OHIO — The U.S. Department of Education laid off more than 1,300 employees last week. Those cuts could impact borrowers who rely on federal student aid in Ohio. 

What You Need To Know

  • The U.S. Department of Education cut roughly half of its staff last week

  • Those cuts won't impact federal loans themselves but could negatively impact borrowers

  • $63 billion in federal student aid is provided to 1.8 million Ohioans

Betsy Mayotte is the founder and president of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a national nonprofit organization that provides free advice to student loan borrowers. She expresses concern that the recent layoffs will limit access to help for borrowers. 

“A lot of the people that were eliminated are the people that I call helpers," Mayotte said. "The people that you know manage disputes or errors on people’s accounts. So it’s sort of ironic to me that the whole purpose of this was to avoid fraud and abuse, but they got rid of the teams that look out for and prevent fraud and abuse.” 

In Ohio, The U.S. Department of Education provides $63 billion in federal student loan aid to nearly 1.8 million Ohioans. Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper is worried that cutting the staff will impact the application process for first-time borrowers in the state. 

"Services like that are dependent upon having people on the other end of that line to answer questions, to help guide you through a process.," Cropper said. "When people aren’t there, things get slowed down.” 

Meanwhile, Mayotte said the federal loans themselves will not change even if there are further changes to the Department of Education, but resources are a different story. 

“If the Department of Education were to go away, which is a huge if, the oversight of the loan programs would just go to a different agency: treasury, commerce, or small business," Mayotte said. "I am concerned about borrowers having resources if something goes south on their account and who they’re going to go to get help with that.” 

The federal Department of Education did release a statement saying “The Department of Education will continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking.” 

In terms of advice to concerned student loan borrowers here in Ohio, Mayotte said to continue to make informed decisions regarding your loans. 

"Don’t make panic decisions. You know, a lot of this stuff still has to shake out and may come to not. I would be extremely surprised even in the current environment, even in the current administration, if they made any substantive changes to existing loans.”