Access to affordable, high-quality higher education has been pivotal in creating pathways to the middle class through our history. Everyone has the right to pursue their dreams without being burdened by a lifetime of debt, and federal funding protects these pathways to the middle class regardless of someone’s ability to pay upfront or outright.
Congress is considering proposals that will strip critical funding from our colleges and universities in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, making a college education more unaffordable for all of us and completely unobtainable for some, just to give billionaires another handout.
If enacted, these policies will:
Make Taxes on Students and Their Families Go Up
❌ Eliminate tax breaks for 13.4 million students and families receiving relief through either the American Opportunity Tax Credit or the Lifetime Learning Credit.
❌ Increase taxes by $5.4 billion on students who have earned scholarships and grants, by including these as taxable income.
❌ Decrease deductions by $3.8 billion for middle-class families by eliminating the deduction for interest on student loans.
Increase Costs for Students and Their Families
❌ Take away options for income-driven repayment plans for 12.49 million borrowers; enrollees in the SAVE Plan will see payments increase by over $190 per month.
❌ Leave 5 million students without enough financial aid by cutting the amount of grants or loans available to help them afford college.
❌ Charge $1.8 billion in surplus fees for students to access the federal student loans they applied and qualified for.
❌ Limit access to Public Service Loan Forgiveness for 3.6 million borrowers who work full-time in public service for 10 years while making payments, including teachers, healthcare workers, military servicemembers and first responders.
Decrease Protections for Students and Their Families
❌ Force 609,750 families into private loans lacking consumer protections by eliminating Parent PLUS loans, meaning borrowers can be exploited with no way to fight back.
❌ End borrower defense relief for students who were scammed by predatory colleges, such as the 1.7 million defrauded students who’ve successfully recouped their losses.
❌ Remove safeguards against high-cost, low-quality career education programs that leave an estimated 700,000 students with unaffordable loan payments and no job prospects, by eliminating the gainful employment rule.