Whitehouse and Colleagues Demand Answers on Trump Administration’s Plan to End Affordable Student Loan Repayment Program
Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) led Senate colleagues in a letter demanding answers from U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon on the Trump administration’s proposal to eliminate affordable student loan repayment options for millions of Americans.
Their letter comes after the Education Department reached a proposed settlement with the State of Missouri to abandon the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan and its affordable payments. The SAVE Plan was created by President Biden in 2023 to help student loan borrowers nationwide by creating a new income-driven repayment (IDR) plan, which links payments to a borrower’s income and family size. Last year, Senate Republicans passed their Big, Beautiful-for-Billionaires Bill, requiring the SAVE Plan and other IDR plans be eliminated by July 2028, and this proposed settlement significantly speeds up the timeline.
“Pending court approval, the settlement would require ED to stop enrolling borrowers in SAVE, deny all pending SAVE applications from borrowers that may have been waiting years for a response, and move the more than 7 million borrowers currently enrolled in SAVE into other less affordable repayment plans,” the Senators wrote to Secretary McMahon.
“Unfortunately, ED’s proposed settlement provides little direction or transparency for borrowers who will be forced into new repayment plans through no fault of their own,” they continued. “Namely, the proposed settlement provides no information on what, if any, resources or guidance ED will provide to borrowers as they make these significant changes, or how much time borrowers will be provided to switch plans. The settlement also lacks clarity on the timeline for when these changes will be operationalized and when ED and other federal loan servicers will communicate these changes to borrowers. Troublingly, ED’s own public communications have conflicting information on the timeline in which borrowers can expect to receive information from the Department, ranging from ‘in the coming weeks’ to ‘in the coming months.’”
The Senators highlighted that borrowers will face significant hurdles switching to a new plan with higher payments, and those enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program are at greater risk: “Obliging borrowers to exit the SAVE Plan will also have particularly severe consequences for public service workers. Many government and nonprofit employees pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) deliberately enrolled in SAVE to ensure their payments remained affordable while completing the required 120 qualifying payments to access loan forgiveness. PSLF borrowers—including teachers, nurses, social workers, first responders, and other public servants—rely on income-driven repayment plans to maintain qualifying payment status without sacrificing their financial stability. While the time borrowers have been stuck in the SAVE forbearance has not counted towards PSLF credit, forcing these borrowers to transition out of SAVE with little guidance risks further lost time to debt relief and payment increases that could render continued public service untenable.”
“To date, more than 5 million borrowers are in default and 5 million more are behind on their monthly payments. Ten million borrowers are on track to enter default on their student loans in 2026, more than in the years prior to the pandemic. As such, it is imperative the Department take every action possible to ensure the 7 million borrowers currently enrolled in SAVE are provided with the information and resources necessary to avoid delinquency or default in order to avoid an even bigger default crisis,” they emphasized.
Whitehouse has long championed legislation to help Americans reach their dreams of higher education without crippling debt. Since hearing from early applicants caught in the PSLF program bureaucracy, Whitehouse has doggedly pursued fixes to the program and worked to help constituents navigate the application process. Whitehouse introduced the Simplifying and Strengthening PSLF Act to streamline and improve the program. Whitehouse has also introduced the Zero-Percent Student Loan Refinancing Act, which would allow Americans to refinance their federal student loans at a zero percent interest rate. Last year, he introduced the Tax-Free Pell Grant Act to simplify higher education assistance by better coordinating Pell Grants with higher education tax incentives.
In addition to Whitehouse, Warren, Merkley, and Kaine, the letter was signed by U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
Full text of the letter can be found by clicking here.