Despite urgings from consumer rights advocates, a federal appeals court has ordered an end to the Biden-era Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan in a decision handed down Monday by the 8th Circuit Court. 
Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri dismissed the case as moot after the State of Missouri and the Trump administration jointly moved for final judgment, signaling they no longer had an active dispute requiring resolution. The March 9 ruling reverses the dismissal, ordering the lower court to finalize a judgment in the case based on what the parties had agreed to; the Trump Administration plans to phase out the SAVE plan by July 2028 in favor of new income-based repayment plan outlined in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Officials at The Institute for College Access & Success decried the decision, saying, "In its announcement, [the U.S. Department of Education] has still not given borrowers any concrete, actionable information about what comes next or deadlines for switching plans. This is one more chaotic move by the administration that is sure to confuse and alarm borrowers,” said Michele Zampini, associate vice president for federal policy & advocacy at TICAS.
“It has become increasingly obvious that the Department of Education (ED) is not well prepared to smoothly transition borrowers into other plans and has not given any concrete, actionable information about what comes next or deadlines for switching plans,” Zampini continued. “Key questions remain unanswered: how long borrowers will have to switch into a new plan, how long servicers will take to process applications, and what recourse borrowers will have if they lose months of credit toward loan discharge and face mounting interest charges because of servicer processing delays.”
The organization's concern that the ED is ill-equipped to help borrowers transition to other plans is a claim that seems at least partially supported by a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released today that says the U.S. Department of Education needs to address gaps in servicer oversight. Among its findings, the GAO report says “4 of the 5 loan servicers didn't meet [the Department of] Education's performance standards for keeping accurate records,” but the Department hasn’t monitored servicers on accuracy or call quality since February 2025. The department blamed staff capacity for the lack of oversight; the Trump Administration laid off 46 percent of the staff in the Federal Student Aid (FSA) office in its first month, the report found.
The report was commissioned by U.S. Rep. Robert “Bobby” Scott, ranking member on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. "ED’s refusal to conduct oversight of student loan servicers is a dereliction of duty,” Scott said in a statement. “Moreover, I am gravely concerned that ED incorrectly believes it can replace real oversight of servicers with untested automation or artificial intelligence. ... If you are a borrower in need of assistance with your student loans, there is no one at ED to help you.”
The GAO, a non-partisan agency of the legislative branch, recommended the Department of Education do more to assess servicer accuracy and call quality, a recommendation it says the ED disagreed with, citing “a variety of other methods” used to oversee the programs.
According to the report, “In September 2025, FSA officials said Education was working to implement more efficient oversight methods that leverage data analysis and exploring possible changes to the contract performance standards. However, as of December 2025, FSA was not using any replacement methods for overseeing accuracy and call quality and had not changed the performance standards.”
