More than 60 Democratic lawmakers, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), urged Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Sunday to provide student debt relief to eligible borrowers and halt plans to transfer defaulted student-loan accounts to the Treasury Department.
The lawmakers called on the administration to cancel debt for borrowers who already qualify for existing federal relief programs, including Public Service Loan Forgiveness, Total and Permanent Disability discharge and borrower defense to repayment, Business Insider reported. They also requested faster processing of income-driven repayment applications.
The lawmakers said 7.7 million borrowers were in default at the end of 2025, while another 3 million were delinquent. They argued that recent student-loan policy changes could push more borrowers into financial distress.
“The Trump administration’s failure to meaningfully address the default crisis has raised Americans’ costs and tanked borrowers’ ability to access credit,” the lawmakers wrote, according to the report.
“It is unacceptable that debt cancellation that borrowers are legally entitled to has been delayed and denied,” they added.
Default Crisis
The lawmakers also asked the Education Department to extend its pause on involuntary collections for defaulted borrowers. They urged the administration to delay wage garnishment, benefit seizures and the planned transfer of defaulted student-loan accounts to the Treasury Department.
The request comes as repayment pressures continue to build across the federal student-loan system. Earlier data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed delinquent student-loan debt reached a record $171.4 billion in the first quarter of 2026, while millions of borrowers remained in default.
The Treasury transfer has already drawn scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers. Earlier this month, Warren welcomed a Government Accountability Office review of the administration’s plan to move student-loan default collections from the Department of Education to the Treasury Department.
July Changes
The push comes less than a month before major student-loan changes under President Donald Trump‘s One Big Beautiful Bill Act are scheduled to take effect on July 1.
Earlier reporting showed borrowers who take out new federal loans or consolidate existing debt after July 1 could face fewer repayment and loan-forgiveness options. More than 7 million borrowers are also expected to transition out of the Biden-era SAVE repayment plan following a federal court ruling earlier this year.
The administration has defended the changes. Nicholas Kent, the Education Department’s undersecretary, previously said the new policies “will ensure students continue to have the access that they need for federal student loans, while helping prevent borrowers from taking on unmanageable debt levels that they may never be able to repay.”
The lawmakers asked McMahon to provide details on the upcoming changes, including when involuntary collections could resume and the status of pending debt-relief applications.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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