Washington
CNN
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Some Democratic lawmakers are urging the Biden administration to take further action on student loans before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, including finalizing some already-approved debt relief.

Trump has made no specific commitments on student loans, but debt relief is not a political priority like it was for President Joe Biden, who agreed to pay off more student debt than any other president last year despite a major setback from the Supreme Court.

Many Republicans have called Biden’s efforts to provide sweeping student debt relief unfair, passing the cost onto taxpayers who chose not to go to college or have already paid for their education.

Much of the debt relief that Biden ultimately approved was targeted at specific groups of borrowers and was delivered through student loan forgiveness programs that predated his administration.

But Democrats worry that some borrowers, particularly those defrauded by their schools, are still waiting for debt relief approved by the Biden administration.

“These borrowers set out to achieve the American dream, but instead of earning a degree that opened the doors of opportunity, they were shackled with a worthless degree and the burden of student loan debt,” said Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat, testified Massachusetts said at a news conference on student debt earlier this month.

During Trump’s first term, his administration was slow to forgive some student loans for defrauded borrowers who were eligible for relief.

Dozens of Democrats are calling on the Biden administration to take the following actions before Inauguration Day January 20th:

The Biden administration has approved nearly $29 billion in student loan forgiveness for about 1.6 million people who were defrauded by their schools, but many of them are still waiting to have their debt cleared from their accounts become.

Since Biden took office, the Education Department has approved several large group discharges for borrowers who attended nonprofit higher education networks — such as Corinthian Colleges, the University of Phoenix and The Art Institutes — and some of those applications have taken longer than expected to process for debt relief.

According to a court filing, about 135,600 former Corinthian students who received debt relief were still waiting for their loans to be paid off as of this fall.

Processing relief for the remaining borrowers has “proved more complicated,” partly because they have consolidated loans, it said.

It could be that more borrowers are waiting for cancellations and refunds of amounts already paid. A group of more than 70 Democrats called on the department to “immediately initiate debt relief for these borrowers” ​​in a letter in early December.

The relief was approved under the Borrower Repayment Program, which provides debt relief to borrowers misled by their colleges.

Even if the layoffs are not processed before the change in administration, lawyers believe the Education Department will still be required to do so.

Eileen Connor, president and director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending, which represents borrowers defrauded by their colleges, noted that the first Trump administration sought debt relief approved by the Obama administration.

However, when approving the cancellations, then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wrote that she was doing so “with extreme displeasure.”

Some lawmakers are calling on the Education Department to authorize additional group layoffs as part of borrower defense. They say there are other schools that have been found to have committed fraud or misled students, so some other former students may be eligible for relief under the borrower defense.

There are concerns that the new Trump administration could change borrower defense rules and slow processing of outstanding debts.

“If they have their way, these borrowers will find it significantly more difficult — and perhaps even impossible — to receive relief under the Trump-Vance administration,” said Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and senior member of the Education Committee and House Labor Forces, wrote in a separate letter to the department last month.

Under the During the first Trump administration, the Education Department also attempted to change borrower defense rules to limit the relief that could be provided through the program. The proposal was unsuccessful, but the department stopped processing borrowers’ defense claims while it dealt with the challenges in court. This resulted in a backlog of more than 200,000 claims.

Democrats are also pushing the Education Department to make it easier for about 8 million borrowers enrolled in a plan currently on hold due to litigation to make payments and qualify for debt relief.

The plan, known as SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education), was launched by the Biden administration last year. But it is being challenged in court by two groups of Republican-led states that argue the president does not have the authority to implement the plan. A decision from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected soon.

Borrowers enrolled in SAVE are not currently required to make payments because the Department of Education has placed them in interest-free forbearance due to the litigation.

While the payment pause is good news for many of the affected borrowers, it could potentially delay student loan forgiveness for some of them.

That’s because the period of forbearance does not count toward the number of payments required to qualify for debt forgiveness under programs such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which provides remaining debt for eligible public service employees Sectors – such as teachers and nurses – pay off after they reach 120 qualifying payments.

As of last week, the Department of Education said borrowers will be allowed to switch to two older repayment plans — Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and Income Contingent Repaid (ICR) — to resume making payments that count toward debt relief.

Scott also called on the department to process any PSLF relief for borrowers who may have recently reached 120 qualifying payments.