Linda McMahon

The U.S. Department of Education and Linda McMahon filed a reply supporting their motion to dismiss the Havens case on August 17, 2026. The reply addressed opposition to their July 14 dismissal motion.

The Education Department filed a notice correcting the supplemental memorandum it had submitted in the Havens case, attaching a corrected brief, a redline and a corrected declaration.

A Massachusetts federal judge denied without prejudice nursing associations' request for preliminary relief from the RISE professional-degree definition. The court found the plaintiffs likely to succeed on their contrary-to-law argument but found no present irreparable harm requiring an injunction.

The U.S. Department of Education and Linda McMahon moved to dismiss the Havens case, including for lack of jurisdiction, on July 14, 2026. The Justice Department also told the court that the lawsuit seeking to stop the SAVE shutdown should be dismissed.

William Boykin, Anna Grunseth, Heather Havens, and Elizabeth Robeson filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on June 23, 2026. The docket identifies their August 7 filing as a reply to opposition to that motion.

Six professional and education associations filed a lawsuit challenging the RISE professional-degree definition and its July 1 effective date. The complaint alleged that the rule created a narrower eligibility test for higher professional-student borrowing caps.

A multistate coalition sued the U.S. Department of Education over the RISE rule's professional-degree definition. North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson said the definition affected nursing, physician-assistant, therapy, occupational-therapy, and audiology programs.

Secretaries McMahon and Scott Bessent announced an interagency agreement moving operational responsibility for the $1.7 trillion portfolio to Treasury in phases, starting with collections on defaulted loans and support for returning borrowers to repayment, with non-defaulted loans and other FSA functions to follow 'to the extent practicable and permitted by law'. The department said fewer than 40 percent of borrowers were in repayment and almost 25 percent were in default.

Citing the injunction, the department said loans in the SAVE forbearance would begin accruing interest again on August 1, 2025, though payments would still not be due, and that it would start direct outreach the next day urging the nearly 7.7 million enrollees to move to a plan such as IBR. Interest was not charged retroactively for the year the loans had sat at zero percent.

On the day collections resumed, Treasury started sending 30-day notices to about 195,000 defaulted borrowers that their federal benefits, including Social Security payments and tax refunds, would be offset, with the first offsets hitting June checks. The department said all 5.3 million defaulted borrowers would be told later in the summer that their wages could be garnished, and sent colleges a Dear Colleague letter warning about cohort default rates.

Secretary Linda McMahon announced that Federal Student Aid would resume collecting on the defaulted portfolio on May 5, 2025, through the Treasury Offset Program and later wage garnishment. The department said 42.7 million borrowers owed more than $1.6 trillion, more than five million were in default, four million more were in late-stage delinquency, and only 38 percent of borrowers were current on their loans.