Despite the public’s push to cancel student debt for civil servants, the first Trump administration approved only a few applications for public service loan forgiveness.
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Donald Trump instructed the education department to limit eligibility for public service loan forgiveness programs in the latest execution action.
The order, issued Friday night, requires the education sector to go through a complex and long process called negotiation rules so the directive won’t change anything immediately. Education Secretary Linda McMahon promised during the confirmation hearing that the PSLF will not be completely eliminated because “this is the law.” However, these changes could lead to thousands of nonprofit employees rejecting student loan forgiveness.
The government considers the order to be a necessary step in the “recovery program” and ending “illegal activities” such as “illegal immigration, human smuggling, trafficking in children, general damage to public property and disruption to public order”.
But Democrats and debt relief and consumer protection advocates say it is another attempt to weaponize federal government weapons and prevent funds from reaching civil servants with civil servants who the president disagrees.
“Don’t fool, today’s executive order is blatantly illegal,” Mike Pierce, executive director of the Center for Student Borrower Protection, said in a statement Friday. “This is an attack on working families around the world and will be on our public service staff to provide work to local communities every day.”
Like Trump’s other execution orders, the directive could face legal challenges.
Congress in 2007 was in the past President George W. Bush, which aims to inspire Americans to engage in public service work by committing to forgive student loans to federal, state, local or tribal government staff; civilians working in the military; and employees of certain nonprofit organizations make 10 years of qualified payments in approved federal loan repayment programs.
Historically, recognized nonprofits include emergency management and crime reduction services, public interest and civil rights legal organizations, and public health and education institutions. According to the Associated Press, more than 2 million borrowers are eligible for the program, according to December data from the Department of Education.
However, it is not always easy to get the benefits of the program. In 2019, during the first Trump administration, the American Teachers Federation sued then-education secretary Betsy Devos, accusing the program of “serious mismanagement.” Data shows that of the approximately 76,000 applications filed between 2017 and the lawsuit, only about 1% of the applications have been approved.
Although the department reached a settlement in the fall of 2021 and promised to reconsider every application it denied, only 7,000 Americans were forgiven when the first Trump administration stepped down. By contrast, the Biden administration prioritized the program more accessible and provided more than one million borrowers over a four-year period.
Advocates say that under the new rules, fewer borrowers can see relief.
“The PSLF program misleads taxes to radical organizations that not only fail to serve the public good, but actually harm our national security and American values, sometimes through criminal means,” the order said. “The Secretary of Education should propose revisions … to ensure that the definition of ‘public service’ does not include organizations engaged in activities with substantial illegal purposes.”
Under the order, nonprofit activities would be cancelled include: assisting or teaching Tris to violate federal immigration laws, supporting terrorism, causing violence to be committed for children who obstruct federal policy, chemical and surgical operations, or trafficking children to parents and women and their labor factions of children to so-called transnational shelters, and litigating for and for Emanc and Abim and Abim and Abim and Abim and Abim and Abim and Abim and Abim and Abim and Abim.
Although the president has not said this directly, experts interpret the order as another attempt to dissuade activism and relaxation efforts than attempts such as diversity, equity and inclusion, such as diversity, equity and inclusion. LGBTQ+ advocacy; unpaid defense of undocumented immigration; and the Palestinian state.
Republican from Michigan and chairman of the House Education Committee, Tim Walberg, praised the president’s intentions in a statement saying President Trump is protecting Jewish students from “their lasting hatred” on college campuses.
“The federal government should not fund anti-Semitism,” he said. “President Trump is stepping up efforts to prevent these activists from getting unexpected gains from the forgiveness benefits paid by taxpayers.”
Patty Murray, a Democrat in Washington and former chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Commission, said Trump “has the resources for efforts that owed American hostages.”
“President Trump once again tried to use his office to force his extreme political views on the American people to curb the promised relief of people who serve our country in ways he disagrees with,” she said. “It is as outrageous as non-Americans.”
But the Trump administration said the order is more than just to prevent “subsidy illegal acts.” He believes that this is also a problem that restricts “reverse incentives” in higher education institutions.
Instead of alleviating workers’ shortages, the president said the PSLF encourages universities and universities to increase tuition fees and increase students in “low demand majors” with “unsustainable” debt.
To this end, debt advocates such as the Student Debt Crisis Center said: “Public service staff are the backbone of the country.”
“This executive order is both illegal and disturbing,” SDCC president Natalia Abrams said in a statement. “The ruthless political attack on education and existing programs is not only a policy decision, but also undermines the lives and financial stability of Americans with student debt and their families. This must stop.”
