Education Department backlog leaves nearly 2 million student loan borrowers in limbo
Nearly 2 million federal student loan borrowers who've requested to be in an affordable repayment plan are stuck in a backlog of applications, waiting to be approved or denied, according to new data recently shared by the U.S. Department of Education.
The Education Department disclosed the information in a May 15 court filing in response to a legal challenge lodged by the American Federation of Teachers. The teachers' union sued the Trump administration in March for shutting down access to income-driven repayment plan applications on the Education Department's website.
IDR plans cap borrowers' monthly bills at a share of their discretionary income with the aim of making their payments manageable.
More from Personal Finance:House Republican bill calls for bigger child tax creditStudent loan borrowers in default may see 15% of Social Security benefit garnishedHow college savers can manage 529 plans in a turbulent market
In late March, the Trump administration made the online applications available again, and said that it pulled the forms because it needed to make sure all repayment plans complied with a court order that blocked the Biden administration's new IDR plan, known as SAVE, or the Saving on a Valuable Education plan.
Trump officials argued that the ruling had broader implications for other IDR plans, and it ended up removing the loan forgiveness component under some of the options.
The backlog complicates things for borrowers as the Trump administration restarts collection activity. The Education Department estimates that nearly 10 million people could be in default on their student loans within months.
Without access to an affordable repayment plan, student loan borrowers can be suspended on their timeline to loan forgiveness and at risk of falling behind and facing collection activity.
In the May court document, the Education Department disclosed that more than 1.98 million IDR applications remained pending as of the end of April. Only roughly 79,000 requests had been approved or denied during that month.
Consumer advocates slammed the findings.
"This filing confirms what borrowers have known for months: Their applications for loan relief have effectively been going into a void," said Winston Berkman-Breen, legal director at the Student Borrower Protection Center.
The Center said that if the Education Department continued to move at its current rate, it would take more than two years to process the existing applications.
AFT President Randi Weingarten called the backlog "outrageous and unacceptable."
"This is the opposite of government efficiency," Weingarten said. "Millions of borrowers are being denied their legal right to an affordable repayment option."
A spokesperson for the Education Dept. blamed the backlog on the Biden administration, saying that it "failed to process income-driven repayment applications for borrowers, artificially masking rising delinquency and default rates and promising illegal student loan forgiveness to win points with voters."
"The Trump Administration is actively working with federal student loan servicers and hopes to clear the Biden backlog over the next few months," they said.
The Biden administration put the student loan borrowers who'd enrolled in its new IDR plan, SAVE, into an interest-free forbearance while the GOP-led legal challenges to the program unfolded. Many of the currently pending IDR requests are likely from borrowers who are trying to leave that blocked plan to get into an available one.
Sarah Sattlemeyer, a project director at New America and senior advisor under the Biden administration, said that the current backlog began last year "and has existed across both the Biden and Trump administrations" as a result of the legal battle over the SAVE plan.
"It is a demonstration of how complicated the loan system is, how much uncertainty there has been over the last few years and what is at stake," Sattlemeyer said. "There also isn't clarity around how some applications in the backlog should or will be handled, such as those where a borrower chose an option that no longer exists on the application."
In recent months, the Trump administration has terminated around half of the Education Department's staff, including many of the people who helped assist borrowers.
That is also likely one reason why so many of the applications haven't been processed, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.
"Perhaps the reduction in staff is affecting their ability to process the forms," Kantrowitz said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Steel Stocks Soar After Trump's Bombshell Tariff Announcement
President Trump said tariffs on imported steel would go to 50% from 25%. That has investors excited early Monday.
Newsweek
26 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Donald Trump's Net Approval Positive on Only One Key Issue
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. President Donald Trump's net approval rating is negative on a range of issues except immigration, a new poll shows. According to political analyst and statistician Nate Silver, writing in his Silver Bulletin Substack, Trump has a net negative approval rating on trade, the economy and inflation but a slightly positive rating on immigration. Why It Matters Taking the temperature of the nation, approval ratings are good measures of the public's response to Trump's policies and his actions as president. In the first few months of his second term, Trump's popularity has fluctuated, with some polls more favorable than others. Sustained backlash to his policies could persuade the president to change his approach. Trump, who made immigration a central part of his campaign, has vowed to crack down on border security, carry out mass deportations and end federal benefits for people residing in the country illegally. President Donald Trump speaking with reporters in the rain after arriving on Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on May 30. President Donald Trump speaking with reporters in the rain after arriving on Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on May 30. AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson What To Know Silver aggregated dozens of recent polls and found that Trump's approval rating on immigration was +2.5 percent. The president did not fare as well on other issues, with a -9.5 percent approval rating on trade, -11.3 percent on the economy and -17.5 percent on inflation. May polling conducted by Verasight U.S. for Strength in Numbers found similar results, with Americans disapproving of the president's handling of all the policy areas they were asked about except border security. That poll also found that 49 percent disapproved of his immigration policy, while 47 percent approved. Overall, Silver found that when analyzing the polls, Trump had a -5.4 net approval rating. An RMG Research/Napolitan News poll, conducted between May 14 and 21 among 3,000 registered voters, showed Trump's approval rating at 48 percent, with 50 percent disapproving. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. Other polls have found a more positive response to the president. According to a recent Rasmussen survey, 53 percent of respondents said they approved of Trump, while 46 percent said they disapproved. What People Are Saying Scott Lucas, a professor in international politics at University College Dublin, previously cautioned against reading too much into any one poll, telling Newsweek: "Opinion polls have their own biases." President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on April 20: "We are, together, going to make America bigger, better, stronger, wealthier, healthier, and more religious, than it has ever been before!!!" What Happens Next The midterm elections, scheduled for November 2026, may offer a clearer indication of voters' attitudes toward the president's policies.
