Trump signs executive action targeting the public service loan program

President Donald Trump has signed an executive action that directs the US Education Department to exclude certain federal borrowers for students from the Public Service Loan Program.

The action says that “people employed by organizations whose activities have a substantial illegal purpose” will no longer be eligible for the program, known as PSLF. He comes three weeks after the Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, said at the Senate confirmation hearing that he will keep the Intact program.

Created by Congress, PSLF forgives the federal borrowers of debtors working in public sector jobs, including non -profit organizations, after making 10 years while working for their qualified employer.

The executive action guides McMahon to redefine the “public service” in a manner that “excludes the organizations that engage in activities that have an illegal purpose.”

Among the activities listed are: support for terrorism; abuse of children, including “chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children or child trafficking to the so-called transgender sanctuary”; “Helping and enriching illegal discrimination”; violation of federal laws regarding immigration; and violations of the state law, such as “violation, disordered conduct, public package, vandalism and highway obstruction”.

Critics say that it represents an attack on the rights of free expression of the debtors and on the organizations that engage in activities that conflict with the agenda of the administration.

“What happens is that the debt is used to scare workers in the working public services to serve the most vulnerable members of our society or to talk against the radical agenda of the Trump Administration,” says Persis Yu, deputy executive director and management counselor at the Student Borrower Protection Center.

Written in the PSLF law, signed by President George W. Bush in 2007, is a description of the types of employees of the public service that are eligible. Yu says that a federal process of making the federal decision would be needed to change these eligibility requirements.

Secretary McMahon and the White House could Make measures to rule the law. That did the Biden administration in 2021 when it has expanded the rules from PSLF.

A result of these changes was a boom of loan forgiveness. In January, towards the end of Biden’s term, the department announced in a statement that “the total number of debtors approved for the PSLF is now 1,069,000 and $ 78.46 billion. In contrast, only 7,000 debtors received PSLF at the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration ”.

Although there are ways for the Trump administration to regulate how PSLF is administered, Yu says that the president cannot redefine the law and which qualifies for it with an executive action.

“These debtors have signed contracts (with the Department of Education) who incorporated this right to forgive the loan of public service,” says Yu, adding that they are expected to legal challenges for the executive action.

PSLF has a troubled history. In a Review 2018The US Government’s responsibility office found that when the debtors sounded the company that manages the PSLF to ensure that the jobs have qualified, sometimes they did not receive an answer – because the education department did not provide the company with eligible employers.

In the same year the NPR reported That the federal data showed that 99% of the requests for forgiveness of the loan through the PSLF were refused.