← U.S. Student PlanPillar II · Education, Labor & the Productive Economy

06

Zero-Interest Student Loans, Open-Source Textbooks & Administrative Cap

Set new and existing federal student loans to zero interest, provide free open-source digital textbooks, and tie university funding and tax treatment to instruction and research rather than administrative bloat.

Passage watch

Proposed · not introduced

0 / 6 milestones

  1. 01 · Pending

    Introduced

    A sponsor files the legislation and an official bill record is created.

  2. 02 · Pending

    Committee review

    The relevant committee considers the legislation.

  3. 03 · Pending

    House passage

    The House approves the bill or the legislative vehicle carrying its provisions.

  4. 04 · Pending

    Senate passage

    The Senate approves the bill or its legislative vehicle.

  5. 05 · Pending

    Final text agreed

    Both chambers approve the same final text.

  6. 06 · Pending

    Becomes law

    The legislation is signed into law or enacted over a veto.

Latest progress

This Student Plan proposal has not been introduced. No congressional passage milestones are complete.

Plan baseline · · Not an official Congress update

Official record · awaiting introduction

No verified Congress.gov record is linked. H.R. numbers in the blueprint are proposed labels, not confirmed bill identifiers. Official action updates are unavailable until an introduced bill is matched.

Congress.gov

What the bill does

  1. 1

    A strict instruction-and-research-to-administration spending ratio for federal funding and tax-exempt status.

  2. 2

    Open-source digital textbooks for all federally subsidized courses.

  3. 3

    Set all new federal student loan interest rates to 0.0% and all existing federal student loan interest rates to 0.0%, allowing only a flat administrative processing fee; the blueprint does not specify the fee amount.

  4. 4

    Impose a 25% federal excise tax on endowment investment income and strip Title IV federal aid eligibility from universities whose non-instructional administrative payroll exceeds a strict ratio relative to classroom faculty and research spending. The blueprint does not specify a numeric ratio.

  5. 5

    Disallow federal tax credits and grant overhead recovery for courses that fail to use free, open-source digital textbooks.

  6. 6

    Require free, openly licensed digital course materials through federal curriculum grants and Title IV institutional participation conditions, replacing mandatory commercial textbook and homework access fees.

Why it matters

Serbia's Innovation in Education & Free Textbooks demand grew out of student occupations in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, and Kragujevac: families faced expensive textbooks while students wanted university resources directed to laboratories and classrooms rather than bureaucratic patronage. The U.S. adaptation brings together federal student-loan interest, recurring digital textbook access fees, and administrative spending. It seeks to let borrowers repay principal without compounding interest, make course materials freely available, and direct public support toward teaching, research, permanent faculty tracks, and student financial aid. This connects students' affordability demands with cross-partisan concerns about university costs and accountability.

The legislative blueprint

Phase 1 — House Floor Forcing Function (Spring 2029)

  • Rules Package Lock

    Seek a pre-scheduled, standalone, unamendable roll-call vote under Section 5 ("Orders of Business") of the 121st Congress House Rules Package (H.Res. 5) before April 15, 2029.

  • Breaking the Partisan Education Deadlock (340+ Vote Target)

    Pair administrative spending accountability with zero-interest loans and free open-source textbooks rather than frame the choice as blanket loan cancellation versus inaction. The blueprint targets 340+ bipartisan House votes and Senate Rule XIV calendar placement to bypass committee referral. These are proposed targets, not recorded results; calendar placement would not itself overcome the Senate filibuster.

Phase 2 — Bypassing the 60-Vote Senate Filibuster (Two-Track Pincer)

  • Track A — 51-Vote Budget Reconciliation (The Direct-Loan & Endowment Hammer)

    The proposed 25-member Accountability Caucus withholds its votes on the annual Concurrent Budget Resolution until instructions include zero interest for new and existing federal loans and the 25% endowment investment-income excise tax. The blueprint also seeks Title IV eligibility consequences and an escalating administrative-bloat penalty to shift spending toward instruction, tenured/permanent teaching tracks, and student financial aid; it supplies neither a numeric spending ratio nor an escalation schedule. Budget effects do not guarantee Byrd Rule eligibility for all conditions. These changes would require enactment and would not automatically cancel principal or previously accrued interest.

  • Track B — Higher Education Act & Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations

    Seek mandatory open-licensing conditions in federal curriculum grants and Title IV institutional participation agreements through the HEA and LHHS appropriations. The proposed requirement is free, open-source digital materials for courses at federally subsidized institutions rather than mandatory commercial access codes. Direct curriculum and textbook mandates remain separate from the fiscal design and subject to legislative review.

Phase 3 — Appropriations Enforcement & Campus Plenum Audits

  • LHHS & Indirect-Cost Limitation Riders

    Using its proposed 3 blocking seats on the House Rules Committee, the Caucus seeks riders in annual LHHS, NSF, and NIH funding: "None of the funds made available by this Act may be disbursed for administrative overhead or indirect-cost recovery to any institution of higher education that fails to maintain the statutory classroom-instruction-to-administration spending ratio or charges students mandatory commercial fees for course textbooks and homework software." The ratio would need to be defined in legislation; these are proposed funding restrictions, not current grant conditions.

  • Home-Turf Campus Plenum Audits

    If university leadership or higher-education lobbyists pressure a Senator to remove the administrative cap, the blueprint calls for the university's Campus Plenum, math, accounting, and journalism students to publish line-item audits of presidential perks, vice-provost salaries, and textbook-related contracts, alongside walkouts outside the administration building. This is proposed public-accountability work, not a claim that particular contracts involve kickbacks or that any audit has occurred.