Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee floated the proposal as part of a speech outlining reforms to the student-loan system
Borrowers could soon be required to pay back their federal student loans directly from their paychecks, if one powerful Republican gets his way.
Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee and the chair of the Senate’s Committee on Health, Education Labor and Pensions, which oversees higher education, proposed automatically withholding a borrower’s monthly student-loan payment from their paycheck, similar to the system already used for federal payroll taxes.
Alexander floated the idea in a speech outlining his priorities for reauthorizing the Higher Education Act, the statute that governs colleges and financial aid. As a former governor of Tennessee, Secretary of Education and president of the University of Tennessee, Alexander is a prominent voice on higher education issues. He plans to retire in 2020 and has signaled that he’d like Congress to reauthorize the HEA by the end of the year.