The Department of Education under President Joe Biden loosened requirements for a student loan program specifically for public servants and nonprofit employees a few months after unions that stood to benefit from the change sent a letter to then-Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
The watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust, which obtained the letter via a Freedom of Information Act request, faulted the unions for self-dealing when they demanded the Biden administration cancel the student loan debt of all public sector and nonprofit workers who completed 10 or more years of service, leaving taxpayers to pay off the balances. The revelation comes as the Department of Education under President Donald Trump is revising the program to root out alleged abuses.
The unions defended their move as keeping in line with the goal of the legislation that created the loan program. Either way, the letter arguably demonstrates unions’ large degree of influence in the Biden administration.
“These unions were lobbying for a direct financial benefit for their members at the expense of the American public,” Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust, told The Daily Signal in a statement Monday.
“By adopting the position the unions advocated for in this letter and loosening the restrictions on the PSLF [Public Service Loan Forgiveness program], which it appears they eventually did, the Biden administration’s Department of Education transferred the loan balances of millions of members of these unions to taxpayers,” he added. “This was an utterly self-serving request couched in the language of altruism and fairness.”
“When the big school unions created the U.S. Department of Education, it wasn’t because they didn’t expect something in return,” Betsy DeVos, who led the department in Trump’s first term, told The Daily Signal. “The payoffs will continue until the department is closed.”
The National Education Association; the American Federation of Government Employees; the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; the Service Employees International Union; the union representing employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; and others signed the letter on April 1, 2021.
“The undersigned unions, representing more than 10 million public service workers, urge you to take immediate action to cancel the student loan debt of all public sector workers who have completed a decade or more of service,” the letter stated.
The letter cited the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, which established a program to cancel remaining student loans for certain workers—government employees; members of the military; those in public health; and those who work for nonprofits under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code—who had been paying their loans for 10 years.
The letter claimed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program should have covered more government and nonprofit employees and claimed that DeVos had mismanaged it. Between 2017, when the first public service workers became eligible for the program, and 2021, only 5,500 borrowers had their loans erased.
In October 2021, during the Biden administration, Cardona relaxed the rules for program, moving more than 550,000 borrowers closer to forgiveness, The Associated Press reported.
Trump signed an executive order in March, accusing the previous administration of abusing the loan forgiveness program “to pay off loans for employees still years away from the statutorily required number of payments.” He also claimed the department “misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest but actually harm our national security and American values.”
Finally, he claimed the program “creates perverse incentives that can increase the cost of tuition, can load students in low-need majors with unsustainable debt, and may push students into organizations that hide under the umbrella of a nonprofit designation and degrade our national interest.”
Trump then directed the program to exclude nonprofit organizations that he claimed break the law by promoting violations of federal immigration law, supporting terrorism, backing experimental medical interventions on children in the name of “gender-affirming care,” aiding and abetting illegal discrimination, and more.
On Monday, the Department of Education announced its intent to establish a rulemaking committee to prepare regulations for federal student aid programs, including the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. It is asking the public to nominate negotiators for the process.
“President Trump’s executive order will restore the PSLF program to its statutory basis and not allow PSLF to fund anti-American activists,” a department spokeswoman told The Daily Signal in a statement Monday. “The executive order is narrow in its purpose to ensure certain nonprofits do not inappropriately qualify for PSLF but does not direct other changes to the program. The department is reviewing the executive order and will ensure the program is managed effectively for those it is intended to serve.”
Supporters of the relaxed rules claim that erasing student debt helps promote education and assists the less fortunate. Critics argue that “forgiving” student loans props up bloated left-leaning universities while taking money from taxpayers to subsidize those fortunate enough to go to college.
One of the unions that sent the letter defended its request to Cardona as being in line with the law’s original purpose.
“Congress passed and President [George W.] Bush signed into law Public Service Loan Forgiveness with the explicit purpose of encouraging Americans to enter careers in public service, including in the federal government,” a representative for union representing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau told The Daily Signal. “There is no hidden agenda.”
Hidden or not, the unions’ letter confirms the basic premise of my book “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.” My book traces how a system of left-leaning nonprofits—including many of the unions that signed the letter—sent staff and ideas into the Biden administration, shaping federal policy in a direction critics would describe as “woke.”
Cardona did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.
The National Education Association; the American Federation of Government Employees; the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; and the Service Employees International Union did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Tyler O’Neil is senior editor at The Daily Signal and the author of two books: “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” and “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.”
