Trump admin ends Biden's free ride: 5+ million deadbeat student loan borrowers to face collections



President Donald Trump's Department of Education announced Monday that it will soon end the former Biden administration's free ride for student loan borrowers in default.

The ED's Office of Federal Student Aid will restart collections on May 5 for more than five million borrowers who have not made a payment for at least 360 days. Another four million borrowers — not yet considered to be in default — have not paid in 91 to 180 days.

"As a result, there could be almost 10 million borrowers in default in a few months. When this happens, almost 25 percent of the federal student loan portfolio will be in default," read a press release from the ED.

'The Biden Administration misled borrowers: the executive branch does not have the constitutional authority to wipe debt away, nor do the loan balances simply disappear.'

According to the department, 42.7 million student loan borrowers owe over $1.6 trillion. It noted that most borrowers are either delinquent or in an interest-free forbearance or deferment period.

"Only 38 percent of borrowers are in repayment and current on their student loans," it said. "Resuming collections protects taxpayers from shouldering the cost of federal student loans that borrowers willingly undertook to finance their postsecondary education."

The department has not collected on its defaulted student loans since March 2020, despite Congress mandating repayment in October 2023.

Trump's ED slammed the former administration for its refusal to lift the pause on collections, which "kept borrowers in a confusing limbo."

It further noted that under former President Joe Biden, the ED "failed to process applications for borrowers who applied for income-driven repayment and continued to push misguided 'on-ramps' and illegal loan forgiveness schemes to win points with borrowers and mask rising delinquency and default rates."

Over the next couple of weeks, the FSA will notify those currently in default about the payment restart. It will begin sending notifications of wage garnishments "later this summer," the department stated.

ED Secretary Linda McMahon said, "American taxpayers will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for irresponsible student loan policies."

"The Biden Administration misled borrowers: the executive branch does not have the constitutional authority to wipe debt away, nor do the loan balances simply disappear," she continued. "Hundreds of billions have already been transferred to taxpayers. Going forward, the Department of Education, in conjunction with the Department of Treasury, will shepherd the student loan program responsibly and according to the law, which means helping borrowers return to repayment—both for the sake of their own financial health and our nation's economic outlook."

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Fleeting presidency, lasting debt: Joe Biden’s real legacy



Joe Biden’s parting gift to student loan borrowers aligns neatly with his massive deficits. Over and over, spending leads to rising deficits. Among Biden’s many failures, none is more quantifiable than his budgeting — or lack thereof.

“I’m proud to say we have forgiven more student loan debt than any other administration in history,” Biden declared recently, announcing another student loan cancellation for more than 150,000 individuals at an estimated cost of $4.2 billion.

For a one-term administration grasping for a legacy, it need only look at its spending, deficits, and immense debt.

That announcement coincided with two reports from the Congressional Budget Office. In comparing actual results to its projections, the CBO noted that fiscal year 2024 recorded a $1.8 trillion deficit — 6.4% of gross domestic product, up from 6.2% the previous year. This marks the deficit’s third consecutive increase and a level exceeded only six times since 1946. Meanwhile, federal spending reached $6.8 trillion (23.4% of GDP), surpassing its 50-year average by 11%. As a result, federal debt rose to 97.8% of GDP.

The CBO also reported that in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, the government ran a $710 billion deficit — $200 billion higher than the same period in fiscal 2024. Spending increased $175 billion (11%) over last year’s pace.

The connection, of course, is that Biden’s latest student loan forgiveness just piles more deficits and debt onto these and shifts both onto general taxpayers. It is also a microcosm of what Biden has done throughout his four years.

From fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal spending exceeded the pre-COVID fiscal 2019 baseline by $8.2 trillion, generating $7.7 trillion in deficits. Nearly all of that came under Biden’s watch. Although the first quarter of fiscal 2021 occurred under Trump amid the 2020 pandemic, the newly reported first-quarter totals for fiscal 2025 already surpass that.

For four years, Biden has spent and spent, run staggering deficits, and racked up massive new debt. Amazingly, in the face of this dismal performance, Biden wanted more.

Lest we forget these astronomical figures’ toll, look no farther than to the inflation they helped fuel as they pushed trillions through the pipeline.

The January 15 CPI data release showed a 12-month inflation rate of 2.9% and a core rate (excluding food and energy) of 3.2%. Both rates remain above the Federal Reserve’s desired 2% target.

The only positive news was that both figures fell below the pessimistic inflation assumptions associated with Biden’s presidency. Since Biden took office, inflation has run hot, scorching American consumers. When he began his term in January 2021, the annual CPI increase was 1.4%. By March 2021, it had climbed to 2.6%, eventually peaking at a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022. Apart from Biden’s first full month in office, the inflation rate has never approached its level when he was inaugurated.

For Biden apologists baffled by the administration’s defeat in November, note the president’s 34.5% approval rating on inflation. The people did not believe the Biden-Harris hype.

Biden’s record shows unrestrained spending, yet he still wanted more. Only two senators from his own party — Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — kept him from securing additional funds when Democrats held the White House and both houses of Congress. Ultimately, he had to “settle” for hundreds of billions less.

He also pushed for even broader student debt cancellation. He adopted a piecemeal strategy only because he could not accomplish a total wipeout. Two Supreme Court rulings, in June and August 2023, thwarted his plans. Undeterred, Biden has sought new ways to shift student debt to federal debt by revising programs that predate his administration.

Biden appeared willing to spend any amount, run any deficit, and accumulate any level of debt. Yet even in the waning days of his term, Biden’s administration scrambled to send as much money out the White House door as possible. His time simply ran out.

For a one-term administration grasping for a legacy, it need only look at its spending, deficits, and immense debt. Unfortunately for American taxpayers, that may prove to be Joe Biden’s longest-lasting impact.

