Teachers union leader responds to Education Department cuts
President of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten responded to Donald Trump’s Education Department cuts.
- The Trump administration is cutting about half of the U.S. Education Department’s workforce, including cuts in divisions that oversee federal student loans.
- There are over 900,000 student borrowers with $32.1 billion in student loan debt in Massachusetts.
- Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that the agency will continue to deliver funding mandated by law, which includes federal student loans.
President Donald Trump’s administration is cutting about half of the U.S. Education Department’s workforce, including cuts in divisions that oversee federal student loans, according to administration officials Tuesday.
The Education Department, among other things, oversees federal student loans held by nearly 43 million people, or one in six American adults, according to the Congressional Research Service.
There are over 900,000 student borrowers with $32.1 billion in student loan debt in Massachusetts, according to an October 2024 report by the Education Data Initiative.
A group of Democratic state attorneys general, co-led by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to block President Donald Trump‘s administration from dismantling the U.S. Department of Education and halt it from laying off roughly half of its staff.
But if Trump’s desired changes go through, what will happen to Massachusetts students’ loans and repayment plans?
What will happen to my loans if the education department is shut down?
If the department does fully shut down, student loans are not going away. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that the agency will continue to deliver funding mandated by law, which includes federal student loans.
Trump said they would most likely be overseen by a different federal agency.
Andrew Gillen, research fellow at the Cato Institute for Economic Freedom, told USA TODAY that students might not even notice.
“Where you mail your FAFSA, or repayment checks might change,” he said.
Will I lose my student aid?
Student borrowers with federal loans should not be afraid of losing aid they have already been granted.
Neither should they be afraid of terms and conditions of those loans changing, said Betsy Mayotte, president of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a Massachusetts-based organization that provides free loan advice nationally to 12,000 students annually.
For those who have qualified for federal aid calculated through the FAFSA form, or have received a Pell grant, loans are not on the chopping block, Mayotte said. Any changes would come only if Congress approves them and votes to approve a spending bill still being negotiated that won’t be created until April or May.
“Even if the loans were to move to a different agency, the terms and conditions would not change. This would not get rid of Public Service Loan Forgiveness programs (PSLF), for example. It would not change or privatize interest rates,” Mayotte said. That’s because those sorts of changes would not pass legal muster, she said.
She thinks there could be significant changes for future borrowers, but that it’s “way too early” to say for sure.
Without the Department of Education, who will oversee student loans?
Trump told reporters in the White House on March 6 that student loans would be brought under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Treasury, Department of Commerce, or the Small Business Administration (SBA).
“I don’t think the education [department] should be handling the loans. That’s not their business,” Trump said.
Trump said he thought it would make sense for the SBA to oversee student loans, while experts say moving loans under the Department of the Treasury would make for a more seamless transition.
“For a lot of the student loan repayment plans, you need income verification,” Gillen said. “Treasury already has that. So just from an administrative perspective, Treasury already has a lot of information that is necessary to implement the student loan programs.”
Gillen added the treasury department also already has the infrastructure to handle millions of new borrowers.
In addition to the attorneys general’s lawsuit, the American Federation of Teachers and other organizations representing students, parents, and teachers have condemned Trump’s plan to cut the department.
“This callous move will directly impact the 90% of students who attend public schools, by denying them the resources they need to thrive,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “We are urging Congress—and the courts—to step in to ensure all students can maintain access to a high-quality public education.”
