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Elizabeth Warren, 60 Democrats Urge Trump To Cancel Student Debt For Eligible Borrowers Ahead Of July Cha
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 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.
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.
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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