As clock ticks down, Biden abandons student loan relief proposals he lauded
By: Yahoo News
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Zachary Schermele, USA TODAYUpdated Sun, December 22, 2024 at 7:19 PM UTC4 min read
The Biden administration indicated Friday it plans to scrap his latest student loan forgiveness proposals, which could have wiped away debts for tens of millions of Americans and cleared new paths to relief for borrowers in dire financial straits.
The rationale? The U.S. Education Department has limited time and resources, and its leader would rather dedicate them to helping at-risk borrowers repay their loans. The plans would also likely face more legal challenges and be abandoned once President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
In official notices set to be published the day after Christmas, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona acknowledged the "uncertainty around the implementation" of the proposals.
"The Department at this time intends to commit its limited operational resources to helping at-risk borrowers return to repayment successfully," Cardona wrote.
The move amounts to a death knell for one of President Joe Biden's biggest initiatives to help Americans whose lives have been hampered by crushing student debt. Some advocates for borrowers said they were not surprised by the decision, which they viewed as another missed opportunity to fix a mounting crisis. Conservative critics characterized the administration's reversal as a recognition that the plans never had a chance.
"The Biden-Harris administration's student loan schemes were always a lie," Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said in a statement Friday. "With today's latest withdrawal, they are admitting these schemes were nothing more than a dishonest attempt to buy votes by transferring debt onto taxpayers who never went to college or worked to pay off their loans."
On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to dismantle the Education Department entirely. As January approaches, officials at the agency are scrambling to safeguard policies they see as essential to Biden's legacy. Their decision to axe the proposed student loan relief regulations reflects some of the hard choices they're confronting with limited time. While Biden managed to forgive roughly $180 billion in student loan debt for about 5 million Americans, he failed to enact the sweeping relief he'd envisioned. A maze of litigation and congressional opposition stood in the way.
Scott Buchanan, the executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, which represents student loan servicers, said the strategy mirrors a broader effort by the Biden administration to shield federal rules - which can take years to finalize - from being altered or dismantled after the president leaves office.
"The new administration could come in and change the language to whatever they want," Buchanan said.
Education Department officials spent years pushing the regulations through red tape. After months of public debate, the far-reaching proposals were greenlit by a panel of federal negotiators in February. The department released one of the plans in April and promised that borrowers could expect debt relief as early as fall 2024. They released another plan 11 days before the November election.
Both plans will now be tossed, according to the announcement on Friday.
One of the plans would have forgiven up to $20,000 of unpaid interest for more than 20 million borrowers, the White House said in April. More than 4 million borrowers in repayment for 20 years or more would have been eligible to have their debt canceled in full.
The other policy would have canceled the debt of borrowers the federal government determined were likely to default on their loans in the next two years. (To qualify, those borrowers also needed to meet criteria related to their preexisting debt, household income and assets.)
The second plan would have created a new application offering debt relief to borrowers experiencing different types of economic hardship, including medical debt, losses due to natural disasters and child care expenses.
Advocates for borrowers said Friday's about-face left them frustrated. Braxton Brewington, the press secretary at the Debt Collective, said now that Biden's larger plans are off the table, he hoped officials would spend the waning days before Trump's inauguration fast-tracking relief for specific types of borrowers, such as people defrauded by predatory colleges.
"In some ways, it actually does make sense to not move forward with plans that were, in our eyes, destined to fail," he said. "It's just a shame that we've wasted so much time."
In addition to tossing aside the student loan proposals, the agency moved Friday to officially rescind a suggested policy that would've clarified the rights of transgender athletes.
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Changes to rules concerning college accreditation and textbook fees were officially quashed, too.
Other regulations, to expand federally funded college access programs to undocumented students and require attendance-taking in online college courses, may still make it through before Trump takes office.
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden scraps student loan forgiveness proposals he championed
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A promise made............a promise.............errr never mind.
To be fair, he actually did keep trying to get it done. He shouldn’t have, but he did.
What crisis? They took out the loans, THEY repay the loans. It's not rocket science.
"Biden's legacy"
You know that small businesses (and some large ones) got special loans during COVID, and their loans were forgiven. What's wrong with trying to do the same thing for people that are struggling???
Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan forgiveness
People didn't choose to get Covid and have to close their doors if they didn't continue paying employees and the bread lines could have returned. They did decide to take out loans for, in some cases frivolous, a seemingly higher "education". See the difference?
The article is talking about student loans. Please try to keep up and on topic.
So you feel that higher education is "frivolous"? [✘]
[deleted] [✘] Do you feel the forgiveness for the business loans should not have gone through? How do you feel about loan forgiveness only being given to those who could afford to pay them back?
