Taxpayers have footed the bill for more than $50 million in student loan payments for Capitol Hill staffers over the last few years thanks to a little-known scheme.
While many lawmakers were busy slamming President Joe Biden‘s controversial student loan forgiveness plan, almost all were simultaneously offering up to $80,000 in taxpayer-funded student debt relief to people who worked for them.
Under the largely unknown plan, taxpayers are footing the bill for Capitol Hill staffers’ college bills. Those in the Senate can receive up to $40,000 directly from the Treasury to pay down their federal student loans. The House is even more generous, with up to $80,000 on offer through a nearly identical benefit created in 2023.
Monthly benefit payments for Senate staffers are capped at $500 a month, while House staffers have a larger monthly cap of $833. Despite the cap, the U.S. Treasury has paid off $36.5 million in House staffers’ student loans since the start of 2020, according to House disbursement records. Senate staffers enrolled in the benefit have seen just over $15 million wiped away from their outstanding student loan balances since October 2019, Senate records show.
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Congressional staffers are free to enroll in the Student Loan Repayment Program once their employing lawmaker gives approval for their office to be involved. Available records indicate that nearly every lawmaker on Capitol Hill, even those vehemently opposed to Biden’s debt forgiveness plan, have authorized their staff to enroll in the House and Senate’s taxpayer-funded student loan repayment benefits.
“Of course the office allows staff to participate in the Senate program,” Sen. John Kennedy’s (R-LA) Communications Director Jess Andrews told the Washington Examiner when asked about the benefit.
Kennedy called Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan a “cynical attempt to buy votes before an election” on Friday. Two days prior, on Wednesday, Kennedy said it wasn’t fair that taxpayers will be on the hook for the estimated $37 million borrowers are slated to have eliminated as part of Biden’s plan.
Here’s what Pres. Biden’s so-called “canceling” of student debt really means: Americans who already paid off their debt, worked through college, went to a trade school, or chose to not go to school will pay off the loans that other people incurred.
On what planet is that fair?
— John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) August 24, 2022
Drew Brandewie, a spokesman for Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), also confirmed to the Washington Examiner that his office participates in the Senate’s student loan repayment program.
Cornyn railed against Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan as “the worst domestic decision of his Presidency” in a tweet Thursday.
Biden’s plan “makes chumps of Congress and every American who repaid loans or didn’t go to college,” Cornyn wrote.
President Biden’s student-loan write-off is the worst domestic decision of his Presidency and makes chumps of Congress and every American who repaid loans or didn’t go to college. https://t.co/AUsHksRfqE via @WSJ
— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) August 25, 2022
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) also allows her staffers to participate in the Senate’s student loan repayment benefit, a spokeswoman for her office told the Washington Examiner. Moore Capito introduced bipartisan legislation in June 2021 that she said would help alleviate student loan debt for recent graduates.
The offices of the remaining 47 Republican senators did not return requests for comment.
Nearly 2,000 congressional staffers are enrolled in the House and Senate’s student loan repayment programs, according to Politico. Staffers that make under $125,000 will be able to double up on taxpayer-funded student loan assistance by having up to $20,000 of their federal debt forgiven as part of Biden’s plan.
Neither the House nor the Senate publicly identifies in their disbursement reports which offices or staffers are enrolled in the taxpayer-funded student loan repayment benefits.
However, the House Office of Diversity & Inclusion’s 2021 House Compensation and Diversity Study found that 99.1% of House staffers surveyed reported that their offices participate in the program.
And the Congressional Management Foundation, a nonpartisan charity, found in a 2019 survey that 100% of Senate offices were enrolled in the benefit.
The House and Senate student loan repayment programs come with caveats.
The benefits are only available to congressional staffers — lawmakers themselves are not eligible to participate. Each office has a limited allocation of student loan repayment program funds available to dole out to its staffers. Some lawmakers reserve the funds for entry-level employees, while others divvy the funds out to senior staffers with graduate loans, Politico reported.
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Staffers are also required to commit to working in their congressional office for a full year before enrolling in the benefit. Those that leave their jobs before their one-year period is completed can be required to repay the funds in full, depending on office policy.
And unlike Biden’s forgiveness plan, the funds that staffers receive from the House and Senate’s student loan repayment programs are taxed as additional income.
