As Education Secretary Linda McMahon continues to threaten to restart involuntary debt collection against more than 9 million defaulted student loan borrowers, mounting evidence suggests the U.S. Department of Education (ED) may not have the data it needs to certify these debts for collection in the first place—a legal prerequisite the government cannot skip no matter which vendor is holding the file—raising major doubts that these debts are even legally collectable.
Protect Borrowers, Project on Predatory Student Lending, and The Debt Collection Lab at Princeton University sent a letter to Treasury Department Secretary Scott Bessent regarding concerns about certification in the federal student loan default portfolio. The letter demanded that the Treasury Department perform a full audit of the more than 9 million borrowers currently in default. Any borrower accounts that are incomplete or show evidence of errors should be deemed uncollectible and immediately removed from collection and cancelled.
Read the Letter: Letter to Secretary Bessent On Involuntary Student Debt Collection
Read the Blog: The Missing Data Behind the Default Cliff