NDC to Dept. Ed: Biased Regulations, Mass Loan Cancellation Are ‘Fundamentally Unfair’ to Veterans

Mass student loan cancellation policies implemented under President Biden and regulations targeted at career colleges and other non-traditional higher ed programs are “fundamentally unfair, especially to those that serve their nation,” NDC Executive Director Bob Carey testified last week.

On April 29 and May 1, the Department of Education held negotiated rulemaking hearings as it considers changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), Pay As You Earn (PAYE), and Income Contingent Repayment (ICR) regulations.

“Frankly, a lot of veterans feel like we are gomers for signing on for six more years [of military service] to earn GI education benefits, when we could have gone and gotten a big loan and had it forgiven,” Mr. Carey said.

“Forgiveness for anything other than fraud on the part of the educator or some significant problem by the Department of Education in issuing the loan is fundamentally wrong,” Mr. Carey added. “This is the same as forgiving someone’s car loan.”

Last month U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced that beginning on May 5 the Trump Administration would “end the Biden-era practice of zero-interest, zero-accountability forbearances” and “begin the process of moving roughly 1.8 million borrowers into repayment plans and restart collections of loans in default.”  

“Borrowing money and failing to pay it back isn’t a victimless offense,” Secretary McMahon wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “If borrowers don’t pay their debts to the government, taxpayers do.”

Regulations targeted exclusively at proprietary schools, including the 90/10, Gainful Employment, and the Financial Transparency rules, are “unnecessary” and undermine veterans’ and military personnel’s ability to choose education options that are right for them, Mr. Carey added.

“While I’m on active duty, America trusts its sons’ and daughters’ lives to me. But once I become a veteran, they no longer trust me to make my own decisions.” Mr. Carey, who is a doctoral candidate in an online program, pointed to his own experience. “I know what I’m getting into when I go to a non-traditional or online only school… For the Department of Education to try to figure out where I can and cannot go to school with my earned educational benefits is fundamentally wrong.”