The Trump administration is ramping up pressure on colleges to ensure their graduates and other former students repay their federal student loans.
The U.S. Department of Education issued guidance on Wednesday for higher education institutions, reminding them to institute practices to keep their students’ delinquency and default rates low. The department said that doing so should be a priority not just for a college’s financial aid office but also for its institutional leadership.
There was also a warning in the announcement: Colleges with high student loan default rates could lose eligibility for federal student aid programs, the administration said.
More than 1,800 higher education institutions have student loan nonpayment rates of 25% or higher, the Education Department said in its press release. The nonpayment rate was based on students who entered repayment on their Direct loans between January 2020 and May 2025 and were greater than 90 days delinquent.
“Institutions cannot benefit from taxpayer dollars while ignoring the fact that a significant share of their students are not well-prepared to repay their loans,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement.
