Today, we will tell you about student loans. With the education department under threat, what can student loan borrowers do? Let’s get started:
With the education department under threat, what can student loan borrowers do?
President Donald Trump has vowed to take down the U.S. Education Department, which oversees federal student financial aid. There is a report that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team has gained access to financial aid records containing the personal data of many students within the federal program for student assistance.
These developments could raise alarms for students who are borrowers of loans. However, for the moment, it’s not necessary to make any drastic changes to your student loan.
“We have to engage in the process that currently exists…we don’t have any guidance that suggests we should be doing things in different ways,” says Wil Del Pilar, who is the senior vice president of EdTrust, which is an advocacy and research organization that works to eliminate the economic and racial barriers that exist within educational institutions across the American school system.
Education Department spokesperson Madison Biedermann did not comment on how Musk and DOGE have accessed an aid databank, according to The Washington Post. Biedermann directed NerdWallet to the Jan. 20 Executive Orde,r which allows DOGE teams to join Federal agencies in 30 days.
The borrower isn’t in control of the action that President Trump is trying to do with the student loan as well as their Education Department. However, you should take these steps today to be safe.
Download your loan information.
Spend a few minutes taking a take screenshot or downloading all of the information you have from your studentaid.gov account. A document trail of your loans and loan status will help you in the event of problems on the website of the Education Department or if your servicer commits an error.
“We have seen some data disappear from different [government] sites, and entire web pages kind of no longer exist,” Del Pilar declares. Nearly 8,000 federal websites have been removed in the last week, according to the New York Times.
For students, it can be “always a good practice anyway,” says Daniel Zibel, chief counsel and co-founder of Student Defense, a policy research advocacy and litigation organization that is aimed at protecting students and increasing access to higher education. “Just to play it safe and make sure that they have the documentation they may need down the road ….there’s no downside to going in and just making sure that you have sort of archived all of your information from the department.”
Screen captures of any item that proves your previous payments and the number of payments that are eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) or Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) forgiveness, Del Pilar says. Del Pilar. Print these out as soon as you can. They can be used to submit a pupil loan dispute in the event of any issues that your service provider fails to solve.
It is also recommended that borrowers save their full repayment history. To do that, you must click “My Aid” on the lower-right corner of the studentaid.gov dashboard. Then select”Download my aid data” in the bottom-right corner “Download My Aid Data” button located in the upper-right corner.
Here are a few more things you can download:
- Suppose you’re enrolled in one of the IDR plans. A new tracker for payments will be displayed on the right side of your dashboard in the module titled “IDR End of Payment Term.” From there, go to “View IDR Progress” for additional information.
- If you’re not currently enrolling with any IDR plan. You can click”view details” or click the “view details” button in the middle of your dashboard. You’ll be taken to an account page that contains the loan information. On the right side, there’s an option labeled “Interested in IDR Plans?” Click “Learn More” and scroll down. Tracker modules will explain the number of eligible payments you’ve made thus far and the number of payments you would be able to make under various IDR plans.
- Suppose you’re eligible to qualify for PSLF. Screenshot any details about the progress of your payments towards forgiveness with the government’s PSLF aid tool.
“Just as a buyer of any kind of financial product, you must be as knowledgeable as you can. Maintaining your records and comparing the information you access on the web portal provided by your service provider is probably the best way to go,” says Beth Akers, the senior fellow focusing on the academic and financial aspects of higher education at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank.
“That’s not necessarily because I believe that there’s any reason to think that this intervention that’s happening now is going to corrupt any data, but rather, just because I think that that’s good practice at any time,” she says.
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Update your passwords and track your credit.t
The specifics of DOGE’s access to financial aid data are not clear. However, it is possible to be careful.
“We don’t know what data has been accessed, and we don’t know with what intent,” claims Del Pilar. “I would suggest taking the steps you would take if there was a data breach that occurred for any account that you have.” (Education Department spokesperson Biedermann claims there was no “data breach” nor any concerns about a breach of data.)
On February. 7th On Feb. 7, Student Defense joined the University of California Student Association as well as the Public Citizen Litigation Group to suit the Department of Education Education Department for sharing confidential student information with DOGE. The suit alleges that the department has violated its obligations under the Privacy Act of 1974, which makes the unlawful disclosure and use of sensitive financial and personal data illegal.
Akers claims that previous presidents have appointed temporary government employees such as Musk and DOGE She also states she’s not worried about any security threats regarding student aid information from DOGE.
“The idea of government employees having access to this data seems appropriate to me,” Akers says.
However, to ensure your security, Del Pilar suggests changing your passwords on studentaid.gov as well as your student loan servicer’s account and observing your credit reports and your other accounts with financials for suspicious activity or credit inquiries. If you notice anything suspicious, “I would strongly recommend placing a security freeze or fraud alert on your credit reports,” Del Pilar says.
You can make payments as usual.
When your credit is good, you can continue paying your monthly installments when they are due and adhere to existing guidelines.
Don’t attempt to create an entirely new student loan repayment process because we don’t have a brand new method in place, Del Pilar says.
Programs for student loan forgiveness, such as PSLF or IDR forgiveness, are incorporated into law. Changing or eliminating them will need an act by Congress. Even though Trump has expressed his opposition to the forgiveness of loans, the programs have always been supported by both parties. Former President George W. Bush, who was a Republican, signed the PSLF into law in 2007.
But, the new relief programs that were enacted under former president Joe Biden are likely off the agenda, Akers says. This includes SAVE, the SAVE repayment program, The temporary PSLF waiver, and the one-time IDR-related waiver.
“I could sort of go back to the point you borrowed the money and how much you planned to repay at the time. That’s likely where we’ll go back,” she says.
Keep yourself informed and get assistance if you require it.
Your service provider must notify you of any significant changes to your loan conditions. Check that your contact information is current and up and current on your servicer’s student loan account.
If you require assistance with your student loan, begin by calling your service provider. If that doesn’t resolve the problem, Del Pilar suggests contacting the student loan ombudsman’s bureau or the attorney general of the state you live in.
Nonprofits that advocate for the rights of borrowers, like The National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project, The Student Borrower Protection Center, and The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, offer trustworthy information and assistance to borrowers.
(Historica, only when you had an important student loan issue, complaints are the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of EducatioStudent Loanloan Ombudsman Office also important sources. However, both of these government institutions are in danger.)
What’s net, what’s in store for what’s in store for the Education Department?
President Trump may make the Executive Order aimed against the Education Department in the coming days. However, he doesn’t hold the power to end the school.
“It’s certainly something that cannot be done without Congress, and any executive order to shut down the department would be unconstitutional, in our view,” Zibel adds. Zibel. Shutting down the department may adversely affect Pell Grants and other grants that are available to students of low-income and federal work-study programs, the repayment process for student loans process, and the capacity for students to obtain loans at all, Zibel says.
Even if you believe that the White House can’t shut down the department, it could attempt to rob it of funds and impede its ability to function, Del Pilar says.
If it is the case that the Education Department does shut down completely, the government will likely prioritize moving its Federal Student Aid office to the Treasury Department or the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Akers says.
As of now, it’s mostly business as usual with the student loan. Make financial decisions on your own based on the data available to you right now, not think about what could occur with the federal government.
“We don’t know what the administration is going to do,” Zibel states.
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