Millions of student-loan borrowers are in default. Lawmakers want the Trump administration to keep more from falling deeper into trouble.
On Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Jeff Merkley, and Reps. Ayanna Pressley and André Carson, led over 60 of their Democratic colleagues in pushing Education Sec. Linda McMahon to provide student-debt relief to eligible borrowers.
They want the administration to cancel student debt for borrowers who qualified for relief under existing programs, including Public Service Loan Forgiveness, the Total and Permanent Disability discharge, and borrower defense to repayment, while also clearing the backlog of income-driven repayment applications.
Defaults are at a record high — 7.7 million borrowers were in default at the end of 2025, with another 3 million in delinquency. The lawmakers wrote that President Donald Trump’s sweeping student-loan changes, which include new repayment plans, the elimination of SAVE, and the planned transfer of defaulted accounts to the Treasury, could push more borrowers into default.
“The Trump administration’s failure to meaningfully address the default crisis has raised Americans’ costs and tanked borrowers’ ability to access credit,” the lawmakers wrote.
“It is unacceptable that debt cancellation that borrowers are legally entitled to has been delayed and denied,” they said.
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In January, the Department of Education paused involuntary collections for defaulted borrowers while preparing to implement its coming repayment changes. The Democratic lawmakers are also urging the department to extend the pause, holding off on wage garnishment and the seizure of federal benefits. The department is also preparing to transfer defaulted student-loan accounts to the Treasury, and the lawmakers said that the transfer should be stopped to continue relief for defaulted borrowers.
This push comes less than a month before Trump’s sweeping student-loan repayment overhaul will go into effect on July 1. Many borrowers are preparing for higher monthly payments, some hundreds of dollars more, due to the elimination of the SAVE plan, which would have allowed for cheaper payments and a shorter timeline to debt relief.
Nicholas Kent, the department’s undersecretary, said in a statement that the changes “will ensure students continue to have the access that they need for federal student loans, while helping prevent borrowers from taking on unmanageable debt levels that they may never be able to repay.”
The lawmakers asked that McMahon provide information on the coming changes, including when the department plans to resume involuntary collections and an update on the debt relief backlog.
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