Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

11. Department of Education · Notable · Needs Congress

Limit borrower defense discharges to proven institutional fraud

Partially done

354 11. Department of Education · abridged

“Further, the next Administration should propose that Congress amend the HEA to remove the department's authority to forgive loans based on borrower defense to repayment; instead, the department should be authorized to discharge loans only in instances where clear and convincing evidence exists to demonstrate that an educational institution engaged in fraud toward a borrower in connection with his or her enrollment in the institution and the student's educational program or activity at the institution.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    Section 85001 of Public Law 119-21 suspends the Biden Administration's 2022 borrower-defense regulations (34 CFR part 685 subpart D) for every loan originated before July 1, 2035 and provides that "any regulations relating to borrower defense to repayment that took effect on July 1, 2020, are restored and revived as such regulations were in effect on such date" — the 2019 rule, which requires the borrower to prove a misrepresentation made knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth, plus reliance and financial harm. Section 85002 does the same for closed-school discharges. That is a statutory narrowing of the discharge standard, enacted, and so delivery of part of the ask. It is not the whole ask: the department's authority to forgive loans on borrower defense was not removed, and the statute does not impose the Quote's "clear and convincing evidence" of institutional fraud.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Read from the enrolled text on govinfo.gov (four occurrences of “borrower defense”, all in the table of contents and secs. 85001–85002).
  • In the federal records we keep and search, no Department of Education rulemaking in the window reopens 34 CFR part 685 subpart D. The RISE final rule (FR 2026-08556, 2026-05-01) rewrites repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness, not borrower defense.
Action
repeal
Object
Borrower defense to repayment loan forgiveness authority
ID
891