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Top congressional Republicans want more information from the Education Department on its plans to resume student loan payments in September following a three-year pause.
North Carolina representative Virginia Foxx and Louisiana senator Dr. Bill Cassidy, both of whom are Republicans, sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona this week demanding documents and a briefing before July 20 on the issue.
“The department has been on notice for nearly two and a half years that it would need to develop a plan for a smooth transition to repayment,” they wrote. “The House Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions remain concerned that the department is unprepared for the return to payment of federal student loans.”
Foxx chairs the House education committee while Cassidy is the top Republican on the Senate education committee. They want the department to turn over internal communications about the plan for restarting payments.
Education Department officials have described the task of restarting payments as “unprecedented and herculean.” Other advocates and higher education analysts are concerned about the department’s ability to pull it off without additional resources. Congress kept the Office of Federal Student Aid’s budget flat at $2 billion for this fiscal year despite requests from the Biden administration for more money.
“Mr. Secretary, the success or failure of the return to repayment sits squarely on your shoulders,” Foxx and Cassidy wrote. “As the committees responsible for oversight of the department, we need to know if the department has exercised due diligence and done all it can to prepare the servicers to provide the best customer service to borrowers, and that borrowers have a clear understanding of what is required of them for a smooth transition to repayment.”
