Quick Answer: The Department of Education filed a legal brief defending Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, citing authority under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act to provide pandemic-related debt relief. The DOE remains confident in their legal authority despite Supreme Court challenges, though critics argue one-time forgiveness doesn’t address systemic education cost issues.
Can we be honest for a minute?
The entire issue of forgiving student loans with a one-time approach is stupid. It does not address the systemic breakdown of the cost of higher education or the realities of the BS schools selling students into debt for the corporation’s benefit.
If the Biden student loan forgiveness plan were to be allowed, it would clear the debt of many, and the cycle would start over again.
Every weekday I read the enforcement actions, filings and fine print the outlets skip, and turn them into the one or two moves that actually improve your position — a rate worth moving for, a fee you can refuse, a deadline to beat before it costs you.
I write Your Money Actually most weekdays — actionable money information you will not find anywhere else, and the small decisions that compound. It is free, I sell nothing, and I take no money from any company I write about.
Here is the POV from the Department of Education:
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U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona issued the following statement after the Departments of Education and Justice filed a legal brief with the Supreme Court on the Biden-Harris Administration’s Student Debt Relief Program:
“The Biden-Harris Administration remains committed to fighting to deliver essential student debt relief to tens of millions of Americans. As part of this commitment, today the Departments of Education and Justice filed a legal brief with the Supreme Court explaining our legal authority under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act to carry out our program of one-time, targeted debt relief. We remain confident in our legal authority to adopt this program that will ensure the financial harms caused by the pandemic don’t drive borrowers into delinquency and default. We are unapologetically committed to helping borrowers recover from the pandemic and providing working families with the breathing room they need to prepare for student loan payments to resume. As previously announced, student loan payments and interests will remain paused until the Supreme Court resolves the case because it would be deeply unfair to ask borrowers to pay debt they wouldn’t have to pay, were it not for meritless lawsuits.”
If the Department of Education, Administration, and lawmakers were so committed to resolving this problem, it would take one action, allow all student loans to be dealt with in bankruptcy as any other debt.
Until that happens, the gyrations from what we want, and you can’t have camps, is just a waste of human energy and time.
The current student debt problem is not about federal student loans alone. This didn’t arise with the pandemic. This has been an epidemic in college financing and has been growing for decades.
I would love for student loan debtors today to have solutions and prevent future students from winding up in the same cesspit.
Someone needs to wipe the lipstick off of this pig.
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