A college student loan program with bipartisan support will expire Saturday after key Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander blocked legislation to extend it.

The need-based program will lapse midnight Saturday, depriving tens of thousands of college students of a source of financial aid that is a mix of federal dollars and college contributions.

“It is time for our country, through legislation by this Congress and attempted to pass it through an expedited process requiring unanimous consent, to move on to a simplified federal student aid program, that has only one federal loan for students, one federal grant for students and one work-study program for students,” said Alexander, objecting on the Senate floor to a bipartisan bill to extend the loan program to 2019.

Bill sponsor Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who attempted to pass the legislation through an expedited process requiring unanimous consent of all senators, agreed that the overall federal student aid system needed to be simplified. However, the Wisconsin Democrat said it was not “right or fair to end this program with nothing to replace it to the detriment of students in need.”

Perkins provided $1.2 billion in funds to 528,000 students in the 2014-15 school year, and was supported by colleges and universities as well as lawmakers from both parties. Alexander, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said that all students who have a Perkins Loan will keep it for the rest of the school year.