The Trump administration has abandoned its goal to reform the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, dropping a legal fight over the changes this week.
The Education Department wanted to place limits on who could qualify for PSLF, which gives student loan forgiveness to people in government and nonprofit jobs after 10 years of payments. It had sought to bar people at nonprofits who worked on immigration rights and other left-leaning issues, but the move was blocked by a judge over the summer.
The Justice Department originally appealed the judge’s decision but on Wednesday agreed to drop the case with little explanation.
“The Trump administration’s attempt to weaponize public service loan forgiveness against organizations it disagrees with was anti-democratic and unlawful from the start. This is a significant victory for millions of Americans who have dedicated their careers to public service,” Student Defense chief counsel Dan Zibel said about the decision.
The court filing said each side would pay their own legal fees but offered no other explanation for the move.
The attempted change to PSLF was only one of a series of actions the Trump administration has taken to reform student loans, with the Education Department successfully changing loan limits, scaling down the number of repayment plans and making an interagency deal with the Treasury Department to take over the student loan portfolio.
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