BATON ROUGE, LA — Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has stepped into the national spotlight, joining a bipartisan coalition of 52 state and territorial attorneys general demanding the U.S. Department of Education automatically wipe out student loans for veterans rendered totally and permanently disabled in service to the country.
The coalition, led by New Jersey’s Gurbir Grewal and Utah’s Sean Reyes, delivered a scathing letter to the DOE, highlighting a glaring failure: of the 42,000 veterans identified as eligible for loan relief due to service-connected disabilities, fewer than 9,000 applied by April 2018. More than 25,000 of these wounded service members now have loans in default — dogged by collections and black marks on their credit.
Under current federal law, the DOE is required to discharge federal student debt for veterans deemed unemployable by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Yet, the agency forces these injured heroes to file paperwork — a bureaucratic hurdle not even mandated by statute. The AGs call the process a betrayal of duty, demanding an automatic discharge system be implemented immediately.
“I am proud to join this bipartisan effort and urge the Department of Education to take action to better protect those who once protected the Nation,” said General Landry. “Our veterans deserve nothing less.” The letter insists that until automatic relief is in place, the DOE must halt all collections and scrub negative credit reporting tied to these loans.
The coalition argues that an opt-out model — where veterans can choose to keep their loans — would eliminate red tape and ensure no disabled veteran is left behind. The federal government has made minor improvements, but they fall short. Thousands remain trapped in debt they legally shouldn’t have to carry.
The full letter, signed by attorneys general from Louisiana, New Jersey, Utah, Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, and 46 other states and territories, is available through official NAAG channels. The push marks a rare moment of national unity — not over crime or punishment, but over overdue justice for those who paid the price in body and mind for serving their country.
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Key Facts
- State: Louisiana
- Agency: Louisiana AG
- Category: Public Corruption
- Source: Official Source ↗
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