May 21, 2024

Warren, Sanders, and Colleagues Commend Biden on Historic Student Debt Relief Effort and Offer Feedback to Strengthen Proposal

“Student loan debt should never be a life sentence.”

Letter Text (PDF)

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) joined Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), and 12 fellow Democratic senators in submitting a public comment letter to Secretary Miguel Cardona of the U.S. Department of Education on President Biden’s proposal to reduce or eliminate federal student loans for tens of millions of borrowers. Published in the Federal Register in April of 2024, the new proposal comes after the Supreme Court blocked President Biden’s original student debt forgiveness plan last summer. The 30-day public comment period for the rule ended this past Friday at midnight.

The senators applauded President Biden’s continued efforts to address the student debt crisis including through this “historic” rule which would eliminate “crushing” student debt for millions of Americans across the country. They also provided feedback to strengthen the proposal and urged the Administration to execute the final debt relief plan as soon as possible.

“Access to higher education has long been touted as a pathway to the middle class, but the unfortunate truth is that, for generations of borrowers, the burden of student loan debt creates a roadblock to that reality,” the senators wrote. “We applaud the Biden Administration’s leadership on pursuing every possible avenue to deliver meaningful debt relief to borrowers. We must act boldly so that the tens of millions of Americans who are struggling to pay the rent, put food on the table, and pay for the basic necessities of life are not crushed by a mountain of debt for getting a college education.”

On the student debt relief rule being considered, the senators continued: “The proposed methods of discharges included in this rule are historic, and would undoubtedly eliminate the crushing student debt burden for borrowers who have long been waiting for needed relief. We recommend the Department build upon the plan to provide substantial financial relief to even more Americans. As such, we are providing a number of recommendations to strengthen this plan including:

  1. Eliminating all of the excess interest that has accrued over what a person originally borrowed, regardless of the repayment plan they are on or what their income is. Doing so will help millions of borrowers get off the never-ending treadmill of student loan repayment and help them make progress toward eliminating their debt. We also recommend full cancellation for those borrowers who have repaid enough to cover their original principal balance, regardless of income.
  2. Discharging debt for borrowers who have been in repayment for over two decades on a rolling basis, so no borrower has to delay or forego retirement because of their student loan debt. Student loan debt should never be a life sentence.
  3. Providing relief to borrowers who have been victims of servicing errors or misconduct.
  4. Providing debt relief to every eligible borrower automatically. No one should be delayed in getting the debt relief they are eligible to receive under this proposal because of a bureaucratic application process. 

“We understand the Department intends to release the proposed final rule for debt relief for borrowers experiencing economic hardship soon, and encourage the Department to release that proposed rule as quickly as possible. The economic hardship pathway has the potential to provide needed relief to borrowers not otherwise captured in this proposal. Every day spent without relief is another day borrowers experiencing economic hardship face unnecessary financial burdens,” the senators concluded.

The rule received more than 92,000 comments during the 30-day public comment period. The Biden Administration has said it aims to finalize the rule by this coming fall.

Additional cosigners include Senators Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

Senator Warren has led the fight to reform our higher education system, cancel student loan debt, and hold student loan servicers accountable: 

  • On May 9, 2024, Senator Warren led a growing coalition of Senators in a letter to the Department of Education (ED) urging the agency to hold student loan servicer MOHELA accountable for its failures.
  • On May 7, 2024, Senator Warren and 24 members of the U.S. Senate sent a letter to Senator Tammy Baldwin, Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, and Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, encouraging them to provide $2.7 billion in funding to the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) in fiscal year (FY) 2025.
  • On May 1, 2024, Senators Warren, Carper, Kaine, and Representative Don Davis (D-N.C.) called on the Department of Defense (DoD) to release data on the Postsecondary Education Complaint System (PECS), a centralized database to track complaints against schools who participate in the Tuition Assistance (TA) and My Career Advancement Account Scholarship (MyCAA) program.
  • In April 2024, Senator Warren led eight of her colleagues in sending a letter to David L. Yowan, President and Chief Executive Officer of student loan servicer Navient, urging the servicer to cancel decades-old private student loans pushed onto borrowers attending fraudulent, for-profit colleges.
  • In April 2024, Senators Warren, Blumenthal, Markey, and Van Hollen released a new report: Servicing Scandals: Student Loan Servicers’ Failures During Return to Repayment, which reveals a decades-long pattern of student loan servicer incompetence and misconduct that has affected millions of borrowers nationwide.
  • In April 2024, Senator Elizabeth Warren led a hearing on student loan servicer Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri (MOHELA) and its failures during borrowers’ return to repayment, including MOHELA’s mismanagement of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. 
  • In March 2024, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, along with U.S. Representatives Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), and John Larson (D-Conn.), led their colleagues in calling on the Social Security Administration (SSA), the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury), and the U.S. Department of Education to end the practice of offsetting Social Security benefits to pay off defaulted student loans. 
  • In February 2024, Senator Warren, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released a statement calling for an investigation into student loan mismanagement by MOHELA.
  • In January 2024, Senators Warren, Schumer, Sanders, Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), along with Representative Ayanna Pressley, Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), Representative Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), and Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), led their colleagues in calling on the Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona to host a fourth session of the student debt negotiated rulemaking to consider relief for borrowers experiencing financial hardship.
  • In December 2023, U.S. Senators Warren, Richard Blumenthal, Ed Markey,, and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) sent follow-up letters to student loan servicers – MOHELA, EdFinancial, Nelnet, and Maximus – raising concerns about borrowers’ problems with return to repayment, requesting information about the borrower experience, and pushing back on the servicers’ claim that budget shortfalls limit their ability provide quality customer service to millions of borrowers.
  • In December 2023, Senators Warren, Schumer, Sanders, Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Representatives Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, urging him to leverage his existing and full authority under the Higher Education Act to provide expanded student debt relief to working and middle-class borrowers.
  • In August 2023, Senator Warren, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senators Alex Padilla and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and U.S. Representatives Ilhan Omar, Jim Clyburn, and Frederica Wilson led 79 other lawmakers in a letter to President Joe Biden, urging him to swiftly deliver on his promise to deliver student debt cancellation to working and middle class families by early 2024.
  • In October 2022, Senator Warren and Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) visited communities across Massachusetts to celebrate the Biden administration’s student debt cancellation plan and help residents sign up for student loan relief. 
  • In October 2022, Senator Warren called on the Department of Education to hold for-profit colleges executives accountable for scamming students out of a quality education and loading them up with student debt.
  • Senator Warren, along with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Representatives Jayapal, Pressley, Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Katie Porter (D-Calif.) led more than 80 colleagues in a bicameral letter to the Department of Education calling for it to release the memo outlining the Biden administration’s legal authority to cancel federal student loan debt and immediately cancel up to $50,000 of debt for Federal student loan borrowers.
  • Senator Warren, along with Senator Markey and Representative Pressley, released a report that detailed the ongoing failures of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program for public servants in Massachusetts. 
  • In April 2021, Senators Warren and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) led a group of colleagues in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urging the Department of Education to take swift action to automatically remove all federally-held student loan borrowers from default.

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