The U.S. Department of Education received a public comment letter from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), and thirteen other senators regarding President Biden’s plan to lower or eliminate federal student loans for tens of millions of borrowers.
The latest proposal, which was published in the Federal Register in April 2024, follows the Supreme Court’s last-summer blocking of President Biden’s initial plan to forgive student debt.
This past Friday at midnight marked the end of the rule’s 30-day public comment period.
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The senators wrote, “Access to higher education has long been touted as a pathway to the middle class, but the unfortunate truth is that, for generations of borrowers, the burden of student loan debt creates a roadblock to that reality. We applaud the Biden Administration’s leadership on pursuing every possible avenue to deliver meaningful debt relief to borrowers. We must act boldly so that the tens of millions of Americans who are struggling to pay the rent, put food on the table, and pay for the basic necessities of life are not crushed by a mountain of debt for getting a college education.”
On the student debt relief rule being considered, the senators continued: “The proposed methods of discharges included in this rule are historic, and would undoubtedly eliminate the crushing student debt burden for borrowers who have long been waiting for needed relief. We recommend the Department build upon the plan to provide substantial financial relief to even more Americans. As such, we are providing a number of recommendations to strengthen this plan including:
- Eliminating all of the excess interest that has accrued over what a person originally borrowed, regardless of the repayment plan they are on or what their income is. Doing so will help millions of borrowers get off the never-ending treadmill of student loan repayment and help them make progress toward eliminating their debt. We also recommend full cancellation for those borrowers who have repaid enough to cover their original principal balance, regardless of income.
- Discharging debt for borrowers who have been in repayment for over two decades on a rolling basis, so no borrower has to delay or forego retirement because of their student loan debt. Student loan debt should never be a life sentence.
- Providing relief to borrowers who have been victims of servicing errors or misconduct.
- Providing debt relief to every eligible borrower automatically. No one should be delayed in getting the debt relief they are eligible to receive under this proposal because of a bureaucratic application process.
“We understand the Department intends to release the proposed final rule for debt relief for borrowers experiencing economic hardship soon, and encourage the Department to release that proposed rule as quickly as possible. The economic hardship pathway has the potential to provide needed relief to borrowers not otherwise captured in this proposal. Every day spent without relief is another day borrowers experiencing economic hardship face unnecessary financial burdens.”
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During the 30-day public comment period, more than 92,000 comments were received on the rule. The Biden Administration has said it aims to finalize the rule by this coming fall.
Republicans in eighteen states have joined one of two lawsuits filed against the Biden administration for its debt relief proposal.
“Yet again, the President is unilaterally trying to impose an extraordinarily expensive and controversial policy that he could not get through Congress,” one of the lawsuits says.
However, according to the Department of Education, “Congress gave the US Department of Education the authority to define the terms of income-driven repayment plans in 1993, and the SAVE plan is the fourth time the Department has used that authority.”
The courts will have to decide whether Biden is authorized to implement these proposals.
However, the more pressing political question is whether student loan forgiveness should be a priority for policy.
Evidently, Biden and many Democrats believe it to be. Republicans, as evidenced by their lawsuits, believe that it is not, and students who take on the debt knew what they were signing up for.
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