WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 04: United States President Joe Biden speaks during a July 4th barbecue … [+]
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President Biden has not issued a comprehensive student loan waiver. But that doesn’t mean the idea is dead.
Biden excluded student debt relief from his draft budget and massive “human infrastructure” proposal released earlier this spring. This led to speculation that the president may have gotten completely pissed off by the idea.
But that is not necessarily the case. Proponents have urged Biden to enact mass termination of student loans through executive action. His decision to exclude student loan waivers from his budget proposal and infrastructure plan – both of which would have to be approved by Congress – could simply reflect the reality that it is unlikely that both the House of Representatives and the Senate, where the Democrats only have the Democrats Student debt relief will happen to be small majorities and focus on more pressing matters.
Here is where things stand with student debt relief.
Will Biden take executive action to cancel student debts?
Biden has consistently advocated comprehensive student loan relief, but has advocated a “more targeted” approach, advocating $ 10,000 flat debt relief, and arguing that existing student loan relief programs will be improved and expanded should. He has not particularly supported more generous proposals of $ 50,000 or more for student debt relief as suggested by advocacy groups and leading Democrats in Congress. Biden has also raised concerns that widespread student loan forgiveness could undermine benefits for high earners or Ivy League graduates – concerns that proponents believe are unfounded.
But while Biden has nonetheless hinted that he supports some iterations of student loan forgiveness, he has been skeptical about using executive action to make it happen. Congressional Democrats and student loan legal experts have argued that the Higher Education Act gives the President extensive powers to “compromise, forsake, or unblock” a borrower’s debt on student loans. Proponents have also pointed to the HEROES Act, which both former President Trump and President Biden relied on to suspend billions in student loan interest rates after the CARES Act’s original moratorium expired, a national emergency. However, other legal scholars in higher education disagreed with these conclusions, arguing that the mass cancellation of student loans was never the intent of Congress in adopting these statutes.
In April, Biden instructed his administration to conduct a formal judicial review that could form the basis for the enactment of massive student loan waivers through executive action. It has now been more than three months since this review was initiated, but there are still no indications that it has officially ended or firm conclusions have been drawn.
Biden uses executive action to target student loan allocation
In the meantime, the Biden government has taken its stated approach of introducing more targeted student debt relief through executive action. These actions included the following:
- The Biden administration overturned Trump-era policies that allowed partial cancellation of student loans for borrowers who had granted relief under the Borrower Defense to Repayment program that cancels federal student loan debt for borrowers defrauded by their schools . The change would allow around 72,000 borrowers who were eligible for borrower defense discharge but received only a partial cancellation to have their full student loan balances canceled. The total relief is around $ 1 billion.
- Biden reversed the loan resumption of around 41,000 disabled borrowers who had received relief on a student loan due to their disability. The terminations of these borrowers were reversed because they failed to submit the required documentation during a post-discharge monitoring phase. Biden’s actions will return the resumed credit to a discharged state, and he waived subsequent monitoring requirements for the remainder of the pandemic.
- Biden’s stimulus package, passed by Congress in March, included funding for colleges and universities. The government shortly thereafter updated the guidelines that allowed schools to use these funds to cancel institutional student loan debt for students affected by the pandemic. Since then, a growing number of colleges have waived millions of dollars in student loans for thousands of students.
- Last month, the Biden government announced that 18,000 former students from the now-defunct ITT Technical Institutes would cancel $ 500 million in student loans as part of the Borrower Defense program.
While these measures have enabled tens of thousands of student loan borrowers to cancel their debts, the total amount of student loan cancellation amounts to a tiny fraction of the country’s outstanding student loan debt. The lawyers are urging the Biden government to go much further.
What’s next?
The debate over widespread student loan remission is not over and the subject remains very much alive. Here are some things to keep an eye out for over the next few months:
- The results of the Biden Administration’s legal review of the student loan waiver could be disclosed at any time.
- The current moratorium on payments and interest on federal student loans is due to expire on September 30th. There is growing pressure to possibly extend this deadline to 2022 to give more respite to borrowers and to give the administration more time to undertake broader reforms.
- Stakeholders have urged the Biden government to extend the relief under the Borrower Defense Program (tens of thousands of applications go unprocessed), automatically cancel student loan debt for 500,000 disabled borrowers who qualify for automatic relief, and address the complex needs of the public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program so that more borrowers can get immediate debt relief.
- The Biden government has started conducting public hearings through a lengthy process to review and potentially revise major federal student loan programs, such as borrower defense, the Complete and Permanent Disability Dismissal Program (TPD), earnings-based repayment, and the Public Service Loans Forgiveness.
further reading
Elizabeth Warren to Biden: Extension of Student Loan Break to 2022 or Later Or
Will Biden cancel the student loan debt? Maybe we will know soon
Here’s why Biden can really extend the student loan payment hiatus
Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Review: Should You Take Steps Now to Relieve Student Debt Later?
source https://collegeeducationnewsllc.com/yes-student-loan-cancellation-is-still-on-the-table-key-details/
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