Debt Collective 🟥

Trump Admin stopped opposing the lawsuit against Biden Admin's major new income-driven repayment plan, which rendered the lawsuit moot before a settlement could be reached. Oops! Now that plan is the law until further notice.

Rapid Response: SAVE Plan Update Last week, a federal court declined to approve a settlement between the Department of Education and the State of Missouri. This means that the SAVE Plan is immediately and fully effective. On Tuesday…

We're fielding a ton of questions about SAVE.

Join us TONIGHT for a rapid response call.

We will explain this development and discuss next steps for debtors and for the movement to get it all canceled.
debtcollective.org/event/rapid-...

The Department of Education paused deeply unpopular forced collections on defaulted debtors earlier this year amid record rates of default on federal student loans. They know we're struggling. So put your money where their mouth is and cancel student debt Trump.

During last week’s State of the Union address, Trump claimed that America is “bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever before” — and yet, the policies he’s championed have led to skyrocketing healthcare premiums and utilities, and corporate price gouging.

Since this agreement was not improved, this moratorium will not go into effect — meaning that Trump still has the legal authority to cancel everyone’s federal student debt.

He should do it immediately.

But we don’t want federal student debt to be affordable — we want it to be canceled. In addition to ending SAVE, the settlement agreement also included a clause mandating a 10-year moratorium on federal student debt cancellation. What does this mean?

If Trump truly cares about affordability for working people, protecting SAVE and crediting borrowers for their payments toward IDR and PSLF is the bare minimum he can do to make student loan repayment more affordable for debtors.

If you'll recall, the SAVE plan significantly lowered monthly payments for millions of federal student debtors and shortened some borrowers’ timeline for cancellation from 20-25 years down to 10.

Last Friday, a federal court declined to approve this settlement agreement — putting SAVE back on the table for student debtors, effective immediately.

In December, Billionaire Education Secretary Linda McMahon struck a backroom deal with Missouri’s right-wing Attorneys General to end the SAVE student loan repayment plan, stripping student debtors of their most affordable repayment option.

New: A federal court declined to approve a settlement between the Dept of Ed and the State of Missouri. This means that the SAVE plan is immediately and fully effective.

We're calling on the DOE to retroactively apply credits to debtors and immediately process cancellation.

a person is laying on the ground in a dark room with a window . ALT: a person is laying on the ground in a dark room with a window .

Heads up! If you have Parent PLUS loans the GOP is trying to trap you in a higher payments. If you have Parent PLUS loans you should consider consolidating them now to get lower payments & the possibility of cancelation. studentaid.gov/loan-consoli...

More info here: www.edcapny.org/resources-fo...

Black Anti-Fascism: Lessons from the Past for the Current Moment & Beyond The US state is now occupying the city of Minneapolis after murdering Renée Good and Alex Pretti. It is terrifying migrant communities and assaulting residents in the name of anti-Blackness…

Friday, Feb 27th, the @debtcollective.bsky.social is co-hosting Black Anti-Fascism: Lessons from the Past for the Current Moment & Beyond. #BlackHistoryMonth #BHM2026

Remember last year when the Trump admin said they were considering selling a chunk of the federal student loan portfolio to private actors?

They just officially stated that they haven't taken "any final actions or made final decisions regarding selling" the portfolio.

All of our expenses are too high. Rent, health care, student loans, utilities, childcare and other expenses.

The cost of everything is rising but our pay isn't. Our household debt balances are growing but our salaries are not.

This can't last. We need a complete economic shift.

For Many Cash-Strapped Americans, ‘Basic Living Has Become a Burden’

NYT: Maribel, 66, cleans plane cabins at the airport in Charlotte, NC. She earns $16.50/hr, not enough to cover her expenses—about half goes to rent. With a pile of medical bills and no cushion for a financial emergency, “I have to keep working,” she said.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/u...

We need tuition-free college.

And we need quality union jobs with good pay and benefits that don't require a college degree.

And we need a free, universal health care system that isn't tied to you having a job to get quality care in the first place.

Everyone deserves a home.

Everyone deserves a meal.

Everyone deserves medicine.

Everyone deserves education.

Everyone deserves dignity, security and equality.

There is no reason that a single person in the United States should have medical debt when there billionaires exist — some who may soon be trillionaires.

Tenants Have More Economic Power Than They Think Just as workers can withhold labor to halt production, tenants can withhold rent to challenge corporate landlords. In Los Angeles, a coalition of tenants and debtors is proving that housing is a site ...

New: Housing is shelter—not a financial playground for Wall Street speculators.

Tenants must leverage our power in concert. Just as workers can withhold labor to halt production, tenants can withhold rent to challenge corporate landlords.
jacobin.com/2026/02/tena...

Imagine if we invested in education, of children and adults, like we do military power, surveillance, and various forms of internal coercion. Imagine if we were enlightened enough to not make education and the cultivation of humanity require crushing debt for students and penury for educators.

Millions of student loan borrowers aren't repaying their loans — and defaults are up New data offers further confirmation of a crisis in the U.S. student loan portfolio, in which too many borrowers are not repaying their student loans.

Good. Student loans should never be repaid. That money is much better spent going to housing, health care, child care, groceries and saving for retirement.

Millions of student loan borrowers aren't repaying their loans — and defaults are up
www.npr.org/2026/02/10/n...

When the Student Loan Ombuds for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) wrote her legally mandated annual report, Trump leadership scrubbed it for being too critical.

"I was told by leadership it would not be published and would need to be rewritten."

Here's a crash course syllabus for folks who want to learn more about Puerto Rico's history, sovereignty, infrastructure, resistance, debt crisis and more.
puertoricosyllabus.com

Must-read! Heading into a meeting but here’s where the plot thickened for me….

If you can, chip in $5 so we can keep hiring “disgruntled” experts like Barnard.

We need all the inside information we can get to help us fight back against these fascist assholes.
debtcollective.org/donate

Trump’s CFPB tried to call her character into question, calling her a “disgruntled” employee for doing her job of shedding light on the billionaire-backed corruption schemes crushing student debtors.

This is a loss for the CFPB — but it’s a gain for us.

Barnard now leads our monthly Default Office Hours, where we discuss options for defaulted debtors, including rehabilitation, consolidation, cancellation, and financial hardship exemptions.

Join us there, student debtors.

The Student Loan Report the Trump Administration Didn’t Want Published - The American Prospect Read the CFPB report the Trump administration cut and scrubbed, which includes information on a higher-education surveillance pricing scheme.

You can now read the original report after press got a hold of it.
prospect.org/2026/01/16/s...

Today, we hired the author of that report.

Her name is Julia Barnard, and she’s now leading our higher education team to keep pushing back on the Trump administration’s dangerous agenda.