Republicans Endorse $351 Billion in Education Cuts

Last week, House Education and Workforce Committee (EWC) Republicans pushed through over $350 billion in funding cuts for programs that Americans rely on to pay for education at every level, paving the way for tax cuts for themselves, billionaire donors, and corporations. New analysis from Accountable.US revealed today that EWC Republicans endorsed broad-cuts, including diminishing available student aid, repealing Biden-era student loan forgiveness for borrowers misled by predatory institutions, and slashing Pell Grants.

“To pay for tax cuts for the richest in this country, congressional Republicans are willing to gut the programs tens of millions of Americans rely on. Their education markup makes it abundantly clear that they’re not just going to gut Medicaid, they’re proposing hundreds of billions of dollars of cuts to programs that provide more opportunities for everyday Americans to access higher education. These cuts are a betrayal of congressional Republicans’ promise to make government work for Americans and to lower their costs; in fact, it will do quite the opposite.” — Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk

The details of Accountable.US’ analysis, reported by POLITICO, revealed that EWC Republicans affirmed many of the proposals first considered in the leaked Ways & Means Committee policy proposal wish-list, top cuts include:

• Slashing federal student aid by capping unsubsidized and Parent PLUS loans and eliminating subsidized loans for undergraduates and Grad PLUS loans entirely. This move would disproportionately impact low-income families, especially those with students at HBCUs, while shutting underrepresented students out of graduate pathways that offer critical economic mobility and have historically been profitable for the federal government.
• Repealing a set of Biden-era protections—including rules establishing forgiveness for students of schools that closed or failed to lead to gainful employment—that have canceled at least $17.2 billion in federal student loans for nearly one million borrowers misled by predatory institutions. This repeal would leave low-income students, students of color, and those attending for-profit colleges on the hook for degrees they were unable to complete through no fault of their own.
• Repealing the Biden administration’s SAVE plan—a repayment program that lowered monthly payments for nearly all borrowers and prevented balances from ballooning due to unpaid interest—and replacing it, along with other income-driven options like ICR and PAYE, with just two fixed or income-based repayment plans, a change that could raise costs for millions of borrowers, including those making modest incomes.
• Changing Pell Grant eligibility by altering the definition of full-time college attendance to 30 credit hours per year and requiring at least half-time attendance to qualify for any grant at all. These changes could cause students who are unable to meet the new definition to see costs increase by $1,479. Education Committee Republicans also proposed capping federal student aid for any students, regardless of income, at the median cost of college attendance.