If the Trump Administration gets its way, America’s future student loan borrowers will be paying a lot more to finance college. As part of the deep proposed cuts to the U.S. Department of Education, the Trump Administration’s budget proposal calls for Congress to enact sweeping changes to the terms and conditions students first borrowing next July would have on their federal loans. This includes ending loans that do not accumulate interest for borrowers with financial need while they are enrolled, changing how much of their income borrowers must devote each month to their loan payments, and limiting student debt forgiveness options, including eliminating one for those who will work in public service.
The Trump Administration’s rationale for most of these student loan cuts is to make sure taxpayers are not on the hook for unreasonable levels of debt borrowed by upwardly mobile graduate students. Because these students can borrow greater amounts of federal debt than their undergraduate peers, the typical graduate student could both receive larger amounts of loan forgiveness and also a bigger reduction in their monthly payment.
The above excerpt was originally published in Democracy.
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