With Donald Trump's second administration poised to begin in January, anyone with student loan debt is likely wondering what his election means for student loan forgiveness programs that expanded under the Biden-Harris administration.
Based on policies enacted during Trump's first term, and information included in his 2024 election platform documentation, people with student loan debt should not expect much relief.
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This is very different from what has been happening under the Biden-Harris Administration. Over the past three and a half years, borrowers were given more student loan relief than ever before.
Since March 2021, the U.S. Department of Education has canceled $175 billion in student loan debt through five programs. According to a student loan tracker published by the Center for American Progress, 4.8 million borrowers have benefited from these forgiveness programs. Other programs are still under consideration that could affect around 27.6 million borrowers; it is unclear what will happen with these programs.
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The Biden administration is also working to defend an income-based repayment program that is currently being challenged in court; Republicans are fighting against it.
Trump's past actions for student loan forgiveness offer clues as to what's ahead
If past performance is any indication of what's ahead, borrowers should not expect much in the way of relief. In 2023, Trump praised the Supreme Court for striking down debt relief, calling debt cancellation "very unfair."
During Trump's first term, which began in 2017, his administration rescinded higher education initiatives the Obama administration had enacted.
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These actions included instilling new "gainful employment" regulations and new so-called "borrower defense to repayment regulations." In other words, then President Trump instilled regulations that narrowed borrowers' ability to receive debt relief.
While on the campaign trial recently, Trump promised to eliminate the Department of Education, as outlined in Project 2025, a blueprint released last year for a potential Republican president.
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Also worth considering: Under the first Trump Administration and under the leadership of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, more than 130,000 borrowers who were defrauded by schools such as ITT Technical Institute and Corinthian Colleges were denied relief under the borrower defense to repayment program. This despite the U.S. Department of Education or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's conclusion that the institutions had engaged in wrongdoing.
The claims of defrauded borrowers languished for as long as six years before the Biden-Harris administration approved group discharges for the two schools in 2022.
Who will make up Trump's Department of Education?
At one 2024 campaign stop, Trump mused about two potential candidates who he said could oversee the dismantlement of the education department: Vivek Ramaswamy, the one-time Trump competitor and entrepreneur who ran for the GOP nomination before dropping out and endorsing Trump. Also in the running is former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, who left Congress last year after an unsuccessful bid for governor.
“I’m going to close the Department of Education and move education back to the states. And we’re going to do it fast. We’ll get somebody great,” Trump said Sept. 23 in Indiana, Pa. “Lee Zeldin is here with us tonight. I think that’s a job for Lee or Vivek, or we’ll get somebody. We like Vivek. We need somebody with a lot of energy, a lot of strength, energy, and intelligence.”
Indeed, Trump's "2024 GOP Platform" supports non-four-year college programs like trade schools. In a section labeled "Accessible Higher Education," the Trump administration's planned policy is, "To reduce the cost of higher education, Republicans will support the creation of additional, drastically more affordable alternatives to a traditional four-year College degree."
This plays into further fears about the resources students would have, especially pertaining to college affordability, as Trump likely reins back relief.
“We would worry that the Department of Education will orient itself to serve the interests of lenders and creditor institutions instead of making sure that there’s equitable access to postsecondary education across our country,” said Sameer Gadkaree, president and CEO of the Institute for College Access and Success in an interview that aired on November 7 on WYTV, an Ohio news outlet.
A weaker Department of Education could also play into one of Trump’s campaign promises: to punish schools by removing federal dollars if they have policies undesirable to the president-elect, such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
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