Project 2025 could affect young people - particularly their college finances.
Project 2025 is a 922-page policy proposal for the next Republican presidency by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The document, which multiple former Trump administration officials have contributed to, aims to expand presidential power and impose an ultra-conservative social vision.
Policy analysts expect the “policy wishlist” to multiply loan repayment, while Heritage Foundation said it would solve the college affordability issue.
The Center for American Progress (CAP), an independent, nonpartisan policy institute, estimated a college grad in their mid-20s could repay 2.8 times more for their student loans monthly, if the next administration enacts Project 2025′s blueprint.
The increase would amount to $4,064 a year.
The “presidential transformation project” by the Heritage Foundation - calls for replacing current income-driven repayment plans and eliminating student loan forgiveness based on time and occupation.
Apart from repaying more every month, the conservative policy agenda would also cause surging debt balances and prolonged repayment periods, according to CAP.
CAP estimates a typical Black K-12 classroom teacher with graduate debt would have to repay their debt for 27 years under Project 2025 policies, starting at $308 a month.
Under the SAVE plan, the monthly payment would start at $117, and the outstanding liability could be canceled in 10 years under a loan forgiveness program for public service workers.
The SAVE plan, an income-driven repayment plan launched by the Biden-Harris Administration in August 2023, promises no growth in debt balance due to accumulating interests. The Supreme Court is now keeping a hold on its full implementation.
“We might start to see more instances of delinquency or default, which are all really dangerous and scary for borrowers,” said Madison Weiss, a senior policy analyst for higher education at CAP who co-authored the analysis.
Bryan Alexander, a senior scholar at Georgetown University who studies the future of higher education said high student loan balances can have longer-term financial and social impacts.
“$30,000 is enough for a lot of people to decide not to have a child because they are worried about paying off the debt,” said Alexander. “It means there is a demographic side effect of this.”
The latest average outstanding federal student loan is $38,175 per borrower, according to the Office of Federal Student Aid.
“Some of them will put off capital purchases - that is to be less likely to buy a house, less likely to buy a car, which again, has a slight depressive economic effect,” Alexander said .
What is on the policy agenda?
The Project 2025 policy agenda proposes a less generous income-driven repayment, or IDR, plan, and an end to payment pause and loan forgiveness programs.
The change is based on two principles: treating taxpayers like investors, and protecting the loan portfolio from “predatory politicians.”
While Project 2025 recognizes IDR plans as a “superior approach” relative to fixed payment plans, it sees a problem in the “proliferated” number of IDR plans and their generosity in requiring “no or only token repayments from many students,” which “essentially converts these student loans into delayed grants.”
It believes that taxpayers should expect their investment in higher education to “generate economic productivity,” and proposes a single IDR plan with lowered income exemption level and higher required payment relative to income.
As for loan forgiveness programs, Project 2025 describes them as using the federal student loan portfolio as a “campaign fund to curry political support and votes,” and emphasizes “borrowers should be expected to repay their loans.”
It calls for ending the payment pause and loan forgiveness programs, and estimates this would save taxpayers $370 billion.
Lindsey Burke, director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, authors the education chapter for Project 2025′s policy agenda.
She has written extensively against student loan forgiveness, saying it shifts the cost of repaying to taxpayers and encourages universities to keep increasing tuition and fees, as they anticipate future debt cancellations.
Weiss however defends the loan.
“I think this is just another one of those programs that provides relief to Americans who are struggling with their student loan payments,” Weiss said. “And I think the student loan system has been broken for so long.”
“Borrowers should not be left in this hole for the rest of their lives because they made the decision to go to college or university,” she added.
Responding to an enquiry by Annenberg Media, Ellen Keenan, a Project 2025 spokesperson, said their proposals regarding student loans aim to address the issue of college affordability while emphasizing the importance of career and technical education beyond traditional four-year degrees.
The spokesperson added that the proposal would revitalize the private student loan market to provide students with more options and flexibility, and ensure that taxpayers are not unfairly held responsible for other people’s decisions and debt.
How should college students prepare for the potential changes?
Both Weiss and Alexander believe that changes in student debt would not come quickly into the next administration.
Weiss highlighted how the judiciary is to rule on the executive’s authority on the issue, while the next administration decides its own priorities.
“We have to just be in this ‘sit and wait’ period to see how the courts decide if there is the legal authority for the debt cancellation efforts,” Weiss said.
“But if we are thinking in the scenario we are in now, debt efforts will really be determined by what administration is in charge,” she said. “It is kind of up to the department what their regulatory and legislative priorities will be for that term.”
She recommends borrowers maintain communication with the Federal Student Aid Office in this “uncertain time” and follow the updates from the Department of Education.
Alexander thinks that changes in financial aid might take months to appear after the next administration takes office, due to the prolonged timeline of loan repayments.
While on school campuses, he anticipates political protests to happen, as he sees some people “very committed” to the election that they can go beyond “oral participation.”
“If Trump shoots his mouth off and says something like ‘We don’t need debt forgiveness,’” Alexander said. “You might see students who are very upset to take to the streets.”
Alexander suggests students to “follow the political environment very, very closely,” and pay careful attention to what the next administration does.
“That will become difficult, in part because the news environment is pretty chaotic, and also because Trump just likes to say stuff at random.”