A student-loan oversight wave is coming.
After Democrats gained control of both the House and Senate in the midterm elections, they began to release priorities for the next Congress. Oversight of the Trump administration’s actions was top of the list, including the Department of Education and its student-loan changes.
Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey said in a press conference ahead of the election that “we’re going to begin to have the hearings.”
“We’re going to begin to make this administration accountable, and Linda McMahon will sit there under oath beginning to answer questions about what is going on at this department because it is hurting right now millions of people across this country,” Markey said, referring to the education secretary. “They should just get prepared.”
The Trump administration has made clear that its goal is to dismantle the Department of Education. Since President Donald Trump took office, the department slashed its staff and reduced its oversight over student-loan servicers. At the same time, it rolled out a sweeping repayment overhaul that took effect in July. Borrowers have reported confusion and a range of errors, including inaccurate billing and stalled debt relief.
Aaron Ament, president of borrower advocacy and legal group Student Defense, told Business Insider that Democratic lawmakers have the opportunity “to conduct further oversight into everything,” including the transfer of millions of borrowers to new repayment plans with higher bills, restarting involuntary collections for defaulted loans, and the diminishing oversight over student-loan servicers.
“I think there’s a lot that they can do, and I think that you’ll see oversight ramped up pretty quickly,” Ament said.
An Education Department spokesperson told Business Insider that the Trump administration has “unlocked new, affordable higher education pathways for millions of American students, and demonstrated that Department functions can be delivered by other federal agency experts while more decision-making authority can be returned to parents, states, and local communities.”
The student-loan oversight outlook
Oversight would likely begin with hearings, Ament said. Democratic lawmakers can also subpoena Education Department documents regarding its student-loan administration. Lawmakers can use the Office of the Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office to investigate ongoing issues; it was the GAO that revealed the department had stopped monitoring servicers for call quality and accuracy.
Student Defense released an oversight “curriculum” that outlined a range of higher education issues Democratic lawmakers should address, including oversight over predatory colleges, mismanagement of loan forgiveness programs, and failures with transferring borrowers to new repayment plans. The curriculum included documents lawmakers should request, like servicer performance reports and Federal Student Aid staffing rosters.
Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute, wrote last month to expect education oversight “with a vengeance.”
He expects Democratic lawmakers will examine education cuts and the push to dismantle the Education Department, among other things.
“Fielding oversight requests would become a huge time-suck and distraction for the executive branch,” Hess wrote.
While Democrats were in the minority the past two years, they continued to push for student-loan oversight. Most recently, a group of more than 30 of them called on the Education Department to address “severe” issues with student-loan repayment and stalled debt relief. While Republican lawmakers were supportive of the administration’s repayment overhaul, some pushed for relief on interest rates; GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna called to cap rates at 2%, which Trump said he “might” support.
Oversight takes time; Ament said that while repayment errors could be addressed “fairly quickly,” other issues, like ensuring proper oversight over predatory schools, could take time. Still, Democrats have said they intend to bolster borrower protections and push back on Trump’s student-loan changes.
“We must lower the cost of a college degree and provide relief to those with student loan debt,” Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, who is seeking to lead the House education committee, wrote in a letter to her colleagues. She said that relief would include “loan forgiveness for students who have been preyed on by for-profit institutions.”
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