By Aissa Canchola Bañez | January 24, 2025
This week, President Donald Trump was officially sworn into office, marking the beginning of the second Trump Administration. Millions of Americans with student loan debt are bracing to see how this new administration will approach the student loan debt crisis and whether President Trump will actually live up to his promise of lowering the costs of everyday life. Their concerns are completely understandable.
On the campaign trail, President Trump openly touted his plans to roll back debt relief efforts that have now freed more than 5 million Americans from their student loan debt. His right-wing Project 2025 agenda calls for shuttering the doors of the U.S. Department of Education and privatizing the federal student loan system, forcing millions of borrowers to pay even more on their monthly student loan bills, eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, and even rolling back critical safeguards that protect students and families when they are cheated by predatory schools.
The stakes have never been higher for millions of families trying to figure out how they are going to cover the rising costs of college or keep up with their monthly student loan bills. Making matters worse, the announcement of Linda McMahon to take the helm of the Department of Education and Pam Bondi to lead the Justice Department provides a glimpse into what millions of these families may face.
Eliminating the Department of Education and gutting critical protections for borrowers will directly harm working class families and make the student debt crisis worse
While Linda McMahon’s nomination has flown relatively under the radar, her scant education experience and long history as a Trump donor and loyalist are cause for major concern. If confirmed, McMahon would oversee the very agency responsible for ensuring all children are able to get a quality public education and that students and working families are able to access affordable and high-quality higher education and training without having to take on a lifetime of student loan debt. However, McMahon’s lack of education bona fides (including her made-up claims of having an education degree) and track record should raise serious questions about her judgement, and sound alarms that she could be the perfect “rubber stamp” Secretary to shepherd President Trump’s most harmful Project 2025 policies.
When announcing McMahon’s nomination, President Trump declared “we will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort,” making it clear that McMahon will be expected to drive efforts to gut the Department and roll back critical protections and benefits for student loan borrowers. While McMahon herself has remained tight-lipped about how she will deliver on President Trump’s Project 2025 promises of eliminating the Department, she does have a track record of pushing policies in alignment with this right-wing agenda.
The right-wing America First Policy Institute (AFPI), where McMahon currently serves as Board Chair, worked with Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi to urge the Supreme Court to strike down student debt cancellation efforts that would have provided relief to tens of millions of working-class families. The organization has also been a vocal opponent of the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plan, which has made payments more affordable for more than 8 million borrowers prior to being blocked in federal court. If opponents of SAVE are successful in eliminating the repayment program, millions of borrowers will see their monthly payments spike, which could lead to increases in student loan delinquency and defaults and push millions of families further into debt.
The Trump Administration has already pulled foot soldiers from the MAGA movement into senior roles at the Department of Education—if confirmed, McMahon will lead an agency already helmed by a chief of staff and two deputy chiefs of staff that left senior roles at AFPI.
These policy positions—in addition to other harmful Project 2025 and AFPI policies that McMahon could be tasked to carry out—would be catastrophic for the 45 million Americans carrying student loan debt.
Corporate influence and corruption at the expense of students
If confirmed, Linda McMahon would be the wealthiest Trump Cabinet Secretary and her proximity to big corporate interests could make the Department of Education a prime target for private sector lobbying and profit-driven agendas at the expense of high-quality public education. In fact, only hours after her nomination was announced, the trade association representing the for-profit college industry—known for leaving many of the most vulnerable students with worthless degrees and mountains of debt—issued a glowing endorsement cheering her selection and boasting about how much they look forward to working together.
However, McMahon’s nomination should not be the only one raising red flags. President Trump’s decision to nominate Pam Bondi as Attorney General indicates the second Trump Administration will continue its tradition of prioritizing corporate interests and willfully ignore corruption at the expense of working families.
A Bondi-led Department of Justice risks entrenching corruption and further amplifying the influence of big corporations and political mega-donors over the rule of law. Bondi’s reported history of corruption came to light in 2016 during her tenure as Florida’s attorney general, where she illegally accepted a $25,000 donation from the Donald J. Trump Foundation as her office was considering joining a multi-state lawsuit against Trump University, an unaccredited scam accused of widespread fraud masquerading as an educational institution. Shortly after receiving the donation, Bondi’s office declined to join the case or even investigate the complaints submitted from residents of Florida who were being ripped off. Even after thousands of low-income, older Americans, and single mothers in particular were targeted and scammed into mountains of debt, Bondi chose to ignore their pleas for help and instead cozied up to Donald Trump.
The American people have every right to be concerned that McMahon and Bondi—at the helm of critical agencies tasked with ensuring all families have access to a quality public education and enforcing the law—will be more interested in enacting policies that benefit the rich and powerful.
Dangerous deregulation and privatization would make paying for college more expensive and risky for students and families
If confirmed, a Secretary McMahon and Attorney General Bondi could be a recipe for disaster for students and families trying to make the important decision of where to go and how to pay for college. McMahon’s proximity to the for-profit college industry, matched with Bondi’s history of failing to protect Americans from scam schools, could be the opportunity private companies have been waiting on to line their pockets and avoid accountability.
In fact, one of the few education issues McMahon has publicly supported is allowing already limited Pell Grant funds to flow to extra-short-term bootcamps and training programs—including those at for-profit schools and online EdTech companies known as Online Program Managers, which have already become one of the biggest abusers of federal financial aid programs. Data on these programs are already grim and show that graduates are left earning poverty-level wages. We have previously warned that opening up the Pell Grant program could lead to an influx of shady business-driven educational models that drive limited federal grant dollars into corporate coffers. At the same time, a Bondi-led Department of Justice would likely deprioritize enforcement actions against for-profit institutions, which could enable unscrupulous companies to exploit students and borrowers with no risk of accountability.
Making matters worse, Congressional leaders are actively considering proposals to repeal critical repayment plans that have made student loan payments more affordable for more than 8 million Americans, capping vital financial aid programs like the Pell Grant and eliminating loan programs that help working class families pay for college, and rolling back critical regulations that help provide justice for students who were defrauded by predatory colleges. Policies like these will make the process of paying for college and repaying student debt more risky and expensive—the opposite of what voters demanded in the recent election.
Personnel is policy. Nominees like Linda McMahon and Pam Bondi demonstrate that the Trump Administration and Republican leaders in Congress are more interested in padding the pockets of their richest friends and corporate donors at the expense of working families with student debt.
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Aissa Canchola Bañez is Policy Director at the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC). She brings a decade of experience in Congress, Executive Agencies and advocacy working to advance policy solutions to improve the lives of workers and families and create a more just and equitable society. Prior to joining the SBPC, she served as Deputy Chief of Staff and Legislative Director for Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) where she led the Congresswoman’s policy work, including efforts to protect borrowers and make student loan debt cancellation a reality.