From RISE to AHEAD: What We Learned and What Comes Next in Federal Rulemaking

The U.S. Department of Education (the Department) completed the first of two negotiated rulemaking committees established to implement the federal statute, One Big Beautiful Bill Act Public Law 119-21 (OB3), enacted July 4, 2025. As we shared in a previous Frontiers Post, the Department first convened the Re-imagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) Committee that recently came to consensus developing regulations to implement statutory changes to student loan programs.

Second, the Department will soon convene the Accountability in Higher Education and Access through Demand-driven Workforce Pell (AHEAD) Committee to address statutory changes to institutional programmatic accountability, the Pell Grant Program, including Workforce Pell, and other changes to Title IV, HEA programs.The Department populates the rulemaking webpage, Negotiated Rulemaking for Higher Education 2025“, with up-to-date draft language and documents to follow the rulemaking. Although during the federal government shutdown the Department was not able to update the rulemaking webpage, the Department appears to be populating the backlog of documents.

In today’s post, we will accomplish three tasks:

1. Share the outcomes of the RISE Committee and potential impact on institutions.
2. Preview of the relevant AHEAD Committee issues to the digital learning community.
3. Provide opportunities to follow and participate in the process of developing regulations.[...]