- Trump signed an executive order aimed at limiting eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
- Trump said the order would restrict employers engaging in “anti-American” activities from participating.
- Millions of government and nonprofit workers rely on PSLF for student-debt relief.
President Donald Trump’s latest executive order took on a major student-loan forgiveness program in the administration’s latest attack on workers in government and nonprofits.
On Friday, Trump signed an executive order aimed at limiting eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which forgives student debt for workers like teachers, healthcare workers and police officers after 10 years of qualifying payments.
The order’s incendiary rhetoric said that organizations engaging in “activities that advance illegal immigration, terrorism, child abuse, discrimination, and public disruptions” would be barred from the loan forgiveness program.
“The PSLF Program also creates perverse incentives that can increase the cost of tuition, can load students in low-need majors with unsustainable debt, and may push students into organizations that hide under the umbrella of a non-profit designation and degrade our national interest,” the order said.
It’s unclear what organizations the Trump administration intends to accuse of these “anti-American” activities. This comes as the administration carries out mass layoffs of federal workers. The order directed Linda McMahon, Trump’s new education secretary, to redefine what “public service” is to align with the administration’s political views. Student-loan borrower advocates say they’ll take the administration to court if they follow through on this order.
According to the latest Education Department data, over 2 million borrowers were enrolled in PSLF with eligible employers as of December 2024.
This isn’t the first time Trump has targeted PSLF. During his first term, his Department of Education ran up a backlog of PSLF applications. He has also previously suggested eliminating the program altogether. Doing so would require an act of Congress, and there has yet to be sufficient support to eliminate the program.
To address the backlog of PSLF applications and paperwork issues with the program, former President Joe Biden’s Education Department introduced a limited-time waiver to allow borrowers’ past payments — including those previously deemed ineligible for PSLF — to count toward their forgiveness progress.
Biden also carried out targeted relief for PSLF borrowers under one-time account adjustments in an effort to bring payments up-to-date. In his final weeks in office, he announced $465 million in debt cancellation for 6,100 borrowers enrolled in PSLF.
Amid Trump’s efforts to limit the program, McMahon said during her confirmation hearing that she would honor the program as Congress intended.
She added: “If we want stronger or more programs for loan forgiveness, then I think Congress should pass those programs, and then we would implement it.”
Some advocacy groups criticized the executive order. Aaron Ament, president of borrower protection group Student Defense, said in a statement that PSLF was created by a “bipartisan act of Congress” and “Americans have worked hard and made life decisions under the assumption that the US keeps its word.”
“Threatening to punish hardworking Americans for their employers’ perceived political views is about as flagrant a violation of the First Amendment as you can imagine,” Ament said. “If the Trump Administration follows through on this threat, they can plan to see us in court.”
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