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As President Donald<\/span> Trump plots to halt student loan forgiveness for many government and nonprofit workers, his administration is offering a special type of debt relief to one category of workers: new ICE agents.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Department of Homeland Security announced<\/a> on Tuesday it will offer student loan forgiveness and repayment options to new Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruits \u2014 along with a $50,000 signing bonus.\u00a0<\/p>\n The announcement comes as the Trump administration works to limit the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program for groups the president considers political enemies. Since 2007, borrowers employed by the government or nonprofit organizations serving a wide range of public interest causes have been eligible for forgiveness through PSLF.\u00a0<\/p>\n But in July, the Department of Education took a major step in altering the program\u2019s rules<\/a> to exclude certain employers in accordance with Trump\u2019s executive order \u201cRestoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness<\/a>,\u201d which claims the loan forgiveness \u201chas misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest, but actually harm our national security and American values, sometimes through criminal means.\u201d Under the revised rules, nonprofits that help transgender youth access gender-affirming care and attorneys who provide legal assistance to undocumented immigrants, among others, might no longer qualify, according to the press release from the Department of Education.<\/p>\n Final language has yet to be published; before it takes effect, there will be an opportunity for public comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Experts in higher education and student debt told The Intercept that the administration is deploying the financial aid system as a tool to advance its political agenda, punish perceived enemies, and reward allies.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis just shows the lengths that the Trump administration will go to to weaponize Public Service Loan Forgiveness and debt more broadly to achieve their fascist objectives,\u201d said Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing counsel at the Student Borrower Protection Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the last few years, Republicans have fought to limit student debt relief for borrowers. Last year, Republican attorneys general successfully lobbied the Supreme Court to pause the SAVE Plan<\/a>, an income-based repayment plan implemented by the Biden administration that allowed borrowers to make smaller monthly payments and achieve debt relief within a shorter time frame. The Big, Beautiful, Bill signed by Trump in July eliminates the SAVE Plan as of July 1, 2028, and replaces it with significantly less generous repayment options for student loans.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to see a wave of defaults happening, and we\u2019re going to see more people who can\u2019t afford their payments.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n On Friday, the Department of Education resumed interest accrual on SAVE Plan loans, meaning nearly 8 million borrowers are now seeing their debt grow.\u00a0<\/p>\n On top of that, the spending bill creates new limits on federal borrowing for graduate students and parents taking out loans on behalf of their children \u2014 meaning families and people attending higher cost educational programs such as medical school will likely have to take out higher interest private loans.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to see a wave of defaults happening, and we\u2019re going to see more people who can\u2019t afford their payments,\u201d said Sara Partridge, associate director of higher education at the Center for American Progress.<\/p>\n Partridge said implementing changes that will make life harder for millions of borrowers while championing debt forgiveness for ICE agents is peak hypocrisy. \u201cIt is hypocritical to provide additional funding for debt relief for certain categories of workers while seeking to deny it to everyday Americans,\u201d said Partridge.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sam Alig, 36, a borrower enrolled on the SAVE Plan, said Republicans and the administration have left borrowers in chaos as they scramble to figure out how much they\u2019ll owe under the new income-based repayment systems.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s such a mess,\u201d said Alig. \u201cEvery single time I call, they tell me something else. \u2026 It\u2019s $400 [per month] now. Six months from now, it could be $800, I have no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n The irony of the new DHS announcement isn\u2019t lost on Alig. \u201cIt\u2019s also funny that Republicans are going to get behind student forgiveness when it comes to ICE agents, because they\u2019re so against student loan forgiveness for the entire working and middle class.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s not completely clear how the ICE loan forgiveness program will be funded. The departments of Homeland Security and Education did not respond to requests for comment. The influx of $170 billion for DHS<\/a> from the new spending bill could be a mechanism to help pay off new recruits loans.<\/p>\n Government agencies can use their own funding to offer loan assistance as a recruitment and retention strategy via a separate initiative, the Federal Student Loan Repayment program<\/a>, which allows agencies to repay federal student loans for their employees up to $10,000 a year and $60,000 per employee.<\/p>\n The contrast between how the Trump administration is treating most borrowers and ICE agents is \u201cshocking,\u201d said Wil Del Pilar, senior vice president at EdTrust, an education-focused nonprofit.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Department of Education is effectively putting other people\u2019s cancellations on hold, while fast-tracking this other group of folks who haven\u2019t done anything to warrant cancellation,\u201d said Pilar. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s outrageous, and it shows where the priority of this administration is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n