Bost to Education Dept.: Release report showing miscalculated student loan budget projections

The U.S. Education Department must immediately release a public report commissioned by the previous administration showing how student loan budgetary projections are calculated and whether the process has been done correctly, said U.S. Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL).

“Students and taxpayers deserve to know whether or not these loans are worth what the federal government says they are,” said Rep. Bost, ranking member of the U.S. House Veterans Affairs Committee, in an April 30 statement. 

The congressman added that if the federal government has been basing budgeting assumptions on false information, then “these students’ loans will be in jeopardy through no fault of their own. Not only that, but American taxpayers will be stuck footing the bill.”

Rep. Bost also joined U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), ranking member of the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee, in sending an April 30 letter to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona requesting that he provide them with the report, which details the impact that the federal government’s miscalculations on student loan budget projections had on taxpayer dollars and on students.

“A recent news story from the Wall Street Journal suggests the Department of Education is refusing to release a report on how budgetary projections are calculated,” the members wrote. “The expert analysis reportedly details a hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars-wide gap between what the executive branch says student loans are worth and the real value of those loans.”

Rep. Bost and his colleague noted that the public policy implications of such a discrepancy are enormous. 

“Students’ ability to pursue a college degree is threatened if the federal government is no longer able to offer them loans,” they wrote. “Taxpayers are not an unlimited piggy bank. The federal government should not be making money off its lending program to students, nor should it add to unborn generations’ tax burdens.”