How a quiet battle over PSLF’s future ended without answers

The Education Department convened a panel of experts in the first week of July to help craft regulations to implement Trump’s order. If they reached a consensus, their recommendations would likely be set in stone.

But they didn’t. Betsy Mayotte, president of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a nonprofit that gives borrowers free advice about repayment, was the lone holdout in a final vote.

She was “really on the fence” about her decision, she told USA TODAY. Ultimately, she decided she couldn’t vote for a proposal that gave the Education Department authority that she and other advocates believed it didn’t legally have.