Early on Monday night, President Joe Biden made a new program to forgive student loans. But who qualifies for compassion? Does the court reject his attempts, as they did with the previous one, or will it lead to legal action?
Madison Marino, a senior research relate, in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, joins” The Daily Signal Podcast” day release to answers these questions.
Examine the lightly edited transcript or talk to the radio below.
Virginia Allen: What are our current knowledge levels regarding this product forgiveness program? Who specifically is available?
Madison Marino: Yeah, we know that, you know, President Biden is currently pitching kind of the new information of what he’s calling his Plan B on undergraduate product mass cancellation in Madison, Wisconsin, now. What we know is, this is his second try at large loan cancellation. Suddenly, he’s doing it through legislation.
But, by circumventing Congress with a proposed law, it’s likely that it will provide more information about what exactly the product withdrawal will entail over the coming months. But what we’re sort of anticipating is that with this new legislation, the Education Secretary [Miguel ] Cardona will be able to cancel debts for borrowers he expects to mistake because they’re experiencing pain, based on what we’re type of thinking only based on the negotiated rulemaking that’s been happening over at the office. Now, what is that pain? We do n’t know exactly. Additionally, the concept may permit loan cancellation for those who have seen accounts rise as a result of accrued interest or those who have been paying for at least 20 times.
Allen: That does sound quite large to suggest, canceling for those experiencing “hardship”, as I’m sure many people may say, I’m experiencing pain, but on sheet maybe they’re making a decent income. So how do you anticipate the Biden administration to define “hardship”?
Madison Marino: Absolutely. So, what we’ve seen coming out of the negotiated rulemaking committee is that the definition of hardship is very ambiguous. We’re concerned that, combined with other factors, these two factors, as you’ve mentioned, might include those who are Pell Grant recipients or those who were unable to complete their degrees. We’re concerned that these two things alone would account for about 71 % of college students nationwide. So, and it might even give rise to a perverse motivation to not pay your loans if you were n’t, or perhaps could n’t get a degree.
Allen: We previously witnessed the president’s attempt to offer massive student loan forgiveness, but that plan ultimately failed and was blocked by the courts. Do you believe a similar situation will occur in the future?
Madison Marino: Yes, yes. So yeah, kind of what we’re thinking is that, you know, this is a major overstep of what he can do as president. He actually lacks the legal authority under the Constitution to cancel orders in large numbers. It’s being done without express congressional authorization. And so we’re starting to think that more lawsuits will follow once the rule is approved, probably in the next few weeks, just like the Supreme Court did when his first initial plan for mass cancellation was rejected. And I’m hoping to see a similar circumstance with the courts.
Allen: Madison, everyone can agree, whether Republican or Democrat, that we have a problem in regards to student loans. What would you say about how to deal with what has ultimately become a bit of a crisis where there are so many Americans with massive debt and so many young people who are still attending college and taking out massive student loan debt? How do we stop this?
Madison Marino: Absolutely. Therefore, I believe Congress has a legitimate opportunity to participate. They’re the ones that address the higher cost of college. A massive loan cancellation like the Biden administration’s is doing will only encourage colleges to keep raising their tuition costs if they believe the government, which is the American taxpayer, will ultimately be the ones to bear the cost. So, there’s several bills out there. The House Education Workforce Committee chairwoman Virginia Foxx’s proposal for a college cost reduction act is a prime example of those measures that might partially offset the long-term cost of higher education. So just really looking to Congress to see what they can do instead of the president, who is pursuing his massive loan cancellation.
