Senator Elizabeth Warren calls on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to reintroduce former employees of the education department who were critical of the country’s federal study support process, otherwise borrowers will suffer “serious consequences” according to a letter Warren sent to McMahon on Wednesday.
“The Department of Education (ED) seems to abandon the millions of parents, students, and borrowers who depend on a functioning federal student’s aid system to lower education costs,” wrote Warren and a group of democratic senators in a letter to McMahon.
“Ed must immediately restore everything fired [Federal Student Aid] Employees who are responsible for reviewing complaints about student assistance and refraining from taking any measures to deter the submission of complaints, ”the senators added.
The Education Department intended to remove the “Submit a Complaint” from the FSA website, according to the letter. It found a high -ranking employee of the department called the move a “overall victory” as the change would reduce the volume and the number of complaints. However, more than 90% of the office complaints were submitted online last year.
Ranking member Sener Elizabeth Warren participates in a Senatsbank, Housing and City Committee Committee Information in Dirksen Building on February 27, 2025.
Tom Williams/AP
“ED’s actions will hurt parents trying to understand how to submit FAFSA properly so that they can afford to send their child to college, veterans whose status of loan repayment has been treated incorrectly due to their insertion and students whose help is incorrectly detained by predators for profit schools,” the letter said.
The letter claims that the FSA website changes – like moving a complaint function – weakens FSA’s capacity to resolve complaints and puts borrowers at risk of loan fraud. Warren, D-Mass., And the Senators require answers about the Agency’s complaint, which is why the department fired the officials and how much influence Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency had on the layoffs.
“Donald Trump tells students that if you are scammed by your student loan service or have a problem with getting the help you need to go to college, he doesn’t care,” Warren said in a statement to ABC News. “Secretary McMahon helps Trump tear opportunities away from children who just want a good education and as a result, real people will be harmed. Democrats in the Senate will not roll over and give up our children – we are fighting back,” Warren added.
This is coming when President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order to gone the US Ministry of Education in the White House on Wednesday, told several sources as well -known to ABC News. The president’s order will refer McMahon to taking all the necessary steps allowed under the law to dissolve the department, according to the well -known sources. It would take 60 votes in the Senate to settle the agency created by Congress.
The education department took its first steps to eliminate almost half of the agency’s workforce last week through a massive reduction in force, postponed resignation and retirement outlets, according to the agency. After a federal judge ordered former trial workers to be reintroduced, dozens became. A source that is well -known told ABC News that most of the reduction in power affected offices for civil rights and federal students’ help. The FSA officials are tasked with helping the nation’s students obtain higher education, including supervising a portfolio of $ 1.6 trillion of student loans.
The FSA received almost 300,000 complaints in the financial year 2024 according to the letter. The office had about 1,400 employees before the layoffs and hundreds will be lost after last week’s cuts.
Still, the department will continue to manage its statutory functions that students with poorly placed backgrounds depend on, including grants, formula financing and loans, McMahon emphasized recently.
“We wanted to make sure we kept all the right people, the good people, to make sure the outgoing programs, grants, the appropriations that come from Congress, all this is being fulfilled and none of it will fall through the cracks,” she said at “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News.
Linda McMahon, President Trump’s nominees to be Education Secretary, witnesses a Senate Health, Education, Education and Pension Committee confirmed at Capitol Hill in Washington, February 13, 2025.
Tierney L Cross/Reuters
FSA’s operations have already been affected, according to a well -known source. The Federal Website for Student Loans was briefly down last week. Less than 24 hours after they were fired, the employee was called feverish to participate in an hour -long troubleshooting call according to the source.
Through President Joe Bite’s term of office there was widespread problems With the free application for federal student help or FAFSA form. During a house selection for a grant hearing last spring, former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the department was working on fixing the downhill roll -out of the form “around the clock.” McMahon’s department touted an increase of 50% on the number of FAFSA applications Submitted compared to this time last year.
Warren and late. Bernie Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate’s Health, Education, Work and Pension Committee, were among the 11 legislators who signed the letter. The deadline for the administration to answer is March 25.
A former FSA lawyer who monitored and enforced in the borrower defense unit said they were heart -bred when they were escaped from their dream job on Valentine’s Day.
When the controls stopped coming in last month, the former employee said it has been difficult to live on unemployment benefits. The former employee described doing about one -fifth of what they brought in before they were fired.
However, they said the letter to McMahon gives them renewed hope.
“If I could get my job back, I would take it in the heartbeat,” the former FSA lawyer told ABC News and added, “I loved the work we did.”
