AFT Sues U.S. Department of Education, Demands Justice for Student Loan Borrowers Blocked from Affordable Loan Payments

Last night, the 1.8 million-member AFT sued the United States Department of Education (ED) for effectively breaking the student loan system, denying borrowers’ access to affordable loan payments and blocking progress towards Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), in violation of federal law.

Three weeks ago, federal education officials eliminated access to income-driven repayment (IDR) plans—student loan repayment options that give millions of people the right to make loan payments they can afford—by removing the application form from ED’s website and secretly ordering student loan servicers to halt all processing. In addition to providing millions of borrowers with the ability to tie their monthly payment to their income and family size, IDR plans are the only way for public service workers to benefit from PSLF—a critical lifeline for teachers, nurses, first responders, and millions of other public service workers across the country.

“By effectively freezing the nation’s student loan system, the new administration seems intent on making life harder for working people, including for millions of borrowers who have taken on student debt so they can go to college,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “The former president tried to fix the system for 45 million Americans, but the new president is breaking it again.

“The AFT has fought tirelessly to make college more affordable by limiting student debt for public service workers and countless others—progress that’s now in jeopardy because of this illegal and immoral decision to deny borrowers their rights under the law,” continued Weingarten. “Today, we’re suing to restore access to the statutory programs that are an anchor for so many, and that cannot be simply stripped away by executive fiat.”

The new lawsuit, AFT v. U.S. Department of Education, was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. and seeks a court order to restore borrowers’ access to IDR and PSLF. The AFT is represented by the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) and Berger Montague PC.

A copy of AFT’s complaint in AFT v. U.S. Department of Education is available here:

https://protectborrowers.org/aft-v-u-s-department-of-education-lawsuit-complaint/

A fact sheet outlining AFT’s case against the U.S. Department of Education is available here:

https://protectborrowers.org/aft-v-u-s-department-of-education-lawsuit-fact-sheet/

“Student loan borrowers are desperate for help, struggling to keep up with spiking monthly payments in a sinking economy, all while President Trump plays politics with the student loan system,” said Mike Pierce, SBPC Executive Director. “Borrowers have a legal right to payments they can afford and today we are demanding that these rights are enforced by a federal judge.”

“Congress required that the Department of Education offer IDR plans and provide borrowers access to these plans,” said E. Michelle Drake, Executive Shareholder at Berger Montague PC. “We look forward to restoring borrowers’ access to these vital, necessary, and required programs.”

Background

The Trump Administration’s decision to block access to affordable student loan payments diverges from the longtime bipartisan consensus around the importance of IDR. In 1992, 1993, and again in 2007, Congress passed bipartisan higher education legislation creating and then expanding access to IDR plans. The 2007 College Cost Reduction and Access Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush, created an IDR option that has never been challenged in court and is not affected by any of the right-wing lawfare that has jeopardized other aspects of the student loan safety net. This option, known as Income-Based Repayment, was nonetheless halted by the Trump Administration when it decided to remove all IDR applications from ED’s website and issue the illegal February 2025 stop-work order.

ED claims the decision to remove all IDR applications is responsive to the 8th Circuit’s February 18th decision in the appeal of the preliminary injunction in the case challenging the Saving on a Valuable Education repayment plan (the SAVE plan), one of the IDR plans. The order—which was issued in an appeal of the lower court’s preliminary injunction of the SAVE plan and which expanded that earlier injunction—blocks millions of student loan borrowers from accessing lower monthly payments and cancellation under only the SAVE plan. However, ED’s choice to interpret the 8th Circuit’s decision in such a maximalist way has wreaked havoc on millions of borrowers and their families who are in desperate need of affordable monthly payments.

Prior to the Trump Administration’s decision to remove IDR applications and halt application processing, more than 1 million borrowers remained in a backlog waiting for their application to be processed. The Department has not provided any guidance to borrowers as to when applications will be restored and when borrowers can expect to see their payments lowered.