timeline, the earliest borrowers could see relief is the summer of 2024, but it's uncertain – especially with likely legal challenges to the plan.

Biden's administration has frequently said it's working as quickly as possible to enact this new relief. However, student-loan payments have resumed, bringing confusion to borrowers as some servicers have struggled with the transition.

For example, some borrowers told Insider they've been left in a state of financial limbo for months because their servicer is not equipped to quickly process repayment applications and other related forms.

One borrower, for example, has been unable to get her income-driven repayment form processed, pushing back her payment timeline because she's unable to afford the payments her servicer calculated for her.

"This is our livelihoods," she said. "I've been on top of everything from the get go. I've never been in default. I've always made my payments. I've always completed the paperwork. How can I get penalized for something when I did not create the problem?"

The Education Department is aware of the challenges borrowers are facing — but there's no clear timeline for when the issues will be resolved.

"We recognize there's bottlenecking in some places and people are waiting excessively long, and we recognize these issues and we're working to make sure that they improve while also trying to support our servicers who are, again, doing a task that has never been done before," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona previously told Insider.