Abolishing the Department of Education is not the answer



In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election victory, many education reformers are saying that now is the time to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the presumptive leaders of the new Department of Government Efficiency, have been strongly hinting that eradicating the DOE outright is a real possibility.

That’s an attractive goal — the DOE wastes a great deal of money and does a great deal of damage to American students. But eliminating it outright will be difficult. Education reformers need 60 votes in the Senate to abolish the Department of Education. Using budget reconciliation might allow that requirement to be sidestepped, but it’s doubtful that Congress will go along with that tactic. Additionally, the Trump voting coalition isn’t just made up of small-government conservatives — it includes voters who don’t mind big government so long as it isn’t woke.

The way to achieve swift and substantial education reform is thoughtful, detailed work to simplify and reduce the Education Department.

Also, “abolishing the Education Department” can mean less than meets the eye. Every single office and program can be transferred over to the Department of Health and Human Services — uncut, unreformed, and unchanged. Putative reformers could declare a hollow victory while supporters of the radical education establishment would then happily perform their outrage dance, secure in the knowledge that nothing really has changed.

To get real reform, we reformers should instead perform radical surgery on the DOE. We should eliminate spending on dozens of useless or counterproductive small programs — and preserve in as simple a form as possible the big-ticket items that command massive popular support, including within the Trump coalition. We also should chop the Office for Civil Rights down to size so it can’t use “Dear Colleague letters” and case resolutions to play the enforcing thugs for America’s radical race and sex fanatics. When we’ve done this, we can establish real accountability over the Department of Education’s core functions and then determine whether further reform is necessary.

The DOE mostly spends its money on Title I funds for disadvantaged K-12 students ($18 billion a year); special education funds for physically and mentally handicapped students ($14 billion a year); Pell Grants for disadvantaged postsecondary students ($29 billion a year); and direct student loans to postsecondary students ($106 billion a year). The Department of Education should say explicitly that it will preserve these four core functions — although with a gimlet eye toward eliminating waste, fraud, bureaucratic bloat, and grifters who cry poverty or handicap to grab a slice of federal money.

These four core functions also should be radically simplified.

  • The four formula grants for Title I funds should be amalgamated into one formula grant, as close as possible in form either to a no-strings block grant to the states or portable aid given to individual families.
  • The Rehabilitation Services Administration ($4.4 billion a year, which is nearly a third of the special education budget) should be moved to HHS. Congress should revise the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act so it doesn’t impose on states or school districts unfunded, undefined mandates for special education spending.
  • Every remaining college grant program should be amalgamated into Pell Grants; special programs such as college aid for veterans should be relocated to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
  • All college loan programs should be merged into the Federal Direct Student Loan Program. Ironclad congressional statutes should be passed to make it impossible for a future administration to repeat the Biden administration’s illegal “loan forgiveness.”

In addition, the OCR should be reduced from 633 employees to no more than 175, so that their ratio to the population they serve is at most in proportion to that of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The OCR then should be incorporated into Justice and its enforcement powers constrained to litigation, with no ability to issue “Dear Colleague letters” or conduct case resolutions.

For now, the Department of Education should keep a few programs, such as those that support charter schools, gifted education, English language acquisition, historically black colleges and universities (for which the U.S. has historical commitments that can be honored by institutional support without resorting to discrimination among citizens), and state assessments. These are good goals, and though these aren’t core functions, the DOE could be reformed to support them properly.

Everything else should go at once — the discretionary grant programs, the race discrimination programs that seek “equity,” the miniature welfare states disguised as education programs, the political propaganda camouflaged as “social and emotional learning” and “mental health.” Some of these programs should be relocated to better homes, such as the State Department (international education; money for Pacific Island nations); the Interior Department (Indian education); the Defense Department (foreign language programs); the Justice Department (prison education); the Labor Department (vocational education); or the National Endowment for the Arts (arts education). Every office or program that discriminates among American citizens, such as the Hispanic-Serving Institutions Division, should be eliminated immediately.

The OCR also should formally rescind every legal reinterpretation that:

  • justifies quotas;
  • uses disparate impact theory;
  • redefines sex to include gender, gender identity, or gender expression;
  • redefines sex discrimination to include sexual harassment and sexual violence;
  • and abridges due process and First Amendment rights within educational institutions.

The OCR also should rescind every policy, requirement, document, case resolution, and investigation that draws upon these legal reinterpretations and state as an explicit principle that the Department of Education requires every educational institution that receives federal money to champion due process and the First Amendment — period. Oh, and any education institution that tolerates or facilitates Jew-hating intimidation by campus mobs will get its money cut off at once.

When the Department of Education has been reduced to four key functions and is largely shorn of all discretionary grant programs, policymakers and the public can then begin to demand true accountability regarding its remaining functions. They can achieve that by:

  • creating efficiency measures in every office, which gage how well the ED’s own bureaucrats perform;
  • creating return-on-investment measures for every DOE program, which estimate how much educational improvement the taxpayer gets;
  • and eliminating fake accountability measures such as: 1) money disbursed without measuring whether it was worthwhile; 2) student achievement scores without investigating their connection to federal dollars spent; 3) numbers of teachers trained without any sense of whether it helps student achievement; or 4) “qualitative” measures of success that are just an academic way of saying, “My gut tells me this was a pretty good way to spend your money.”

If all these reforms are carried out, education reformers will be in a better position to make a simple and clear case to the public that the remaining core functions of the Department of Education should be relocated, reformed, or ended. Or they may decide that a slimmed-down DOE does, in fact, serve the public good. In either case, the practicable way to achieve swift and substantial education reform is thoughtful, detailed work to simplify and reduce the DOE. Do that first, and then consider whether it should be eliminated.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at the American Mind.

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