The American Federation of Teachers Expanded Their Class-Action Lawsuit Against the Department of Education to Include the IDR Forgiveness Pause

Here are excerpts from Stanley Tate’s newsletter today. The amended complaint can be viewed here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17gOBTOhlgvAkgTvXJ51CNXeak4a9jh3E/view

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), representing 1.8 million members, filed an amended federal class-action lawsuit yesterday. Their claim: the Department of Education is unlawfully withholding forgiveness from borrowers who already earned it…

…The AFT's allegations boil down to this:

DOE shut down forgiveness it wasn’t ordered to stop. Courts only blocked the SAVE plan’s forgiveness. But the Department went further, pausing forgiveness under IBR, PAYE, and ICR — even though those programs were untouched by the injunction.

DOE is stonewalling Public Service Loan Forgiveness. PSLF Buyback applications — the tool to recover months lost in forbearance — are piling up. More than 72,000 remain stuck.

DOE is misleading borrowers. The Department’s own website claims forgiveness under ICR and PAYE is paused “because those plans weren’t created by Congress.” That’s false. Congress required both.

What the plaintiffs want is simple: a court order forcing DOE to honor the law. That means processing pending applications, restoring forgiveness under IBR, PAYE, and ICR, and granting PSLF cancellations to borrowers who’ve already hit 120 qualifying payments…

…The AFT has already filed its amended complaint. Next up is a motion for a preliminary injunction — essentially asking the court to step in right away, not years from now after a full trial. That filing is expected next week.

The Department of Education will have until October 10th to respond. After that, the court will likely schedule a hearing later this fall. If the injunction is granted, the Department would be forced to restart cancellations under IBR, PAYE, and ICR, and process PSLF Buyback applications, instead of letting everything sit in backlog.