US President Donald Trump signed an executive order, limiting the eligibility of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.
This program forgives student loans for some professions like those of teachers, healthcare workers, and police officers after 10 years of qualifying payments, according to a Business Insider report.
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As many as 2 million borrowers were part of the program as of December 2024, according to the report.
Trump's order said that organisations engaging in “activities that advance illegal immigration, terrorism, child abuse, discrimination, and public disruptions” would be barred from the program.
“The PSLF Program also 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 non-profit designation and degrade our national interest,” the report quoted the order as saying.
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{{/usCountry}}What's more is that the order directs the new education secretary, Linda McMahon, to redefine what "public service" is.
In response, Aaron Ament, the president of borrower protection group Student Defense, said in a statement that PSLF was created by a “bipartisan act of Congress” and “Americans have worked hard and made life decisions under the assumption that the US keeps its word,” according to the report.
Such advocacy groups may even take the administration to court.
Trump has targeted the PSLF even during his first term, suggesting to eliminate it altogether, though this didn't happen since it needed an act of Congress and support to do so.
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The reasoning back then was when the education department re=an a backlog of PSLF applications.
However, the previous Biden administration introduced a limited-time waiver to allow borrowers' past payments, including the ineligible for PSLF ones, to be counted as eligible, to address the backlog, the report read.