This bill moves most federal student aid functions from the Department of Education to the Department of the Treasury. The transfers include servicing and collections for delinquent and defaulted student loans, servicing of active (non-defaulted) loans, and many remaining student aid functions such as Pell Grants, Federal Work-Study, Direct Loans, Perkins Loans, need analysis, and related lender and institution rules. The Secretary of the Treasury would be able to use the authorities that the Secretary of Education had for these functions. The bill requires the Education and Treasury Secretaries to set staged effective dates for the moves. It directs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ensure the transfers do not increase the total number of full-time equivalent federal employees and allows OMB to make needed technical determinations. Personnel, assets, contracts, records, liabilities, and unspent funds tied to the moved functions are to be transferred to Treasury and used only for their original purposes. Existing orders, grants, permits, contracts, and ongoing legal and administrative proceedings tied to the transferred functions continue in effect and may be continued, and parties may be substituted in suits. The bill also ends a specific authority that allowed some student loans to be exempted from a provision of the Debt Collection Improvement Act once the transfers of collections functions take effect. During the transition, Treasury may use Education personnel, assets, and funds as needed to implement the changes.
No publicly available information on projected federal costs or savings. The bill does provide that personnel, assets, liabilities, contracts, records, and unexpended balances of appropriations tied to transferred functions shall be transferred to the Treasury and that unexpended funds must be used only for their originally authorized purposes.
No publicly available information.
No publicly available information.