Press Release: 2/24/2026
ED Confirms to Warren That They Are Weighing Sale of Federal Student Loan Portfolio
Department evades questions on whether borrowers would maintain legally guaranteed protections in the event of sale and how department plans to address potential conflicts of interest
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, along with Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), released a response from the Department of Education (ED) to their November letter regarding a potential sale of the federal student debt portfolio. In the response, ED confirms for the first time publicly that they are weighing a sale of the federal student loan portfolio.
“The Department has not taken any final actions or made final decisions regarding selling all or part of the student loan portfolio,” wrote Nicholas Kent, Under Secretary for the Department of Education. Up until now, ED had yet to acknowledge formally that it was weighing a sale.
However, ED evaded key questions from the elected officials about borrower protections and conflicts of interests in the event of a sale, including which representatives from the private sector ED has met with to discuss the sale and which companies they represented. Federal law guarantees borrower protections as set forth in the terms of loan agreements, but the Trump administration refused to assure borrowers that those protections would not be disturbed in a loan sale.
“Instead of helping Americans drowning with student loan debt, Trump is thinking up ways to make life worse for borrowers,” said Senator Warren. “If the Trump administration cared about working-class families, it would stop its ridiculous plan to sell out families to Wall Street."