President Donald Trump has signed an executive action that directs the U.S. Education Department to exclude certain federal student loan borrowers from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

The action says “individuals employed by organizations whose activities have a substantial illegal purpose” will no longer be eligible for the program, known as PSLF. It comes three weeks after Education Secretary Linda McMahon said at her Senate confirmation hearing she would keep the program intact.

Created by Congress, PSLF forgives the federal loan balances of borrowers who work in public sector jobs, including nonprofit organizations, after they have made 10 years of payments while working for their qualifying employer.

The executive action directs McMahon to redefine “public service” in a manner that “excludes organizations that engage in activities that have a substantial illegal purpose.”

Among the activities listed are: support for terrorism; child abuse, including “the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children or the trafficking of children to so-called transgender sanctuary”; “aiding and abetting illegal discrimination”; violating federal immigration laws; and state law violations such as “trespassing, disorderly conduct, public nuisance, vandalism, and obstruction of highways.”

Critics say that represents an attack on the free speech rights of borrowers, and on organizations that engage in activities that conflict with the administration’s agenda.

“What is happening is that debt is being used to scare hardworking public service workers from serving the most vulnerable members of our society, or speaking out against the Trump Administration’s radical agenda,” says Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing counsel at the Student Borrower Protection Center.

Written into the PSLF law, signed by President George W. Bush in 2007, is a description of the types of public service employees who are eligible. Yu says it would take a lengthy federal rulemaking process to change those eligibility requirements.

Secretary McMahon and the White House could take steps to re-regulate the law. That’s what the Biden administration did in 2021, when it expanded the rules of PSLF.

One result of those changes was a boom in loan forgiveness. In January, toward the end of Biden’s term, the department announced in a statement that the “total number of borrowers approved for PSLF is now 1,069,000 and $78.46 billion. By contrast, only 7,000 borrowers had received PSLF at the start of the Biden-Harris Administration.”

While there are avenues for the Trump administration to regulate the way PSLF is administered, Yu says the president cannot redefine the law and who qualifies for it with an executive action.

“These borrowers have signed contracts [with the Department of Education] that embed this right to public service loan forgiveness in it, ” says Yu, adding he expects legal challenges to the executive action.

PSLF has a troubled history. In a 2018 review, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that when borrowers called the company managing PSLF to make sure their jobs qualified, they sometimes didn’t get an answer — because the Education Department hadn’t given the company a list of eligible employers.

That same year, NPR reported that federal data showed 99% of applications for loan forgiveness through PSLF had been denied.

Hundreds of scientists marched under sunny skies in front of federal offices in Los Angeles on Friday as part of a day of nationwide protests against Trump administration policies.

Pushing back against perceived threats to research and science, they bore on-theme signs, including one that read “What would Albert do?” accompanying a photo of Einstein.

The rally outside the Wilshire Federal Building drew graduate students and professors from USC and UCLA and was held under the banner of the Stand Up for Science movement, which drew inspiration from the March for Science held in 2017 shortly after Trump began his first term.

Many scientists once again feel under attack. In a matter of weeks, the second Trump administration has slashed jobs at science agencies — including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement (again), clawed back research papers under review at scientific journals to scrub terms that the political right has railed against, such as “transgender,” and terminated funding for global health programs. The administration has also attempted to block grants and reduce funding for research institutions.

“We have seen incredible disarray and attempts to dismantle a very effective research infrastructure in this country. And we have to say, enough is enough,” Judith Currier, a professor of medicine at UCLA, said at the demonstration, that took place in the shadow of offices for agencies including Veterans Affairs.

At least 32 coordinated rallies were held across the country Friday, anchored by a march on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., attended by thousands.

Duke Han, a professor of psychiatry and family medicine at USC, said that although he wasn’t as involved in the March for Science movement during Trump’s first stint in the White House, he chose to participate in these protests because the level of interference has grown in significance. Science has historically been considered nonpartisan, but events in recent years have galvanized those in the field to speak out.

“A lot of us are trying to figure out what we can do,” Han said. “A number of us are becoming more politically active, or politically active for the first time.”

For Han, the impact isn’t theoretical. He says his institution has become more cautious about giving offers to graduate students. A grant that was supposed to fund research he’s involved with to identify early signs of Alzheimer’s disease is five weeks late. He reached out to contacts at NIH but believes “it’s something that’s happening above them.”

The rally outside the federal building in Westwood drew professors, graduate students and others.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Several people at the protest said that the money used to fund scientific work pays dividends — and that losing it can have disastrous consequences for biomedical research, pharmaceutical development and more. Younger scientists shared the concern at the event. An international student at UCLA said the reason she came to the United States was for the “great opportunities” for research. “But look at the situation now,” said the 21-year-old undergrad, originally from India, who declined to provide her name because of how it might affect her immigration status.

Katherine Karlsgodt, an associate professor at UCLA in the psychology and psychiatry departments, who helped organize the Los Angeles rally, said she was “very upset” by the barrage of changes and concerned about their ramifications.

Alterations to science agency funding “have the potential to just completely derail scientific research and medical research [and] have a huge impact on universities and university budgets and our ability to train students and do research and basically everything that we do.”

Karlsgodt caught wind of the Stand Up for Science effort but was disappointed when she didn’t see a local rally on the books. Then some people at UCLA and USC got to talking, she said. One of her students — Dylan Hughes, a PhD student in the clinical psychology program at UCLA — booked the site and they began trying to spread the word. By the evening before the event, 300 people had RSVP’d.

“This is a really dark time for science and for humanity,” said Dylan Hughes, a UCLA graduate student who helped organize the Los Angeles rally, “but there’s an energy that we’ve created here that’s really helpful and has the power to change the world.”

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Expressions of anger and alarm intermingled with hope and solidarity at the rally. Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” played as scores of attendees mingled and flashed pithy signs to cars speeding down Wilshire Boulevard. Honks elicited cheers. A dog in the crowd sported a sign announcing, “Dogs against DOGE,” around its neck, a reference to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk, who has led much of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts.

What’s now a national movement began as a Bluesky post.

On. Feb. 8, Colette Delawalla, a graduate student in psychology at Emory University, announced online that she was planning a national protest for science, according to the New York Times. It hit a collective nerve, and other scientists quickly hopped on board, evolving into Stand Up for Science.

Behind the rallies are policy goals outlined on the group’s website, including ending political interference and censorship; restoring and expanding research funding; and defending diversity and accessibility.

Back in L.A., Hughes, the UCLA PhD student, who helped spearheaded the local event, urged people to take in the moment.

“This is a really dark time for science and for humanity,” Hughes said, “but there’s an energy that we’ve created here that’s really helpful and has the power to change the world.”

The Stand Up for Science movement drew inspiration from the 2017 March for Science.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)