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Commentary: South Africa's visit to the US shows how diplomacy has changed
Diplomacy is an art that has often most effectively been practiced behind closed doors. But the 47th president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, has changed that. Diplomacy is now practiced in the full glare of the world's TV cameras and media, leaving very little room to wriggle — but an ocean of opportunity for disaster. The net effect has been a total recalibration of the practice of diplomacy, with May 21 being a perfect case in point when South African President Cyril Ramaphosa led his entourage to the White House. The fact that the meeting even took place was a triumph of old-school diplomacy given the unprecedented depths that the historic relationship between the two nations has plunged, especially since the advent of the 47th administration in January this year. There was massive trepidation back home in South Africa about just how this meeting would evolve, especially after the public dressing down that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was forced to endure in February. This time, the tactics were the same: The White House presented unvarnished beliefs about the situation in South Africa, which Trump has held very firmly, this time via a video pastiche. Ramaphosa's party was astutely selected, blending key political leaders, including organized labor, with officials, business leaders and golf champions, who were neither politicians nor administrators. It was an example once again of how much has changed in the last six months — and even beyond — in Africa and in the world. South Africa has moved from declaring itself neutral in the war in Ukraine to actively protecting Russia from censure to inviting Zelenskyy to a state visit in April. The U.S. has moved from actively, and sometimes unquestioningly, backing Kyiv and sanctioning Moscow to actively engaging with President Vladimir Putin rather than isolating him. Both countries' approaches seem poles apart and inherently contradictory — and yet they share very similar motivations and characteristics. Washington and Pretoria want the war to end, both are working hard to do just that and both are using nontraditional, sometimes disruptive, methods. The Black Sea Grain Initiative was the first seed in a bid to reap a harvest of peace. It was sown by an initiative under South Africa's leadership to get Ukraine and Russia — or their proxies — to a table. The first hoped-for outcome was to prevent Africans from starving after they were cut off from the breadbasket of Eastern Europe and the fertilizers produced there to grow their own crops. But the bigger prize was to forge swords into ploughshares because the geopolitical tensions of an increasingly volatile and multipolar world were playing out in African countries as they became substitute battlegrounds in the war for global influence. Private individuals, business leaders and philanthropists helped to bring the different parties together by leveraging their networks and stepping in where normal diplomatic channels had failed. The Black Sea Grain Initiative led to a previously unthinkable invitation: Pretoria offered to host Zelenskyy. Previously, Pretoria had earned Washington's ire for refusing to back a United Nations General Assembly resolution censuring Russia. The intervention of unorthodox players happened in Washington, too, as Ramaphosa sat in the Oval Office with Trump. It was no surprise that some at the meeting were golfers themselves, stepping in where diplomats and political leaders could not, to help drive through Pretoria's message. South Africa came to the U.S. to recalibrate a relationship that has been increasingly under threat for months; a growing ideological gulf in the majority party of its unity government has been a contributor. Coming to America forced a timely reappraisal of South Africa's issues, and in the process, the South African delegation did much to disabuse the U.S. administration of some of its most firmly held views. South Africa does have serious societal issues to contend with, including high levels of violent crime — and no one shied away from this problem, but white South Africans are not disproportionately affected by it. To properly address the issue is not a matter of being a supplicant who begs for international aid, but rather of building the economy, creating jobs and instilling hope in new generations of South Africans. To achieve that, the U.S. must be an active trade partner with South Africa — continuing with the current trade agreements and even boosting investment in the country, to everyone's benefit. There is no doubt that the recent meeting between U.S. and South African officials was an inflection point in Washington-Pretoria relations. Taking a cue from Trump, it was akin to sinking a 3-foot putt in the full glare of the cameras, which isn't an easy thing to do — and yet, I think the South Africans, together, might just have done it. _____ Ivor Ichikowitz is a South African-born global industrialist and African philanthropist. He chairs the Ichikowitz Family Foundation, which played a leading role in facilitating the talks that led to the Black Sea Grain Initiative. _____
