Senator Elizabeth Warren urges the Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon to restore the former employees of the Department of Education who were critical for the federal process of student aid of the Nation or the borrowers will suffer “serious consequences”, according to a Warren letter sent to McMahon on Wednesday.
“The Department of Education (ED) seems to be abandoning the millions of parents, students and borrowers who trust a functional federal student aid system to reduce education costs,” Warren wrote and a group of Democratic senators in a letter to McMahon.
“Ed must immediately restore all the fired [Federal Student Aid] Employees responsible for reviewing student aid complaints and refraining from taking measures to dissuade the presentation of complaints, ”added the senators.
The Education Department intended to remove the “Send a complaint” button from the FSA website, according to the letter. He found that a upper employee in the department described the measure as a “general victory”, since the change would decrease the volume and number of complaints. But more than 90% of office complaints were presented online last year.
The Senator Member of Classification Elizabeth Warren attends a confirmation audience of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs of the Senate in the Dirksen building on February 27, 2025.
Tom Williams/AP
“The actions of ED will harm the parents who try to understand how to send the FAFSA correctly so that they can afford their child to the university, veterans whose payment of loans has been prosecuted incorrectly due to their deployment, and the students whose help is being improper by the predatory schools of profit purposes,” said the letter.
The letter alleges that the changes on the FSA website, such as moving the presentation function of a complaint, weakens the FSA’s ability to solve complaints and puts borrowers at risk of loan scams. Warren, D-Mass., And the senators demand answers on the accumulation of complaints from the agency, why the department fired public officials and how much influence Elon Musk and the Government’s efficiency department had in the shots.
“Donald Trump tells students that if their student loan administrator is cheated or has trouble getting the help to go to college, he doesn’t care,” he told Warren in a statement to ABC News. “The Secretary McMahon is helping Trump separate the opportunities of children who only want a good education and, as a result, real people will hurt. Democrats in the Senate will not turn around and give up our children, we are fighting,” Warren added.
This occurs when President Donald Trump is expected to firm an executive order to gut the United States Department of Education in the White House on Wednesday, multiple family sources said to ABC News. The president’s order will lead McMahon to take all necessary measures allowed by law to dissolve the department, in accordance with family sources. 60 votes would be needed in the Senate to dismantle the agency that Congress created.
The Department of Education took its first steps to eliminate almost half of the agency’s workforce last week through a massive strength reduction, deferred resignations and retirement purchases, according to the agency. After a federal judge ordered the former test employees to be reinstated, dozens were hired again. A family source told ABC News that most of the force reduction impacted civil rights offices and federal students. FSA public officials have the task of helping the students of the Nation to achieve higher education, including supervision of a student loan portfolio of $ 1.6 billion.
The FSA received almost 300,000 complaints in fiscal year 2024, according to the letter. The office had around 1,400 employees before layoffs and hundreds will be lost after last week’s cuts.
Even so, the department will continue to manage its legal functions in which disadvantaged environments students trust subsidies, formula and loan funds, McMahon recently emphasized.
“We wanted to make sure to keep all the right people, the good people, to ensure that external programs, subsidies, the appropriations that come from Congress, all that are satisfied and none of that will fall through the cracks,” he said on “The Ingraham angle” in Fox News.
Linda McMahon, nominated for President Trump, will be Secretary of Education, testifies to a confirmation hearing of the Senate Health, Labor, Labor and Pensions Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, on February 13, 2025.
Tierney L Cross/Reuters
The FSA operations have already been affected, according to a family source. The Federal Student Loan website was briefly reduced last week. Less than 24 hours after being dismissed, IT employees were frantically called to join a one -hour problem solution call, according to the source.
Throughout President Joe Biden’s mandate there were generalized problems With the free federal aid application for students, or FAFSA, form. During a hearing of the Assignments Committee of the House of Representatives, the former Secretary of Education of the Past Spring, Miguel Cardona, said the department was working to fix the failed launch of the form “throughout the day.” The McMahon department promoted a 50% increase in the number of FAFSA applications Envoy compared to this era last year.
Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders, the classification member in the Senate Health, Education and Pension Committee, were among the 11 legislators who signed the letter. The deadline for the administration to respond is March 25.
A former FSA lawyer, who exceeded supervision and application in the borrower’s defense unit, said they were disconsolate when they were allowed to go to the work of their dreams on Valentine’s Day.
Since the checks stopped arriving last month, the former employee said it has been difficult to live in unemployment benefits. The former employee described approximately a fifth of what they brought before being fired.
However, they said that the letter to McMahon gives renewed hope.
“If I could recover my work, I would take it in an instant,” said the former FSA lawyer to ABC News, adding: “I loved the work we did.”