Reprinted with Permission from The Daily Signal – By Tyler O’Neil
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
It took me 20 years to pay off my student loans. Why should anyone have their loans wiped out?
YOU TAKE OUT A LOAN, YOU SIGN UP TO PAY IT OFF!!!!
Yes shut them down
Should never had been put into existence in the the first place Will it be held responsible for the damage it had caused, not to mention billions sucked out of taxpayer
The Department of Education taking us from first to worst in education world wide… Jimmy Carter’s bribe for the teacher vote haunts us all…
The department of education has absolutely nothing to do with education. Is strictly a money laundering scheme for the Democrat party and a slush fund. Close it!
I am not surprised that G. W. Bush signed such a monstrosity into law, he being a globalist and all. All of the Bush’s are globalists, which places them at odds with the constitutionally guaranteed individual rights and freedoms of this nation.
G. H. W. Bush was accountable for the wanton execution of Vicki Weaver and Sammy Weaver at the hands of federal law enforcement officers at the Ruby Ridge debacle in 1992. Following this murder of innocents the FBI snipers were referred to as ‘jack booted thugs’. G. H. W. Bush took exception to this terminology and resigned his life membership in the NRA as a lasting ‘poke in the eye with a sharp stick move’ aimed at the individual rights loving people of this nation.
In that context any law which grows government at the expense of the tax paying working person is what they will push. The PSLF is proof of what I say.
Betsy DeVos and Tyler O’neil are right in their synopsis of what is going on with these hard left wing, public money stealing unions, et al. And Donald Trump is right in putting a stop to it!
Key words I am getting out of this article, which in itself, just proved anther con/pro of union’s view of its membership, was that emphasis on !0 years of service, which again can be qualified by the union to mean when the employee was tenured not start dated of hire, which has always been a point of argument when discussed by the membership–that purposely delayed acknowledgement until one has paid those initiation fees and the dates of when the “claimed union benefits start”. I am using my membership in my unions as an example because Found out after being forced out of work 18 months before my FRA, I had to wait 6 months to get my pensions which ere pro-rated because I didn’t have 35 years, working despite having met the age requirement (60), so I had to wait fr their next quarterly accounting period closest to my request which gave me a wait of 6 months before the first check was issued. What’s funny about this is that I had to send them a month’s worth of payments of union dues to start this process and yearly I have to send in a notarized statement that I am still alive to keep receiving my pension, which is a pittance amount compared to my salary while working. Union admisntration has become their own worst version of elitism.
Unions have long outlived their initial purpose and need to be shut down. They are nothing but a pool for DemoKKKRAT vote harvesting, “job security” and a safety net for the stupid, the lazy, the incompetent, the DEI hires and “persecuted minorities” who are extremely difficult for an employer to fire for ANY cause.
I paid for my college. Can I get them to finish paying off my mortgage? Seems fair.
I became disabled, but I payed off my loans. Why because I’m the one who took out the loans. Needing help is one thing but loan forgiveness? People need to fully understand what they are in for, for the long haul. They need to know exactly what they are responsible for.
Why would I be willing to finance some stranger’s college education when I did NOT go to college because I couldn’t afford it. Instead, I went into the military as was required – unless you went to college. I went to work later and in truth, have been paying taxes since 1960. And so much of that money was poured into trash! So, as is often the case, the rich do not have to serve their nation – just the poor. Now, I am to pay for everyone who would rather enjoy a “higher education” than earn a living. No way! You pay your way!
These loan forgiveness was created with good intention, later corrupted by Unions, I have seen where Unions demands eventually cut down the benefits for the employees!
Of course nobody responded to this. They have been caught in a large fraudulent program to take taxpayer money to funnel to the union members. This was a big pot of money to keep their Union members loyalty. And fight MAGA and Trump at every turn. That is why they hate DOGE. How much money has been allocated to certain causes but never arrived. Somewhere between the Treasury and the organization the money was destined to receive it was lost. How did this happen? Because there was no oversight. They have cabinet secretaries before their committees every 5 minutes. But never the organizations that have swindled our tax money for decades. Trump is touching all bases where fraud, waste and abuse has been found and the dems are getting scared so they start uprisings, in the form of demonstrations, attacking federal buildings, assisting illegals from ICE. All illegal acts. Only not in the book of laws according to the dems. Justice Alito said today a very large truth. “I do not want to impugn district judges but often they are wrong”. In a nice way he was saying these judges are making laws on their own not following what’s on the books. That is why the Dept of Education needs to go. The money should be going directly to the states. The people in each state can keep an eye on the spending of that money. If it gets diverted to special interest will be detected much sooner than in the federal govt.The Grand Canyon of fraud, waste and abuse.
