Demonstration in front of the Washington Supreme Court to demand cancellation of student debt. Jacquelyn Martin (AP)
The U.S. Department of Education announced Friday that it will forgive about $39,000 million in college debt in the coming weeks for about 804,000 students who owe money directly to the government.
“For too long, borrowers have been victims of a broken system that could not handle forgiveness,” Education Minister Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “Today, the Biden-Harris administration is taking another historic step. By correcting these past administrative failures, we ensure that everyone receives the forgiveness they deserve, just as we have done for public officials, students cheated by their colleges, and borrowers with permanent disabilities, including veterans. This administration will not stop fighting for a level playing field in higher education.” In his two-and-a-half years in office, Biden is already the most debt-forgiven president in history.
The announcement comes two weeks after the Supreme Court rejected one of his administration’s key actions, which pardoned 43 million students $10,000 or $20,000 (to beneficiaries of the Pell Grant, a widely used federal loan program) of obligations forced to complete their college degrees , a custom many are urged into by a system that puts the pursuit of profit first. The measure involved the cancellation of around $400 billion.
To do this, the Biden administration relied on a provision of a post-9/11 law called HEROES. The gesture was one of the key arguments in the search for young votes for the 2024 presidential campaign. The Supreme Court ruled that a cut of this magnitude was not permissible without Congressional approval.
That was the latest ruling in a lawsuit that upheld a rightward turn by the most conservative court in eight decades, whose nine judges also ended racist affirmative action on university admissions. On the same day, Biden appeared at the White House to criticize the decision and to announce that he would break new ground to achieve his goal. “My government’s student debt relief plan would have been the lifeline needed for tens of millions of hardworking Americans to recover from a pandemic unprecedented in a century,” he said.
This Friday’s announcement, which affects Department of Education borrowers enrolled in plans whose payments depend on their income, is one such way. These plans call for forgiveness after 20 or 25 years. Management failures at the companies that manage this debt have exacerbated these burdens, which the new measure aims to address.
Biden also announced that he would seek to pass another debt relief program under the Higher Education Act (1965), which would give the Secretary of Education the power to “bind, waive or release any right, title, claim, lien or demand.” .” , however acquired, including any shares or redemption rights.”
Since 1980, the total cost of four-year degrees at public and private universities has tripled, even adjusting for inflation. According to a Department of Education analysis of a recent sample of college students, nearly a third of borrowers are in default but don’t have a degree. Many of them could not complete their studies because the tuition fees were too high.
The next date marked on the calendar for payment dates is early October. This ends a break ordered during the pandemic. Until that moment comes, and like a student waiting for their exam grades to be released, hundreds of thousands of alumni are now waiting to receive notification in the coming weeks as to whether or not they can benefit from the new pardon.