President Donald Trump holds up an executive order “Discharging the Federal Student Loan Debt of Totally and Permanently Disabled Veterans” after signing it at the AMVETS American Veterans convention in Louisville, Ky., August 21, 2019. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order directing the Department of Education to cancel all federal student-loan debt for seriously disabled veterans.

“Veterans . . . who have made such enormous sacrifices for our country should not be asked to pay anymore,” Trump said as he addressed more than 2,500 veterans at the 75th annual AMVETS convention in Louisville, Ky. “The debt of these disabled veterans will be entirely erased. It will be gone. They can sleep well tonight.”


More than 25,000 “completely and permanently” disabled veterans will see “every penny” of their student debt forgiven under the order, Trump said.

Student-debt forgiveness for eligible veterans is a bipartisan issue, and several Democratic presidential candidates have proposed eliminating student-loan debt for all the nation’s students.

“Only half of the roughly 50,000 disabled veterans who are qualified to have their Federal student loan discharged have received this entitled benefit” because of a “burdensome” process, the White House said in a statement.

Trump has made caring for veterans a priority of his administration and in June 2017 signed the Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, which expedites the process of firing negligent VA employees.

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