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Budget Cuts Series 2021: Billions From Student Loan Programs
The Budget Cuts Series for the fiscal year 2021 continues this week. These cuts reflect what Trump and his Republican administration want to do to our country. Most of it will not be implemented because Democrats will block it. But the point is it shows us exactly what Republicans would want to do if they were given unchecked power. These cuts are so completely absurd that it’s no wonder Senate Budget Committee Republicans don’t want to hold a hearing on his budget.
Trump’s election-year budget.... slashes student loan programs, measures in sharp contrast to Democratic presidential challengers who have been touting free college and debt forgiveness.
....$4.8 trillion budget plan put forward....cuts billions of dollars from the student loan program without pitching any significant new initiatives.... no new ideas for tackling the $1.5 trillion in outstanding student debt.
Rather, the budget proposes steep cuts to the student loan program — nearly $5 billion next year and more than $60 billion over five years. The reductions would eliminate popular initiatives such as a loan forgiveness program for students who take public service jobs and subsidized lending for low-income students.
The Trump administration again wants to end supplemental grants for low-income students and slash more than half the budget for college work-study programs
Trump is seeking to cut billiosn next year in federal student financial support, mostly by eliminating programs like subsidized Stafford Loans, freezing the maximum Pell Grant for the next decade and cutting $630 million from the federal work-study program.
The plan came under immediate fire from advocates who want to make college affordable for more students.
“Every Democrat running for president has expanded college opportunity as a core theory in how to grow the middle class,” said James Kvaal, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, an education nonprofit, who served in the Obama White House and Education Department. “President Trump clearly doesn’t believe in that strategy.”