Reported Executive Order Comes Amid a Wave of Anti-Democratic Efforts to Attack Working Families with Student Debt
March 7, 2025 | WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, President Trump signaled his intent to sign an executive order to revoke eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) from borrowers employed at non-profit organizations engaging in work opposed by the Trump Administration.
In response, Mike Pierce, Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) Executive Director, issued the following statement:
“Don’t be fooled, today’s executive order is blatantly illegal and an all-out weaponization of debt intended to silence speech that does not align with President Trump’s MAGA agenda. It is an attack on working families everywhere and will have a chilling effect on our public service workforce doing the work every day to support our local communities. Teachers, nurses, servicemembers and other public service workers deserve better than to be used as pawns in Donald Trump’s radical right-wing political project to destroy civil society. This will raise costs for working people while doing nothing to make America safer or healthier.”
In response, Randi Weingarten, AFT President, issued the following statement:
“The president claims to be committed to ‘free speech,’ but we’ve quickly discovered that pledge doesn’t apply to higher education and now, PSLF. He wants to impose an ideological litmus test antithetical to American values and contrary to the statute at hand. It’s an illegal attack on millions of dedicated public service workers who placed their faith in PSLF’s bipartisan promise, only to see it ripped away.
“PSLF is based on the idea that borrowers who make 10 years of repayments, and who often forgo higher wages in the private sector, can avoid a lifelong debt sentence. For years, the AFT has fought to ensure the promise of PSLF was a promise kept. We sued Betsy DeVos and rogue loan servicers for their failure to administer the program—and we won. This latest assault on borrowers’ livelihoods is a cruel attempt to finish the demolition job that DeVos started. The goal is to sow chaos and confusion—separately, the PSLF application form has already been taken offline, making it effectively inaccessible. The AFT won’t stop fighting, in court and in Congress, until every single public service worker gets the help the law affords them.”
Background
Prior to the Biden-Harris Administration taking office, only 7,000 public service workers had ever benefited from the PSLF program. Under the first Trump Administration, then-Secretary Betsy DeVos rejected 99 percent of public service workers who applied for student debt relief and actively worked to push debt relief out of reach. In 2018, SBPC in partnership with AFT launched a joint investigation into allegations of rampant mismanagement and industry abuses undermining the PSLF program. These findings eventually led to the Biden-Harris Administration’s sweeping changes and systemic fixes that have helped to fulfill the promise of debt relief made to millions of public service workers and ensure the program works.
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About the AFT
The AFT represents 1.8 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers; paraprofessionals and other school-related personnel; higher education faculty and professional staff; federal, state and local government employees; nurses and healthcare workers; and early childhood educators.
Learn more at aft.org or follow AFT on Twitter @AFTunion.
About Student Borrower Protection Center
Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) is a nonprofit organization focused on eliminating the burden of student debt for millions of Americans. We engage in advocacy, policymaking, and litigation strategy to rein in industry abuses, protect borrowers’ rights, and advance racial and economic justice.
Learn more at protectborrowers.org or follow SBPC on Twitter @theSBPC.