Monday, November 2, 2026

"STARVE IT, BREAK IT, BLAME IT": THE RIGHT-WING PLAYBOOK ON PUBLIC EDUCATION — AND WHY BORROWERS ARE PAYING THE PRICE

 

"STARVE IT, BREAK IT, BLAME IT": THE RIGHT-WING PLAYBOOK ON PUBLIC EDUCATION — AND WHY BORROWERS ARE PAYING THE PRICE


An unflinching look at the manufactured chaos in America's student loan system

The Oldest Trick in the Privatization Playbook

There's a magic trick that's been performed so many times it barely qualifies as sleight of hand anymore. Step one: underfund a public institution until it staggers. Step two: point at the staggering institution and yell, "See? Government doesn't work!" Step three: hand the whole operation to a billionaire donor and call it "reform."

Welcome to the American education system, circa 2026 — where the Department of Education has been systematically hollowed out, its functions scattered to the bureaucratic winds like confetti at a foreclosure auction, and where nearly 90,000 public servants are sitting in a forgiveness backlog so deep you'd need a federal loan just to afford the therapy.

This isn't incompetence. This is policy.

The Underfunding-to-Failure Pipeline

Here's how the machine works, explained with the clarity it deserves:

  • Cut staff at Federal Student Aid (FSA) and the Department of Education.
  • Scatter departmental functions across agencies that weren't built to handle them, ensuring maximum confusion and minimum accountability.
  • Watch the backlogs explode — not because government can't work, but because you've surgically removed its ability to do so.
  • Declare victory and pivot to your preferred for-profit alternative, which will, with stunning predictability, also collapse — leaving students holding worthless degrees and very real debt.

The result? As of November 2, 2026, we have:

  • ~88,000 pending PSLF Buyback requests rotting in administrative purgatory as of April 2026 data.
  • A class-action lawsuit (Weingarten v. McMahon) filed October 30, 2026, by the American Federation of Teachers alleging the Department is unlawfully delaying forgiveness for teachers, nurses, and government workers who already earned it.
  • A separate lawsuit (Gaussoin v. McMahon, filed October 28, 2026) alleging the Department quietly abandoned a 2025 expanded eligibility policy for closed-school discharges — without explanation, without legal justification, and without so much as a courtesy email.
  • And the long-suffering Sweet v. McMahon enforcement battle, where 1,051+ class members are still waiting for discharges or refunds they were already promised by court settlement.

If this were a private company, we'd call it fraud. In Washington, they call it a "coding error."

The For-Profit College Graveyard: Degrees in Smoke, Debt in Stone

Let's talk about the for-profit college industrial complex — an industry that has perfected the art of taking federal money, delivering substandard education, collapsing spectacularly, and leaving students with the bill.

The roll call of shame includes:

InstitutionWhat HappenedWho Got Left Behind
Brooks InstituteClosed abruptly August 2016Photography students, including Kendrick Gaussoin — still owes ~$22,000 in 2026
Career Education Corp. (CEC)Collapsed networkThousands of borrowers, expanded look-back eligibility granted then abandoned
Education Management Corp. (EDMC)Fraud findings, closuresBorrowers denied discharges under revised rules
Education Corporation of America (ECA)Sudden 2018 closureStudents mid-semester, mid-degree, mid-life
Bay State CollegeClosureBorrowers caught in eligibility limbo
ITT Tech / Corinthian / AshfordFraud, misconduct, collapse~300,000+ people still having $4.6 billion in already-canceled debt reported as active to credit bureaus

That last point deserves its own paragraph. Three hundred thousand people were told their debt was canceled. The government agreed it was canceled. And yet Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion are still showing it as outstanding — accruing interest, damaging credit scores, and in some cases triggering collection actions. The Woods v. U.S. Department of Education lawsuit, filed September 2026, is trying to force the obvious: stop reporting canceled debt as real debt.

The for-profit college model, in summary: privatize the profits, socialize the wreckage.

Public Servants: A Decade of Service, A Lifetime of Waiting

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was Congress's promise to the people who choose service over salary — teachers, nurses, social workers, public defenders, government employees. Work ten years, make 120 qualifying payments, and we'll cancel the rest.

Simple. Noble. Apparently impossible to administer.

