Long before the issue of student debt dominated national headlines, the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) and the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) have been working to address the crushing weight of the student debt crisis. We both have a long and proud history of fighting for borrowers. In 2019, we shed light on the thousands of social workers and other public service workers who were falling through the cracks of the broken student loan system and pushed further away from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) relief they were entitled to under federal law. Our efforts led to the historic PSLF Waiver in 2021, which has helped nearly 876,000 public service workers finally achieve debt relief.
Cut to 2023, Sarah Butts, Director of Public Policy at the NASW, held a coveted seat at the negotiating table that informed President Biden’s “Plan B” effort to enact debt relief under the Higher Education Act. So far, the Administration has unveiled the details of a first set of proposals that would provide targeted relief to borrowers in certain circumstances, including:
- borrowers struggling with runaway interest,
- borrowers who have been in repayment for more than two decades, and
- borrowers who have missed out on relief they are eligible for due to administrative red tape; and
- borrowers who took on debt to attend low value schools.
Separately, thanks to pushes from us and our partners as well as negotiators to ensure that cancellation is provided to as many borrowers as possible, the Biden Administration announced plans for a bold second proposal focused on helping borrowers experiencing “hardship” that could benefit nearly 30 million student loan borrowers. The Biden Administration plans to release this hardship proposal separately in the coming months.
Together, NASW and SBPC urged student loan borrowers to weigh in during the U.S. Department of Education’s public comment period to tell the Biden Administration that its prospective student debt cancellation plan must be as GENEROUS, BROAD, and AUTOMATIC as possible. Through the help of partners at the Student Debt Crisis Center, we collected thousands of signatures on a petition and stories from student loan borrowers sharing how this historic relief would impact them. NASW submitted comments to the Department of Education, where we emphasized the importance of student loan debt relief for social workers, including removing barriers to accessing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. We emphasized that PSLF should be predicated on public service and not the tax status of employers.
Our joint work doesn't end there.
SBPC and NASW have been partnering on work to hold student loan servicers accountable. Last month, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Policy held a hearing on “MOHELA’s Performance as a Student Loan Servicer.” MOHELA is the servicer currently in charge of administering the PSLF program. A recent SBPC release, The MOHELA Papers, uncovered damning evidence of systemic failures at MOHELA.
NASW members, who are certainly not strangers to MOHELA’s servicing failures, showed up in force to the hearing and urged policymakers to hold MOHELA accountable. Persis Yu, SBPC’s Deputy Executive Director, and a forever social worker herself testified on MOHELA’s servicing mismanagement.
We are proud of our joint work fighting for a student loan system that works for millions of borrowers, including the dedicated social workers serving our communities across the country. We won’t stop until student debt relief becomes a reality for every borrower that needs it.