With Trump’s win, student debt relief is in question. Here’s what to know.

President Joe Biden made student loan forgiveness a central issue to his administration, rolling out efforts to forgive debt as well as to lower repayments for millions of borrowers. But with President-elect Donald Trump returning to the White House in January, the future of those efforts is now in question. 

During the presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump described Mr. Biden’s efforts to forgive student borrowers as “a total catastrophe.” While he hasn’t explicitly addressed his plans for student loans, he’s called for eliminating the Department of Education, which manages the $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio. 

It’s unclear which agency or group would manage those loans if the Education Department were to be eliminated, a step that would require approval from Congress. The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s plans for student debt relief. 

There’s a lot on the line for the 46 million Americans who hold $1.7 trillion in student loans, a financial burden that about half of borrowers say has impacted their life choices, delaying home purchases or starting their families, according to a 2021 Morning Consult study. Mr. Biden’s term is drawing to an end with two of his key relief efforts tied up in the courts, adding to the uncertainty about what Trump’s second presidency will mean for those plans. 

“We know what is in Project 2025, and we know what we saw in the first Trump administration,” Persis Yu, managing counsel for the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group for people with student loans. “We just should be very concerned about what the next administration will mean for borrowers.”

The next Trump administration may be unlikely to continue the Biden administration’s effort to fight against ongoing lawsuits targeting current student debt relief efforts, according to NerdWallet lending expert Kate Wood in an email. That could mean an end to those programs, experts say. 

“Programs that the Biden administration created or expanded access to via regulatory changes could be easily rolled back,” she added. 

What has Trump said about student loan relief?

During his September debate with Vice President Kamala Harris,Trump bashed the Biden administration’s efforts.

“When they said they’re going to get student loans terminated and it ended up being a total catastrophe. He went out, got rejected again by the Supreme Court,” Trump said, referring to the high court’s 2023 decision that blocked Mr. Biden’s initial student loan forgiveness program, which would have provided up to $20,000 in relief per borrower.

“So all these students got taunted with this whole thing about — this whole idea. And how unfair that would have been. Part of the reason they lost,” he added.

What does Project 2025 say about student loans?

Project 2025 — an initiative overseen by the conservative Heritage Foundation to guide the next Republican president in an overhaul of the executive branch — calls for the abolishment of the Department of Education, and says student loans should be handled by the private sector. It also advocates for scuttling student loan relief.

“The new administration must end the practice of acting like the federal student loan portfolio is a campaign fund to curry political support and votes,” Project 2025 says. “The new administration must end abuses in the loan forgiveness programs. Borrowers should be expected to repay their loans.”

It’s unclear whether Trump agrees with those views, although he has called for an end to the Education Department. While on the campaign trail, Trump distanced himself from Project 2025, calling some of the proposals “abysmal.” 

What is the status of Biden’s student loan relief plans?

Currently, there are two student loan relief plans that are tied up in court, both of which are being challenged by Republican-led states.

The Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan, is an income-driven repayment program, which pegs a borrower’s monthly payment to their income, lowering their financial costs. Some lower-income borrowers in SAVE have monthly payments of $0.

The plan’s 8 million enrollees are now in limbo, however, after court rulings blocked the Biden administration from implementing the plan. Currently, those borrowers are in forbearance through April, meaning that their loans are essentially paused while the Biden administration defends the plan in court. 

Separately, another Biden administration plan to use the Higher Education Act to erase all or some of the student debt held by 30 million borrowers has also hit a legal roadblock, with a court putting that plan on hold in October.

In the latter case, the Republican states argued that Mr. Biden’s plan sought to “unlawfully mass cancel up to hundreds of billions of dollars in student loans.” The Education Department vowed to defend both plans.

What could happen to these programs under Trump? 

Bob Eitel, who served during the first Trump administration as a senior counselor to the education secretary, said he expects the president-elect will move to rescind the proposed loan cancellation regulations.

“The Trump administration may pursue different avenues of loan relief, but it will not be the mass, blanket types of forgiveness that the current administration has pursued,” said Eitel, president and co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies.

Some other student loan relief programs may remain, such as the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which would be tougher to eliminate but could become less accessible, said NerdWallet’s Wood. 

That program, which was signed into law by former President George W. Bush in 2007, forgives student debt for public workers like teachers and police officers after 10 years in repayment. The Biden administration reworked the PSLF to make it easier for people to qualify for forgiveness, after the vast majority of people who applied were told they were ineligible. 

During Trump’s first term, the Education Department was overseen by Betsy DeVos, who promoted school choice in K-12 and also called for deep spending cuts. She also proposed ending the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, although she was unsuccessful. 

Do Americans support student loan relief? 

It’s a divisive issue among voters, with people’s views colored by their political leanings and whether they themselves have student debt, according to an AP-Norc poll published in June.

Only 15% of Republicans believe student loan forgiveness is important, versus 58% of Democrats. More than half of people currently paying student loans say it’s an important issue, versus one-third of those with no experience with student debt, the poll found. 

Republicans have objected to Mr. Biden’s efforts because they could deprive some lenders of revenue, while some object to forgiving loans for people who enrolled in college, given that a minority of Americans have college degrees. 

The Biden administration is “saddling working Americans with Ivy League debt,” said Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey in a September statement. 

The Associated Press

contributed to this report.