Sweet Student Loan Settlement Fight Heads to Nov. 5 Hearing: At Least 1,051 Borrowers Still Await Overdue Relief as Lawyers Seek Contempt Finding Against Education Department
At least 1,051 members of the Sweet v. McMahon student loan settlement class are still waiting for loan discharges or refunds that the U.S. Department of Education was legally required to provide by deadlines that have long since passed, according to the Project on Predatory Student Lending (PPSL), the borrowers' legal team. Some borrowers have been waiting more than a year and a half past their deadline. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has scheduled a public hearing for November 5 on the borrowers' motions to enforce the settlement and to hold the Department in contempt.
The borrowers' lawyers first sent the Education and Justice Departments a notice of material breach on June 18, 2026, alleging that relief was overdue for more than 1,000 class members. On August 18, they filed a motion asking the court to enforce the settlement and set a firm deadline for all remaining relief, along with a motion asking the court to hold the Department in contempt and impose sanctions. They filed replies in support of both motions on October 15. In its October 1 opposition, the Education Department said it has substantially complied with the settlement and that further enforcement orders are unwarranted. Both motions are the borrowers' requests; the court has not ruled.
The Sweet case was filed on June 25, 2019, in the Northern District of California on behalf of federal student loan borrowers whose Borrower Defense applications had been ignored by the Department — many of them since 2015. The parties filed their settlement agreement on June 22, 2022, and the court granted final approval on November 16, 2022. PPSL says the settlement now totals at least $23 billion in relief, the largest ever against the U.S. federal government.
The settlement's Post-Class applicants have also been through repeated deadline fights. On July 17, 2026, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit unanimously denied the Department's effort to extend key decision deadlines, preserving full settlement relief for more than 170,000 Post-Class borrowers whose applications were not decided on time. Post-Class applicants from Exhibit C schools faced a January 28, 2026 decision deadline; the Department sent eligibility notices around March 30, 2026, and relief is due within one year of that notice.
The November 5 hearing will decide whether the court imposes a new enforcement deadline and further oversight. Class members who have not received an eligibility notice can follow PPSL's published guidance to check their inboxes, including spam folders, or contact the Department and PPSL about their relief status.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于 San Francisco 的 Phillip Burton 联邦大楼与美国联邦法院大楼，加州北区联邦地区法院所在地（资料图）。摄影：Sam Wheeler，CC BY-SA 3.0，来源：Wikimedia Commons / Photo: The Phillip Burton Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in San Francisco, home of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (file photo). Photo by Sam Wheeler, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
