On Jan. 28, President Donald Trump announced that he would start removing student loans in all colleges and pause federal aid to these institutions.
According to the White House’s official website, after Jan. 19, Trump signed 65 executive orders that will affect American students. One executive order, number 14158, was to eliminate all student loans (signed on March 7).
The threat students face regarding student loans is lumped in with the fate of the Department of Education.
According to Newsweek, “The Department of Education currently manages the federal student loan system through its Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA).”
Trump wants to get rid of the department of education.
In the oval office on Tues. Feb. 4 Trump said, “We’re ranked number one in cost per pupil, so we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, and we’re ranked at the bottom of the list.” He believes if the Board of Education was demolished, then America would “do better.”
Trump continued, “we’re ranked very badly. And what I want to do is let the States run schools.”
With federal funding gaining about $28 billion per year, 10% of the funding is from Title 1 schooling and public schooling. The freeze of the funding can affect the economy but affect the poor families and Americans.
The Department of Education gives money to school districts from K-12, the Department helps fund all low-income families and the IDEA, (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), a program which helps students with disabilities.
According to HUD Exchange, “Federal financial assistance (FFA) is assistance that grantees receive or administer in the form of grants, cooperative agreements, non-cash contributions or donations of property, direct assistance, loans, loan guarantees and other types of financial assistance.”
Millions of Americans are dealing with fallouts from their confusion and fear of the freeze of federal help.
According to AmericanCanProcess, “millions of Americans are still dealing with the fallout as they navigate confusion and uncertainty around programs that underpin the functioning of the country’s economy and families’ budgets for health care, food, child care and more.”
This could cause certain schools to be affected poorly due to States not providing enough on school education.
According to, NBC news, “If it became a reality, Trump’s power grab would steal resources for our most vulnerable students, explode class sizes, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, take away special education services for students with disabilities, and gut student civil rights protections,”
While this can affect students, it can also affect teachers from elementary school to college. According to NEAToday, 180,000 teachers could lose their jobs. This could affect 2.8 million students in low-come communities.
Bob St. Leger, a government and politics teacher at H-F, mentioned how this could affect faculty’s pay rates.
“As a teacher, I worry about how this might impact teacher salaries and benefits in the long run, which could also create even more of a shortage for educators around the country,” St. Leger said.
Of course, as a high school, access to affordable loans is also on the minds of staff and students.
“I think the result will be students having to borrow more money for college, or some students deciding not to go. That hurts our economy in the long run because there will be fewer workers with advanced expertise in many fields,” Laura Kelly, an economics teacher at H-F, said.
If the Department of Education gets cut and Federal student loans are no longer an option, the government is limiting who can afford to go to college.
As of now, prospective students can still apply for and are receiving Federal loans. Repayment plans instituted by the Biden administration have been paused like the SAVE Plan and the future of the Federal loan program will be determined by the Trump administration’s changes to the Department of Education.
