Under Secretary of Education Nicolas Kent slammed congressional Democrats for attempting to block a rule that would lower higher education costs for Americans.
“Democrats are hypocrites,” Kent told The Daily Signal in an exclusive interview. “For years, they have purported to care about student debt, but now they’ve reaffirmed what we’ve all been saying, which is, it was never about helping students, but rather about buying votes.”
On April 30, the Department of Education announced a rule taking effect July 1 to put new caps on student loan borrowing. The rule implements changes passed in President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.”
On Thursday, a group of House and Senate Democrats introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution to repeal the rule. The Democrats argue that it will “force future nurses, social workers, teachers, firefighters, physical and occupational therapists, and many others to turn to often predatory, high-interest private lenders to complete their degrees.”
“While working families struggle to buy groceries and put gas in their cars, the Trump Administration is sending a clear message to aspiring nurses, health care providers, social workers, teachers, and firefighters: If you can’t afford a high interest loan, then you can’t serve your community,” said Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill.
But Kent says most graduate programs are not affected: 78% of graduate-level nursing programs, 94% of graduate-level teacher programs, and 100% of graduate-level fire service programs are not impacted by the loan caps.
“Unlike Democrats, we’re trying to fix the problem without buying votes or settling other taxpayers with debt that they did not take on these Democrats and in are attempting to repeal our well-thought-out rule,” he said. “They’re hypocrites, and they’re using lies and scare tactics.”
Democrats’ effort to repeal the rule would allow institutions to continue overpricing students, Kent said.
He touted savings for students since the loan caps launched. The University of California, Irvine, cut tuition by more than 20%.
The University of Kansas will offer new scholarship opportunities to law students following the administration’s announcement. The law school will also use their endowment to offer student loans at a lower interest rate than the government provides.
Santa Clara University Law School launched the “Pledge Scholarship,” a $16,000 tuition scholarship to every incoming first-year student joining its J.D. programs.
“Some Democrats don’t actually care about helping students, and they certainly want to keep students in debt,” Kent said. “They want to keep colleges fat and happy and then cry wolf during election time that loan forgiveness is the only option to help borrowers.”
A number of professional associations or advocacy organizations endorsed the Democrat effort, but Kent said it’s because they care about dues.
“These associations are working together with institutions of higher education, and they actually don’t care about helping students,” he said. “They don’t care that these students are taking on unmanageable debt.”
While Democrats want to forgive student loans, Kent said he wants to fix the root cause of the problem so debt forgiveness is not necessary.
“The previous administration always wanted to solve the problem at the end of the story,” he said.
“They wanted to saddle those individuals that never went to college with the debt of someone who did, and the American people overwhelmingly said that they did not accept that,” he said.
Kent called it “unconscionable” that Democrats want to stop the rule from taking effect.
“When you see really irresponsible members of Congress, like the ones who introduced this resolution,” he said, “what it signals to institutions is to pause the initiatives that they have in place to make those changes.”
Some of the biggest higher education institutions have endowments over $950 billion. That money should be used to lower the cost of higher education for students, Kent said.
“Institutions recognize that the gravy train is ending,” he said. “Students and families live within their needs. Institutions need to as well.”
