AFT’s Weingarten on House GOP’s Cruel Plan to Bury Americans in Student Debt

WASHINGTON—AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement after today’s markup of a reconciliation bill in the House Education and Workforce Committee that would gut Pell grants, damage the U.S. economy and saddle individual borrowers with thousands of dollars in additional student debt payments each year:

“This bill takes a hatchet to American opportunity by slashing $330 billion in college affordability to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Most of us agree that we should be giving more opportunities to students, not ripping them away. This cruel and callous plan would increase individual costs for borrowers, while removing guardrails against predatory colleges hawking worthless degrees.

“Access to affordable, high-quality higher education has been crucial in paving pathways to the middle class. Everyone has the right to pursue their dreams without being burdened by a lifelong debt sentence, and federal funding is meant to protect these pathways, regardless of someone’s ability to pay upfront.

“Yet this bill would enact a suite of horrendous measures that, taken together, would make a college education far more expensive for all of us and completely out of reach for first-generation students and the least well-off, just to pad the pockets of the ultra-wealthy.

“And, as we head into a likely recession, fresh analysis released today by the Student Borrower Protection Center shows this bill will damage the U.S. economy to the tune of $40 billion a year by throttling demand for goods and services.

“This is not about people paying their student loans; they should, and we have sued the loan servicers repeatedly for turning the payment system into a minefield that few can navigate. This is about taking away people’s opportunity to get ahead.

“Let’s do more for all our kids—students who are going to college and young people who don’t go to college. Don’t try to balance the budget on the backs of middle-class, working-class and poor Americans who are only trying to help themselves and their families have a shot at a better life.”

This bill would:

• Leave 5 million students without enough financial aid to afford college, by intentionally leaving half of all students without what they need to afford college.
• Cut access to Pell grants, the foundational program helping low-income students afford college, which 6.6 million students use each year.
• Charge $1.8 billion in surplus fees to colleges for students to access the federal student loans they applied and qualified for—fees that are likely to be passed along to students in the form of higher costs or limited access.
• Take away the most affordable options for income-driven repayment plans that 12.49 million borrowers currently use—tripling the monthly payments for most of these borrowers. All at a time when an estimated 25 percent of borrowers will soon be in default on their student loans, and prices for everyday items like groceries are increasing.
• Force 425,824 students into private loans lacking consumer protections by eliminating Graduate PLUS loans, meaning borrowers can be exploited with no way to fight back.
• End borrower defense relief for students who were scammed by predatory colleges, such as the 1.7 million defrauded students who’ve successfully recouped their losses.
• Remove safeguards against high-cost, low-quality career education programs that leave an estimated 700,000 students with unaffordable loan payments and no job prospects, by eliminating the gainful employment rule.