Dems Try To Nix Trump Admin’s College Affordability Protections

A group of congressional Democrats announced a resolution Thursday to repeal Trump administration rules designed to cap student loans and stop the “unlimited tuition” scam colleges and universities run at the expense of the American taxpayer.

Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., along with Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., John Mannion, D-N.Y., and Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., say they will introduce a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to repeal the Department of Education’s recent final rule limiting the ability of colleges and universities to charge exorbitant amounts in tuition, while also streamlining loan repayment.

“For years, Democrats have purported to care about student debt. But now, they’ve reaffirmed what we’ve been saying. That it was never about helping students but rather buying votes. It was a way to buy off people, not truly help them,” Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent told The Federalist. “Democrats don’t care about helping students, and they certainly don’t care about taxpayers. They want to keep students in debt, colleges with fat coffers, and then cry wolf during election time that the loan forgiveness is the only option to help borrowers. With our changes, we remove one of the Democrats’ key election issues, and that’s what they are really scared of.”

The group of Democrats claims that the loan caps affect public service jobs like “nurses, teachers, [and] firefighters,” who will, they say, now not be able to afford entering those professions.

However, according to Kent, the actual numbers do not support this conclusion.

“These Democrats who are attempting to repeal our well thought-out rule are hypocrites and are using lies and scare tactics. 94% of graduate-level teachers are not impacted by the loan caps. And when is the last time you heard of fire fighters taking on graduate-level debt? You don’t. That’s because 100% of graduate-level fire service programs are not impacted,” he said. “These data show the Democrats are either lying or are totally uninformed about the reality of what they are saying. “

As The Federalist reported, the rule caps student loan borrowing for graduate and professional students, allows universities to establish their own loan caps based on the value of the program, streamlines loan repayment, and eliminates the Grad PLUS program, which allowed students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance.

The rule came after decades of colleges and universities driving up tuition costs (343 percent increase since 2005), unchecked, leaving the American taxpayer — regardless of his education status — to pay for it. The education system also piled mountains of debt on students who were receiving degrees that did not provide the access to high-paying jobs needed to actually pay off the student loans.

“We want to lower the cost of higher education by instituting reasonable loan limits for post-baccalaureate programs,” Kent noted. “We know that for decades, colleges and universities have taken advantage of the Grad PLUS program by standing up expensive graduate programs that have little or no return on investment for the borrower. This has left too many students with unmanageable debt but … padded the coffers of many colleges.”

Educational institutions knew they could continue fleecing the American people because they knew the federal government would continue to provide loans to cover whatever tuition sticker price they had. Loan caps stop that scam and could require students to look elsewhere for funding, which Democrats challenging the rule admit. But the reality is that colleges will now be forced to rein in their absurd tuition costs in order to attract students to sign up for their programs.

Despite the loan caps not taking effect until July 1, some schools have already started taking action related to the rule.

The University of California, Irvine, cut tuition for two business degrees by more 20 percent after the loan cap announcement, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The University of Kansas will start using its endowment to offer low-interest rate student loans, as opposed to relying on federal dollars — a major goal of Republicans in education policy.

The Santa Clara University Law School also launched a “pledge scholarship” offering a $16,000 tuition scholarship to every first-year law student, stating, “The PLEDGE Scholarship was designed to ensure that next year’s incoming class has access to the funds they need to cover the cost of tuition for Santa Clara Law despite new federal loan limits.”

The congressional Democrats said they will have to wait to introduce the CRA until “the rule is officially received by Congress,” triggering the 60-day review window for the CRA.

Breccan F. Thies is the White House correspondent for The Federalist. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. As an investigative journalist, he previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.