Rep. Bobby Scott, the chairman of the House education committee, invited the CEO of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency to testify at an oversight hearing. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images Education Company managing public service loan forgiveness refuses to testify before House panel

The large student loan servicing company under fire for its management of the federal public service loan forgiveness program is declining to testify Thursday at a House subcommittee’s oversight hearing about the program.

James H. Steeley, the president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, wrote in a letter on Tuesday to Rep. Bobby Scott, the chairman of the House education committee, that he was turning down Scott’s invitation to testify at an oversight hearing.


“As a federal servicer, PHEAA is strictly bound by the laws, regulations and guidance of the programs put forward by Congress and the Department; therefore, I must respectfully decline your invitation,” Steeley wrote in the letter, which was obtained by POLITICO.

The hearing is meant to examine the Trump administration’s implementation of the public service loan forgiveness program, which has been rejecting the vast majority of borrowers who apply.

PHEAA, which operates FedLoan Servicing, is one of the nation’s largest student loan servicers. It’s also one of several companies hired by the Education Department to collect federal student loans and it serves as the exclusive contractor for the public service loan forgiveness program.

The company has been at the center of the growing dispute over why tens of thousands of teachers, public-sector employees and nonprofit charity workers who expected to have their loans wiped out are being denied the benefit. The company has drawn the ire of government watchdogs, state attorneys general and congressional Democrats.

The committee will have an empty chair for Steeley if he does not show up on Thursday, according to a committee aide. A spokesperson for the panel declined to comment on whether the committee would issue a subpoena to compel his testimony.

The Education Department’s contract with PHEAA — which has totaled $1.3 billion over the last decade — and that of other major loan servicers is expiring in December, though they could be extended. PHEAA has bid on aspects of a new loan servicing platform, called NextGen, that the Trump administration is in the process of developing.

A career Education Department official, Jeff Appel, is scheduled to testify at Thursday’s hearing as is Melissa Emrey-Arras, who directs education issues at the Government Accountability Office. The GAO has issued several reports that are critical of the Education Department’s management of the public service loan forgiveness program.

Other witnesses include Yael Shavit, an assistant attorney general of Massachusetts, whose office is suing PHEAA over its alleged failures in managing the public service loan forgiveness program, and Kelly Finlaw, a New York City teacher, who is one of the named plaintiffs in the American Federation of Teachers’ lawsuit against the Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over the program.

Matthew M. Chingos, vice president for education data and policy at the Urban Institute, will also testify.