If you weren’t already super psyched for the Big Beautiful Bill borrowing caps making law school unaffordable for many, get ready to learn that most lawyerly public service is no longer getting loan forgiveness. Because public service itself is going to “illegal.”
The Trump administration’s ongoing war on the legal profession continues with the Department of Education releasing its finalized Public Service Loan Forgiveness rule — a process kicked off in March when Trump issued his Restoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness Executive Order — and while its impact will be felt across education, the new rule is especially brutal for law school graduates, with the DOE cutting off forgiveness to those causes it deems to be supporting “illegal activity.” And, if you hadn’t already guessed what it means to support “illegal” activity in this regime, they mean jobs like “representing immigrants” and “advocating for transgender rights.”
What if someone else is in charge of the door and we all say “Hey I think those robbers are coming back, can we close and lock the door?” Then that person makes the door a little bit less ajar but still open and tells you to thank them. And you say “The door is still open, can we close it?” Then the door person walks away.
Yes, it’s the robber doing the robbing, but it’s also very much the fault of the person who chose to only address the problem in a superficial way.
I mean, kind of, but the robber is the root cause. They have agency and choose to rob. If it was flood protection, yeah, can’t blame the water.
The Republicans deserve the bulk of the blame