And A. Wayne Johnson is a Republican to boot…
Student loan debt is in the hundreds of millions and climbing ….
The debt is cutting into consumer spending and the abuse in the running of the program seems to be impossible to address…
Congress DOES need to do something g and THAT will only be coming if there is a Democratic President…
Those running for the nomination HAVE indicated that they would move to erase some of the debt….Trump has done so for disabled veterans recently…
A top Education Department official involved in student financial aid resigned Thursday, announcing that he would push an agenda to cancel much of the country’s student debt as he vies for a political appointment in the U.S. Senate.
Although he has no political experience, the official, A. Wayne Johnson, said his past two years in the Education Department working closely with Secretary Betsy DeVos had given him a unique perspective on how Congress is best suited to fix the $1.6 trillion student debt crisis.
“Basically, once you get a front-row seat and you get in the belly of the beast, no matter how many operational improvements you’re going to do, it’s not going to fix something broken at its core,” Johnson, 67, a former private student loan company executive, said.
But Johnson, who began his career in government in 2017 as the chief operating officer of the Office of Federal Student Aid, said reversing the nation’s soaring student loan debt requires passing meaningful legislation in Washington.
“What I’ve seen firsthand is, yep, people criticize the operational execution of the department,” Johnson said. “What they don’t understand is the secretary and Federal Student Aid have a duty to fulfill the law as it’s handed to them.”
Johnson plans to put his name on the list of contenders seeking to fill the seat held by the senior senator from Georgia, Johnny Isakson.
Isakson, a Republican, plans to leave the Senate at the end of the year in the face of various health issues. The office of Gov. Brian Kemp, also a Republican, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the appointment process.
About 500 applicants are seeking the role, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Johnson, a former banking consultant who completed his doctoral research on student debt, became chief executive of the Reunion Student Loan Finance Corp. in 2012. If selected for the Senate seat, Johnson said he would serve as a Republican….
image…From left, A. Wayne Johnson, Betsy DeVos and G. P. ‘Bud’ Peterson take part in a meeting at Georgia Tech on Oct. 3, 2018.Bob Andres / Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP file