Washington, D.C. – Senator Elizabeth Warren has issued a dire warning to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, urging her to reinstate fired Department of Education employees or face what she describes as “dire consequences” for millions of students and borrowers reliant on federal financial aid. In a strongly worded letter, Warren and a coalition of Democratic senators accused the Trump administration of jeopardizing the future of student aid by gutting critical personnel at the Federal Student Aid (FSA) office.
“The Department of Education (ED) appears to be abandoning the millions of parents, students, and borrowers who rely on a functioning federal student aid system to lower education costs,” Warren and her colleagues stated in the letter to McMahon.
According to the letter, the administration’s decision to fire critical FSA employees—including those responsible for handling student complaints—will lead to significant disruptions in financial aid processing. The senators also revealed that the Department planned to remove the “Submit a Complaint” button from the FSA website, a move that one senior official allegedly described as an “overall win” because it would decrease the volume of complaints being logged.
“ED’s actions will hurt parents trying to understand how to submit the FAFSA correctly so that they can afford to send their child to college, veterans whose loan repayment status has been processed incorrectly due to their deployment, and students whose aid is being improperly withheld by predatory for-profit schools,” the letter read.
The controversy surrounding the Education Department comes as President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order aimed at dismantling the agency. According to sources familiar with the order, the president will direct McMahon to take all legally available steps to dissolve the Department of Education entirely. While such a move would require congressional approval, Trump’s order signals a significant shift in federal education policy and reinforces Republican efforts to scale back federal oversight in favor of state-controlled education systems.
Federal Student Aid in Turmoil
The education department recently executed a mass reduction in its workforce, cutting nearly half of its employees through a combination of layoffs, deferred resignations, and retirement buyouts. According to sources, the offices most affected by the cuts include Civil Rights and Federal Student Aid—both of which play a crucial role in overseeing financial aid disbursement and borrower protection programs.
FSA employees help oversee a $1.6 trillion portfolio of student loans, ensuring that students receive financial aid in a timely manner and protecting borrowers from deceptive lending practices. Last year alone, the office handled nearly 300,000 student complaints. However, with its workforce slashed by hundreds, Warren and her colleagues fear that the backlog of complaints will grow unchecked, leaving students and borrowers vulnerable to fraud and mismanagement.
Warren and other senators are demanding answers about the extent of the complaint backlog, the reasons behind the firings, and whether the Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Elon Musk, played a role in the decision to downsize the department.
“Donald Trump is telling students that if you’re scammed by your student loan servicer or have a problem getting the aid you need to go to college, he doesn’t care,” Warren said in a statement to ABC News. “Secretary McMahon is helping Trump rip opportunities away from kids who just want a good education, and as a result, real people will get hurt. Democrats in the Senate are not going to roll over and give up on our kids—we’re fighting back.”
The Political Battle Over Education Policy
The battle over the Department of Education is shaping up to be one of the most contentious fights of the Trump administration. While Trump and his allies argue that reducing the federal government’s role in education will empower states, Democrats warn that the proposed changes will devastate students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds who rely on federal aid.
Secretary McMahon has insisted that the department will continue administering its statutory functions, including grants, formula funding, and student loans. In an interview with Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” McMahon reassured the public that critical programs would not be disrupted despite the workforce reductions.
“We wanted to make sure that we kept all of the right people, the good people, to make sure that the outward-facing programs, the grants, the appropriations that come from Congress, all of that are being met and none of that is going to fall through the cracks,” McMahon said.
Despite these assurances, evidence of disruption is already surfacing. According to sources, the federal student loan website briefly went offline last week, and within hours of being laid off, IT employees were called back frantically to help troubleshoot technical issues.
Throughout President Joe Biden’s tenure, the rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) faced significant challenges, prompting calls for reform. Former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told lawmakers last spring that the department was working around the clock to fix FAFSA processing delays. In contrast, McMahon’s department has touted a 50% increase in FAFSA applications compared to the same time last year.
Democratic Pushback and Legal Challenges
The Democrats’ letter to McMahon was co-signed by notable senators, including Bernie Sanders, the ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. The administration has until March 25 to respond to the senators’ inquiries.
For former FSA employees, the firings have already had devastating personal consequences. A former FSA attorney who worked in the borrower defense unit described their termination as “heartbreaking,” saying that working for FSA was their dream job. Now, they are struggling to make ends meet on unemployment benefits, making a fraction of what they once earned.
Despite these hardships, the former employee said that Warren’s letter gives them renewed hope that they may one day be reinstated.
“I know I’m not alone in this,” the former employee said. “There are hundreds of us who dedicated our careers to making sure students weren’t being taken advantage of. Seeing leaders like Warren and Sanders fight for us gives me hope that this isn’t the end.”
With Trump poised to sign an executive order targeting the Department of Education, the battle over student aid is far from over. While the president’s order alone cannot fully dismantle the agency, it sets the stage for a broader fight in Congress over the future of federal education policy.
If Trump’s plan moves forward, millions of students and borrowers could face new hurdles in accessing financial aid and protecting themselves from predatory lenders. Meanwhile, Warren and her Democratic colleagues have vowed to fight back, setting the stage for a high-stakes showdown over the future of education in America.
