Biden can cancel up to $50K in student loan debt, says group of 85 Democratic lawmakers BY Sydney Lake
The countdown is officially back on, as weâre in the 100-day window for student loan repayments to resume once again. For nearly two years, federal student loan borrowers have had the choice of whether or not to make payments during the COVID-19 pandemicâbut May 1 is currently the date that option will end.Â
Forbearance on student loans has been extended several times, and President Joe Biden has announced a few rounds of forgiveness that as of Jan. 20 total $15 billion; but that accounts for only about 1% of federal student loan debt. With more than $1.7 trillion in outstanding federal student loan debt held among 43 million Americans, Democrats and other advocates are continuing to push the administration to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt.Â
On Jan. 25, a group of 85 Democratic lawmakersâacross the House and Senateâsent a letter to Biden urging him to direct the Department of Education to âpublicly release the memo outlining your legal authority to broadly cancel federal student loan debt and immediately cancel up to $50,000 of student loan debt per borrower.â
âIn light of high COVID-19 case counts and corresponding economic disruptions, restarting student loan payments without this broad cancellation would be disastrous for millions of borrowers and their families,â the letter states.
In the spring of 2021, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said Biden had asked the secretary of education to explore if the executive branch has the legal authority to cancel student loan debt. At the time, the memo was promised to be made public within a few weeks. Nearly a year later, though, itâs just been crickets on that front.Â
While the full memo still hasnât been released, The New Yorker on Oct. 29, 2021, first reported that a heavily redacted version exists. This version doesnât show much other than the fact that the White House had the memo for more than six months without releasing any information to the public.Â
What Biden thinks about canceling student loan debt
Biden doesnât buy the idea that he has authority to cancel federal student loan debt by executive order, but many Democratic lawmakers do. During the Cancel Student Debt Town Hall hosted by NextGen America, the Student Debt Crisis Center, Public Citizen, and MoveOn on Thursday, several Democratic lawmakers said they believed Biden has the authority to cancel student debt by executive order.
âPausing student loans isnât good enough,â Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said during the town hall. âWe need student debt erasedâplain and simple.â Biden can, Schumer argued, cancel student debt with the âflick of a pen,â and the act doesnât require any legislation.Â
Democratic lawmakers and advocates are pressing Biden to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower, but Biden campaigned on forgiving just $10,000 per borrower. His tune has changed, however, during his year in office.Â
During a press conference in mid-January, Biden was asked, âYou campaigned on canceling $10,000 in student loans. Do you still plan to do so, and when?â He ignored the question.Â
Also, during a CNN town hall on Feb. 17, 2021, Biden said he objected to forgiving student loan debt for borrowers who went to âeliteâ private colleges including Harvard University, Yale University, and the University of Pennsylvania. He still held this opinion in May 2021.
âThe idea that you go to [the University of Pennsylvania] and youâre paying a total of 70,000 bucks a year and the public should pay for that? I donât agree,â he told The New York Times.Â
Not only are Democratic lawmakers pushing for Biden to cancel student debtâbut theyâre adding pressure to the timeline. They want student debt to be canceled ahead of the May 1 forbearance end date.Â
SeesawGerrera on February 3rd, 2022 at 14:01 UTC »
We give an absurdly large amount of money to the military and every-time we do there is never a massive outcry.
But naturally when it becomes making Americans lives easier everyone has an issue with it.
Unicycldev on February 3rd, 2022 at 12:43 UTC »
Ultimately the cost of university is too high, and it needs to be reduced. They don’t share in the risk of a failed student loan, nor have an incentive to lower costs.
Here is an theory I find interesting: American universities are expensive because they artificially make up for the failings of healthy USA culture/cities.
Theater events, music concerts, sports teams, gyms, clubs, walkable dense housing are all examples of Institutions/infrastructure a healthy city should already have outside of the University context. You don’t need to couple these to an education because they should be publicly available.
Why do student pay for clubs? Why don’t they naturally exist to the public? Why segregate young adults from society in large state schools instead of merging there experience with the public?
Just some thoughts.
CROBBY2 on February 3rd, 2022 at 02:06 UTC »
Yet no lawmaker on either side will even discuss the real cause, the rise in cost of college. All the want to do is treat the symptom and not touch the disease.