Since 2007, the federal student loan forgiveness (PSLF) program has been an escape hatch for law graduates (and others) saddled with overwhelming educational debt. The idea was that the graduate would take a public service job at low pay and reduced monthly loan requirements. After ten years of service, any remaining loan debt was forgiven. The well-known backstory is that student loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. They can follow a person to the grave.

There were and still are problems with PSLF, such as the resulting tax on the imputed income from the forgiven loan. And 10 years is a long time to toil in low wage positions. But the country and many recent graduates have been the better for it.

New Problems

Serious administrative issues surfaced when the ABA sued the Department of Education for retroactive denials to lawyers who thought they were employed in qualifying PSLF programs. After original approval, the suit alleged, the department then reneged and said, in effect, “No soup for you.”

According to one report, “The ABA, which views the program as an essential part of its recruiting and retention efforts, was only informed that it was no longer an eligible employer for PSLF purposes earlier this year – nine years into a 10 year program. The association has lost employees who were in the program and has been told by possible hires that the loss of qualification was an important factor in not joining the ABA.”

Problems Solved, Trump-Style

For young lawyers hoping that public service loan forgiveness was the answer to a lifetime of student debt burdens, Trump has some bad news. Rather than remedy the problems with a program that can provide enormous help to many recent grads and the organizations for which they work, he wants to eliminate it altogether. It’s analogous to his approach to the Affordable Care Act. Fixing something is more difficult than eliminating it altogether. So Trump proposes to eliminate it.

Amid the attention surrounding Trump’s scandals involving Russia, obstruction of justice, and business conflicts of interest, many important stories got lost. What’s happening in the U.S Department of Education is one of them. On May 17, The Washington Post reported, “Funding for college work-study programs would be cut in half, public-service loan forgiveness would end and hundreds of millions of dollars that public schools could use for mental health, advanced coursework and other services would vanish under a Trump administration plan to cut $10.6 billion from federal education initiatives.”

Why? Because Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ lifelong mission has been to promote private and religious schools. According the Post story, she seeks to put $400 million into expanding “charter schools and vouchers for private and religious schools, and another $1 billion to push public schools to adopt choice-friendly policies.”

Who’s Affected?

By the end of 2016, 550,00 people had been approved for the federal loan forgiveness program. The first beneficiaries of the program will receive their rewards this year. If Trump and DeVos have their way, they will become the vanguard of a dying breed. Trump and DeVos are not just throwing out the baby with the bathwater; they’re ripping out the tub and all of the plumbing, too.