The U.S. Department of Education announced that it will restart collections on defaulted federal student loans on May 5, a department spokesperson said. The spokesperson said the federal student loan portfolio is nearly $1.7 trillion and that about four in 10 student borrowers are in repayment.

A U.S. Department of Education spokesperson said, "Unlike the previous administration, who made false promises and pushed an illegal student loan bailout, we will not force American taxpayers to take on the debts that are not theirs." The spokesperson added, "There's no such thing as forgiveness, just shifting the payment burden from 1 party to another. Borrowers should pay back the debts they take on."

The department's statement also directed borrowers to studentaid.gov for information on repayment options. The announcement frames the restart as a policy decision by the department; the transcript provided does not include additional details about implementation steps, exemptions, or administrative appeals.

The remarks contain allegations about actions taken by a previous administration; those assertions appear in the spokesperson's statement and are presented here as attribution to the spokesperson rather than as independently verified fact. The transcript did not cite statutes, regulations, or an agency order tied to the restart in the excerpt provided.

Borrowers seeking repayment information were told to visit studentaid.gov.