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.
Take Action
Write a Letter to Congress: Everyone deserves access to higher education
Congress is considering proposals that will strip critical funding from our colleges and universities 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:
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 their payments triple.
❌ 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.
❌ Cut access to Pell Grants, which 6.6 million low-income students use to help pay for college.
Decrease Protections for Students and Their Families
❌ Force 425,824 students into private loans lacking consumer protections by eliminating grad 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.
PSLF / Loan Forgiveness
Public Service Loan Forgiveness is a federal program for people who work full time in the public sector or for certain nonprofit organizations. It can lead to borrowers having their remaining federal student loan balance forgiven after 120 qualifying payments. Almost every AFT member is eligible for this program! Learn more and register for an upcoming AFT student debt clinic at aft.org/pslf
Press Releases
- 03/19/25: AFT Sues U.S. Department of Education, Demands Justice for Student Loan Borrowers Blocked from Affordable Loan Payments
- 01/13/25: AFT’s Weingarten on President Biden’s Approval of Student Debt Relief for 5 Million Borrowers
- 07/22/24: Embattled Student Loan Servicing Giant MOHELA Hit with Groundbreaking Consumer Protection Lawsuit for Failing 8 Million Student Borrowers