- Nearly 70 organizations asked the Education Department to continue discussing student-debt relief.
- They want the department to add another negotiation session to discuss borrowers with hardships.
Nearly 70 advocacy groups want to ensure President Joe Biden's Education Department uses every opportunity to get student-loan forgiveness to as many borrowers as possible.
On Thursday, 67 organizations — including the NAACP, the Student Borrower Protection Center, and the AFL-CIO — sent a letter to Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona requesting that the Education Department add a fourth negotiation session for stakeholders to discuss borrowers that should qualify for debt relief.
After the Supreme Court struck down Biden's first attempt at broad debt cancellation at the end of June, the department began pursuing a new route for relief using the Higher Education Act of 1965. The law requires the department to undergo a lengthy process that includes a series of negotiations with stakeholders to help craft the text of the new plan.
The department concluded its third — and what was initially planned to be its final — round of negotiations in December, and it proposed five groups of borrowers to qualify for the debt relief. But the groups did not include a category for borrowers experiencing hardship, such as those who have made good-faith efforts to repay their loans but do not have the financial means to continue doing so.
"Failing to finalize a proposal to provide relief for borrowers experiencing hardship would result in millions of borrowers — including most recent graduates, many low-income borrowers, borrowers of color, and borrowers with disabilities — being left out of the necessary debt relief," the letter said. "This cannot be an option."
"The Department cannot wait until it is too late," the letter continued: "It must act now and establish a fourth rulemaking session to ensure the promise of student debt cancellation happens swiftly as we embark upon a new year."
An Education Department spokesperson told Business Insider: "We have received the letter and will review it."
"The Department's priority is to support students and borrowers, and is moving as quickly as possible to provide student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible, including through the regulatory process," the spokesperson said.
Following the conclusion of the December sessions, though, some negotiators told BI they were disappointed with how things ended. Jessica Ranucci, an attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group and a negotiator on the committee, previously said that the limits on the proposed relief "were disappointing."
"I think that the Supreme Court's decision does make this negotiation much more complicated because we are working on a backdrop of legal principles that are unsettled," Ranucci said. But she added, "I don't think that the Supreme Court decision in any way forecloses any avenue towards broader debt cancellation."
Some legislators, including the Democratic Massachusetts lawmakers Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, also sent a letter in December urging the Education Department to expand its debt-relief proposal to encompass more borrowers.
It's unclear if the department will respond to advocates' and lawmakers' concerns. The department is set to continue working on its draft rules that will be published for public comment early this year.
"The Department has made commendable progress thus far in advancing proposals that will provide targeted relief," Mike Pierce, the executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, said in a statement.
"However, failing to advance a proposal to also address the immense hardship associated with crushing student loan debt will undoubtedly leave millions of borrowers behind," he said. "The Department has an obligation to come back to the table and present plans to provide the relief that President Biden promised to the American people."