Millions of federal student loan borrowers are facing uncertainty — or, rather, even more uncertainty — after last week's presidential election.
President Biden will leave office with much of his student loan agenda tied up in the courts — and Donald Trump has been actively hostile to the kind of broad-based student loan forgiveness that Biden has championed.
Not only that, millions of borrowers aren't even sure what their monthly loan payments will be, as they're enrolled in a repayment plan that's in legal jeopardy, raising big questions about if or when they could see their loan costs spike.
What do borrowers need to know? Here's a look at where things stand.
Trump will inherit the court battle over President Biden's SAVE plan
Biden's largest effort at loan forgiveness was rejected by the Supreme Court, which ruled that such a sweeping — and costly — forgiveness plan exceeded his legal authority.
Since then, the Biden administration has floated several other student loan proposals. But that legal question, of whether the president has any power to broadly cancel student loan debt, has dogged every effort.
"Most fifth-graders who are taking their first government course, they know… it's Congress who's supposed to spend the money," says Michael Brickman, an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, AEI, who worked on higher education policy in the first Trump administration.
So far, the courts have largely agreed — with a big test yet to come.
Biden's signature student loan repayment plan, the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan, slashed borrowers' monthly payments (to as little as $0) while also preventing interest from growing what they owe. It even offers a new fast-track to loan forgiveness for borrowers with lower balances.
But SAVE's price tag (roughly $455 billion over 10 years, by one estimate) – and the fact that the Biden administration used the rulemaking process to essentially circumvent Congress – opened SAVE to the same legal critique that upended Biden's first big forgiveness pitch.
Republican attorneys general challenged SAVE's legality too, and the courts were sufficiently skeptical to freeze most of the plan.
For months, 8 million borrowers enrolled in SAVE have been in a kind of limbo, not being asked to make payments while the courts slowly decide whether the plan is legal. If it is eventually deemed legal, the Trump administration could still simply phase it out. And if SAVE is struck down, only a sympathetic Education Department would appeal.
If the SAVE plan disappears, it's not clear how the Trump administration will handle all those borrowers. Other repayment plans that take a borrower's income into account and include the promise of forgiveness are also in various stages of legal limbo.
There is at least one exception. An older, income-based repayment plan, known as IBR, that has not been challenged and still offers limited loan forgiveness. IBR was created by Congress; only Congress can change or end it (stay tuned for this line to reappear!).
But borrowers should know: SAVE's generous terms (which Republicans have argued are so generous they're illegal) are the reason monthly payments were often much lower than on previous plans. An end to SAVE would mean a return to higher payments.
"The Trump administration is going to have to return these 8 million people into repayment," says Persis Yu of the Student Borrower Protection Center, which has been pushing for debt relief. "And it's incredibly unclear as to what affordable pathway these 8 million people will have once [the current payment pause] expires."
AEI's Brickman agrees the path away from SAVE would be complicated, though he believes the courts will leave the Trump administration no choice.
"The next administration is going to have to get realistic that these programs are probably not legal, and figure out where these students belong," Brickman says.
Trump will also inherit a pair of unfinished student loan proposals
Biden's second attempt at broad loan forgiveness, often referred to as Plan B, is a smaller effort, at least relative to the plan the Supreme Court scuttled. Still, it's estimated to cost roughly $150 billion. It would, among other things, cancel the debts of borrowers with older loans and erase accrued interest for the millions of people who owe more than they borrowed.
Plan B was challenged by Republican state attorneys general and paused by the courts in September, before the rule could be finished, let alone rolled out. It's not clear when we should expect a final legal ruling.
Another Biden proposal would provide loan forgiveness to people in extreme financial hardship, like those caring for a loved one or struggling with high child care costs.
This proposed rule is still in-process and has not yet been challenged in court. It has also been open for public comment, giving borrowers a chance "to talk about how this would impact their lives," says Yu. "It is important for borrowers to tell this administration – and the next one – what student loans are doing to them."
It's doubtful Plan B's court battle – or the hardship proposal's rulemaking process – will end before Inauguration Day, which means the Trump administration will likely decide the fates of both.
And while there's no way to know for sure how the next administration will handle these pending efforts, Trump has been very clear that he dislikes the idea of broad loan forgiveness, making it hard to imagine his administration moving forward with either.
What if Trump tries to close the Education Department?
Yes, in an interview on X, Trump told Elon Musk that, if elected, "I want to close up the Department of Education, move education back to the states."
Can he do that? Not the president, no. The department was created by Congress; only Congress can end it (told you it'd reappear!).
What matters most for our purposes (talking about student loans!), is that no one, not even the conservative Republicans behind Project 2025, are calling for an end to the federal student loan program, whatever happens to the Education Department.
What Project 2025 does recommend is that Congress "spin off" the student loan program "to a new government corporation," with the Treasury Department managing collections and defaults. The idea being, to make the student loan program more of an island independent of the political whims of any single administration.
President Trump has disavowed Project 2025, though it included input from Trump loyalists.
President Biden was able to forgive student loans for some borrowers – can that be reversed?
Despite all the lawsuits, Biden still provided loan forgiveness to roughly 5 million Americans, and Brickman says it's "unclear" if that relief could be clawed back.
"I don't think it can be ruled out, if loans were forgiven illegally," Brickman says, "but that is certainly harder than loans not yet forgiven."
Multiple sources, polled by NPR, all agreed: Clawing back loans that have already been discharged would be difficult, not just politically but operationally.
Biden's loan forgiveness successes came largely by expanding access to pre-existing, Congressionally approved programs – programs that, for example, offer forgiveness to people who work 10 years in public service or who struggle with a severe disability.
Can those programs be shut down?
During his first term, Trump tried to eliminate Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), but he didn't succeed. Congress created PSLF, and only Congress can end it (I did it again!).
With Republicans looking to control Congress, lawmakers could conceivably vote to end Public Service Loan Forgiveness, though it's not clear there's enough desire to.
More likely is a kind of reining in of PSLF's expanded generosity.
See, the Biden administration used the regulatory process to dramatically increase access to PSLF, making it easier to qualify for and receive forgiveness. But, like many of Biden's efforts, those changes can be unwound by the next Trump administration.
Does the public want loan forgiveness?
As the U.S. Department of Education prepares for a radical shift in its agenda, it's worth taking a look back at a poll, from June, that tried to capture how Americans feel about loan forgiveness.
The poll, from the Associated Press and the University of Chicago, found that, overall, 39% of adults think it's extremely or very important for the U.S. government to provide student loan relief. More adults — 51% — say the government should relieve medical debt.
Democrats (58%) were far more likely than Independents (44%) or Republicans (15%) to back student loan relief, which means, post-election and with Republicans ascendant in Washington, borrowers will need to get used to a new normal and new priorities.
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