Public sector unions are the enemy of the taxpayer. Only people on the public payroll would think otherwise. If you’re on the public payroll, you don’t pay taxes. The money is only transferred from one government pocket to another different one. The whole thing’s a scam! Only the private sector pay taxes. Everybody else is a freeloader.
I’m shocked that teachers are just as big of pirates as the drug cartels, although sans the blood letting.
SHUT DOE DOWN AND PASS VOUCHERS.EVERYONE (MAJORITY) SPOKE 2024.
They can go into the military and get the GI Bill.
You made the loan, you pay thr loan. No if and or buts. It is 100% the students responsability.
Put an end to the unions, they have become to big and corrupt! The unions have become infiltrated by Socialist, Marxist, Muslim/Hamas Communist!
How can I get the money back with interest, that I paid to go to a University. If I had known that these college loans would have been forgiven, I wouldn’t have had to work my way through college.
These people are total losers! And they know it, that’s why they want working people to pay for their ( can’t even call it an education)
I would not have been able to finish college without a couple of loans. I can sleep well today knowing that I paid them all off. Anyone accepting “forgiveness” of them is guilty of legalized plunder (The Law by Fredric Bastiat)
When did going to college get so expensive that students HAD to take out long term loans to attend? I did not go to college by choice because I did not wish to pursue a career that required a degree. In the 1950s I knew some people who did go to college, but they had the real need for higher education. All three of them WORKED their way through college without being saddled with debt. Two became doctors and the third a geologist who worked in the oil industry. How many people have and still go to college and never use the education in the field of study they undertook? Look at the $$$ scam many universities use to get government money enrolling unqualified “students” into athletic programs, “graduating” people who are no more highly educated than I am, but go on to professional sports careers earning huge salaries that real useful degree holders cannot hope to match.
Silly me, I never took out a student loan; my parents were not rich. So, I did something like work and took classes at night.
If you borrow money, you must pay back what you borrow, isn’t that a novel idea?
The formation of the Department of Education was a bribe to the teacher’s unions for their vote…. They have been screwing us since 1980 and plummeting our educational standing in the world from 1st to 37th and ignoring the faculties with groomers, pedophiles and deviants…
The greatest benefit to our nation and all the American people would be to eliminate teacher unions altogether. After all, the teachers work for the American people. NOT for themselves and their own parochial interests. NOT for unions and their dysfunctional effects on our society. And NOT for ANY other group(s) with a dysfunctional or dystopian ideology, agenda or mindset that distorts the true purpose of education. Teachers are there to serve us, TEACH OUR CHILDREN and to EDUCATE THEM TO THINK CRITICLLY — PERIOD!
Peanut created the Dept. of Education to reward the teachers’ union which were [are?] the largest single supporter of the DIMM party! A large percentage of DIMM delegates always come from the NEA and AFT.
Why should the American taxpayers have to foot the bill for government employees that took on the debt in the first place? Here’s a thought, let the ridiculously overpriced universities forgive the debt as a public service.
I got mine from the army only took me 20yrs of service but the taxpayer didn’t have to pay for it.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is a joke. I work 23 years as a Federal Employee in a job that was eligible for the program. I applied several times and was never accepted. None of my Co-Workers were ever accepted either.
What an injustice we should have left paid for cost of this program!
Close the Dept of Education……the sooner the better. It’s been a total failure and a tremendous waste of taxpayers money!
It’s no wonder the Democrats are so popular, they are buying votes “Left and Right”. There are more people that are invested in “the gravy train” than not.
The paying public is MAD about this!!! At least this is a START to cleaning the MESS that Dems have made! I’m GLAD for as many ‘inroads’ as Trump can DO to set things ‘right’ in America!
Why didn’t Betsey DeVoss disband the Department of Education during Trump’s first term if it was this seedy? Look at the money we’ve wasted! Is there any effort being made to get these “loans” paid back?
I wonder why and how many European countries pay for the higher education of their people and see it as a good move for their country? The US can be so selfich when it comes to helping and treating all people as equals. We should be proud of the educational character of our people and reward those who serve, Judith Kerr