Education Secretary Linda McMahon said student loan borrowers must be “accountable” for their resuming payments and that the department is working to ease the difficulty in repaying these debts.

The Education Department announced this week that it will restart its collection on its defaulted student loan portfolio on May 5, arguing that doing so removes a burden from taxpayers of having to pay off the loans of others. McMahon said that while people need to be accountable for the loans they undertake, various measures are being undertaken to aid borrowers ahead of student loan collection resuming, including extending hours of the Federal Student Aid office for borrowers to contact, along with an artificial intelligence assistant named Aiden.

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“So we’re trying to put lots of plans in place so that people who do have loans outstanding can bring themselves up to date,” McMahon said on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom. “You know, we have over 5 million people that are in default, and that means their credit scores are affected. If they want to buy a home or buy a car, it’s very difficult for them, so we’d like to help them get out of default. But at the same time, this is something they owe. This is money they borrowed to go to school, and other taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay this burden. I think that’s very clear.”

McMahon said the Trump administration wants to discuss addressing student loan interest rates further, adding that she wants to speak to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on this matter. She also suggested that colleges would also need to get on board to lower the cost of education.

McMahon also addressed the Supreme Court hearing arguments on Tuesday on whether parents can opt out of LGBT content in schools. She said she believes parents should have this right, but she also suggested that the content parents want to remove their children from should also be looked into.

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“We don’t educate children, we don’t decide on the curriculum, but if you’re asking for an opinion, certainly, I do think that parents’ rights should prevail in these issues,” McMahon said.

During Tuesday’s hearing, several justices appeared sympathetic to the concerns some parents raised. Justice Samuel Alito noted how some of the books were approved for children as young as 3 or 4. Justice Elena Kagan, meanwhile, seemed more skeptical, suggesting that granting such a right whenever a parent has a sincere religious objection could effectively turn every classroom into a battlefield.