Murray Slams Senate Republicans for Voting to Support Trump Administration Rule to Politicize Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program

Senator Murray: "I will keep fighting to overturn this corrupt rule as soon as possible and protect PSLF for the people who rely on it."

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), released the following statement after Republicans voted to reject a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution Senator Murray introduced to overturn a final rule by the Trump Administration that politicizes and destabilizes the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program by allowing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to limit eligibility and disqualify certain public service employers-a clear attempt to intimidate and punish certain organizations.

"Today, Senate Republicans chose to stand with Donald Trump as he weaponizes the Department of Education and undermines the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program-turning their backs on Americans who serve their communities," said Senator Patty Murray. "This policy hands Secretary McMahon the power to decide which nonprofits are politically acceptable and strip eligibility from the rest-based on nothing more than a vague, made-up standard that invites her to target any organization Trump doesn't like. That's not how this program is supposed to work, and every American should be alarmed by it. Public servants who have devoted their careers to serving their neighbors deserve certainty that the federal government will honor its commitments-not politically motivated threats and broken promises. I will keep fighting to overturn this corrupt rule as soon as possible and protect PSLF for the people who rely on it."

The Trump Administration's new rule would undermine the intent of the program. Specifically, the Trump Administration's changes would:

• Politicize and destabilize the PSLF program, by allowing Secretary McMahon to limit eligibility based on a nonprofit's mission or perceived ideological alignment, making the program vulnerable to shifting political priorities under any future administration.
• Grant overly broad and subjective discretion to the Department of Education, by permitting disqualification of employers deemed to have a "substantial illegal purpose"-an undefined and subjective standard that invites arbitrary and inconsistent enforcement.
• Target marginalized communities and the nonprofits that serve them.
• Discourage public service careers and weaken the nonprofit workforce.

As a senior member and former chair of the HELP Committee, Senator Murray has helped lead the charge to make the student loan system work better for students and families and lower the cost of college. She has fought to fix the PSLF program so that it works for borrowers and actually gets relief to public servants who have earned it. The program was created in 2007 under President Bush. Under Trump's first administration, nearly 99% of all applications for PSLF were rejected-denying borrowers relief they were entitled to. At the end of the first Trump Administration, only 7,000 borrowers had received student loan debt relief through PSLF. Senator Murray urged the Biden-Harris administration to take a series of steps to fix the broken student loan system-including by fixing the issues with PSLF that impacted public servant relief. Murray worked closely with the Biden-Harris Administration to fix these implementation problems and during the Biden-Harris Administration, over one million student loan borrowers had their loan balances forgiven through PSLF.

###