The article also mentions other types of loan forgiveness, so this is on-topic.
Where did I say that? Some boneheads take the easiest of ways out just to say they have a degree. That frivolous kind. Humanities? Liberal Arts? Yeah those come in quite valuable.........../S
I'm honestly shocked people still use that incredibly stupid comparison that doesn't even pass the laugh test.
Then perhaps you can explain why 1 COVID loan should get forgiven, but another from the same time frame should not?
Obviously, many far right wingers here don't know anything about higher education.
Right wingers have always been opposed to higher education, since the more educated you are the more likely you vote democrat.
This was never a good idea; it was never a good policy to prioritize; and other than the individuals who might have benefited from it, it had very little support - both in politics and under the law. In fact, polling shows that even people who have student debt aren’t terribly supportive of the way Biden handled the issue.
The fact remains that if student loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy as easily as if a casino failed,
then student loan relief would not be a "thing".
Actually, it was Bernie's issue. Never heard Biden promote it.
"In fact, polling shows that even people who have student debt aren’t terribly supportive of the way Biden handled the issue."
He was simply pandering for votes, and his actions don't even appear to be legal anyway
When you take out a loan and sign the loan papers pledging to pay that money, you are giving your word.
If you fail to fulfill that pledge to repay the loan, you lack honesty, your lack integrity and you lack honor.
I can appreciate that the terms of these loans suck, but they are not hidden or changed after the fact.
That comment is reprehensible.
S P
Reprehensible- I think not but thanks for your evaluation
You have just slandered every person who has ever survived the bankruptcy process.
The President elect has survived multiple bankruptcies.
As long as Student Loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy as easily as a casino,
then loans taken out in most cases by minors, and sometimes guaranteed by an unwary parent
shouldn't be described in such disparaging elitist language.
Thanks again.
Not only do people who take out the loans and not pay them back have no integrity. The amount owed should be deducted from their estate upon death.
Its quite funny to see people who support Trump talk about integrity. Fucking hilarious actually.
Trump hired fellow students to take his tests for him back in his college daze.
All of his professors claim he was the worst student in their classes.
Proof?
Its quite funny to see people who support Trump talk about integrity. Fucking hilarious actually.
I don't support Trump (as you know), but
Its quite funny to see people who cannot offer a counterpoint in a discussion, simply attack Trump.. Fucking hilarious actually.
My guess about people who accept who accept loan forgiveness is this - some of them have integrity and some of them dont.
There is no such ambiguity in the case of Trump. When you prove that you have familiarity with his past actions I might consider your take.
You did again
The student loan question has nothing to do with Trump, it is about Biden and his policies and the people defaulting on the loans they swore they would replay when they received them.
I think it would be a good idea if all financial institutions checked to see if a person was behind on a student, had defaulted (by receiving loan forgiveness) before allowing them to get a car loan or a mortgage.
And the amount forgiven should be added to the citizen's taxable income for federal and state income tax purposes.
No, but someone on Newstalkers who supports Trump and then passing judgement on other peoples integrity does.
They do, it's called FICO and the system while flawed, generally works well.
Maybe you should get educated about student loans, you clearly have no negative experience.
All loan forgiveness is treated by the IRS as income as taxed accordingly. The States vary.
Why John Russell
You are sounding a lot like one of those "both-siders" tha tin the past you have simply hated
Again, you abandon the topic at hand and go to Trump to try and mask the fact that you have nothing to offer on the actual discussion topic.
What did we call that, oh yeah Absolutely Hilarious!
It's not like they verbally and contractually agree to all fees and interest when they apply for the loans. But then again, just because they are going to college it doesn't mean they are smart enough to read all that.
Given Biden has been told that his student debt forgiveness is illegal, it could have some consequences in the future for not only Joey but for those whose debts were "forgiven".
Ingrid Jacques is MTGs twin. Just as ugly, fascist and stupid.
And that changes the facts of the article how?
He passed more student loan relief in history with monumental opposition from Republicans. Republicans voted against several bills over the last 4 years. Republicans also brought lawsuits repeatedly and won a few of these lawsuits to stop Biden from doing more. I cannot even count the thousand of right wingers on social media trashing student loan relief moaning that why should any students get loan relief when people who paid off loans get nothing. Right wing "reasoning" is no one should get relief from debt. There isn't much point in trying to push it through since Biden wouldn't be in office to deal with the resulting Republican onslaught of additional lawsuits. You either praise Biden for doing as much as he was able to accomplish for student debt relief or face how much more could have been done with bipartisan cooperation. Republicans spent millions trying to stop Biden with lawsuits and "no" votes instead of working to approve relief for their own constituents.