Press Releases

Washington, DC—May 20, 2024…Congressman Steve Womack (R-AR) joined Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and 128 Members of Congress in sending a bicameral letter to Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urging the Department to withdraw its latest attempt to transfer student loan debt onto American taxpayers. The Department’s proposed rule will cost hardworking Americans an additional $147 billion and bring the total student loan debt transferred to taxpayers to as much as $1 trillion.

In the letter, the Members write: “The latest Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) proposed by your Department of Education (Department) on April 17, 2024, represents the latest in a string of reckless attempts to transfer as much as $1 trillion of student loan debt from those who willingly borrowed to those who did not or have already repaid their loans. We strongly urge you to withdraw it. … This is even broader than the Department’s first attempt: at an estimated price tag of $147 billion, taxpayers are being forced to take on the debt of nearly 28 million borrowers.”
 
The Members continue: “In addition to the fiscally irresponsible nature of this backdoor attempt to enact ‘free’ college, the administration continues to use borrowers as political pawns knowing full well these proposed actions are illegal. The Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that there is zero authority to write-off federal student loans en masse last June when the Department’s ‘Plan A’ was ruled unconstitutional. … ‘Plan B’ hinges on creating these extensive regulations based on scant statutory text written in 1965. … This statute has no history of broad use by any previous Secretary and was previously deemed by this administration as less likely to hold up in court than ‘Plan A.’”

The letter concludes: “Instead of exacerbating the problems of inflated college costs and low-value degrees, we urge you to withdraw this NPRM and work with Congress. It is past time that we fix our nation’s broken higher education financing system.”

To read the full letter, click here.