Here's what's happening to real people right now:

  • A Florida government lawyer needs to buy back four months to qualify for cancellation of $191,000 in loans. Four months. The Department won't process his application.
  • A New York borrower had been credited with 119 qualifying payments — one away from forgiveness — and then received a notice that 14 months had been removed from the count. No clear explanation. Just gone.
  • Borrowers report waits of months to nearly two years for buyback decisions, with servicers like MOHELA processing a backlog that grows faster than it shrinks.

And then, as a special bonus effective July 1, 2026: the Department changed the rules so that late payments no longer count toward the 120. Because apparently a decade of public service wasn't already enough of a qualifying exam.

The Department's official explanation for the missing payment counts? "Coding errors."

Coding errors. For a program affecting millions of Americans. In the year 2026. At the federal agency whose entire job is to manage student loans.

This Is What Manufactured Failure Looks Like — And Here's What You Do About It

Let's be direct: this is not an accident. When you gut the staff of a federal agency, scatter its functions, stall its processing systems, and then shrug at a 90,000-application backlog, you are not experiencing a bureaucratic hiccup. You are watching a deliberate strategy to make people lose faith in public institutions — so that the next billionaire with a charter school pitch gets a warmer reception.

The antidote is not cynicism. The antidote is accountability at the ballot box and in the courtroom.

If you are a borrower, here's how to protect yourself right now:

  1. Check your PSLF payment count at StudentAid.gov — log in, go to your loan details, and review your PSLF tracker. Screenshot everything.
  2. Save every document — employment certifications, payment histories, denial letters, servicer communications. All of it. Treat it like evidence, because it may become evidence.
  3. If your school closed, review your eligibility for a closed-school discharge at the Federal Student Aid borrower-defense page. If you were denied under the old rules but attended one of the affected institutions (CEC, EDMC, ECA, Brooks Institute, Bay State College), the Gaussoin lawsuit may be relevant to your situation.
  4. Check your credit report at AnnualCreditReport.com. If you received a group discharge and the debt is still showing as active, document it — the Woods lawsuit is directly addressing this.
  5. Do not stop payments based on a lawsuit alone unless a court order specifically covers your loans. Get individualized advice first.
  6. Contact advocacy organizations like Student Defense or the Project on Predatory Student Lending if you believe your discharge or forgiveness has been improperly denied.

The Bottom Line

The scandal isn't just that the system is broken. The scandal is that breaking it was the point.

Public education — from K-12 to federal student loan administration — has been subjected to a sustained, ideologically driven campaign of underfunding, destabilization, and privatization. The casualties are the borrowers who played by the rules: the teacher who spent a decade in a Title I school, the nurse who worked through a pandemic, the first-generation college student who trusted a for-profit institution's glossy brochure.

They followed the rules. The rules were moved.

Tomorrow, vote like your student loan depends on it — because for 90,000 people, it literally does. Vote for candidates who believe that public institutions deserve to be built up, not starved into failure. Demand that the Department of Education do the job the law requires and the people deserve.

The billionaires already got their tax cuts. The least the rest of us can get is functional loan forgiveness.

Sources: Weingarten v. McMahon (filed Oct. 30, 2026); Gaussoin v. McMahon (filed Oct. 28, 2026); Woods v. U.S. Department of Education (filed Sept. 2026); Sweet v. McMahon enforcement proceedings; American Federation of Teachers; Student Defense; Project on Predatory Student Lending; Federal Student Aid data; Education Week; NPR; WBUR.




SOURCES AND LINKS FOR FUTURE READING

 Lawsuits & Legal Challenges

Closed School Discharge — Gaussoin v. McMahon

👩‍🏫 PSLF Buyback Backlog & AFT Lawsuit

Weingarten v. McMahon & PSLF Delays

🏛️ Official Government Resources

Check Your PSLF Status & Loan Information

🔍 Advocacy & Legal Aid Organizations

📰 Broader Context & Background Reading

💡 Pro Tip for Borrowers

Screenshot and save everything from StudentAid.gov — payment counts, employer certifications, and discharge application statuses. Given the documented history of "coding errors" and retroactive count removals, your personal records may be your strongest protection if your case ever reaches a legal dispute.



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