A lawsuit suit filed in federal court spells out in devastating detail how Education Secretary Betsy DeVos deliberately stymied public service workers from accessing a loan forgiveness program they are entitled to under federal law.
The landmark complaint, Weingarten v. DeVos, lays bare the gross mismanagement and out-and-out sabotage of the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program by DeVos and her Department of Education.
PSLF is a bipartisan loan forgiveness plan signed into law by President George W. Bush. It enables qualifying public service workers to discharge the balance on their loans after 10 years, potentially saving them tens of thousands of dollars.In unlawfully denying forgiveness, DeVos ignored a litany of lies and misdirection deployed by loan servicers under contract with and overseen by her department.
The suit is brought by eight members of AFT, the national union itself, and AFT President Randi Weingarten. Many AFT members organized their lives around the promise of loan forgiveness. Instead, they have been sentenced to crushing debt at the hands of DeVos, who has unlawfully deprived borrowers of their most basic due process rights.The United States is in the midst of a snowballing $1.6 trillion student debt crisis.
As of March 2019, less than 1 percent—518 individuals—of those applying for PSLF had received it, compared with more than 32 million American borrowers estimated to be repaying PSLF-eligible loans.
In June, AFSA President Ernest Logan wrote about the student loan debt crisis. "We (as school leaders) understand this problem better than most. To move ahead in our profession, we are always working on our advanced degrees; many of us borrow money to move ahead."