President Joe Biden faces yet another hurdle as he seeks a $400 billion student debt transfer — congressional Republicans.
A host of GOP lawmakers are looking to claw back both Biden’s student loans cancellation plan and the payment pause he’s extended through the end of August, arguing they are unilateral, unlawful, and unwise.
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“President Biden is not forgiving debt, he is shifting the burden of student loans off of the borrowers who willingly took on their debt and placing it onto those who chose to not go to college or already fulfilled their commitment to pay off their loans,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “It is extremely unfair to punish these Americans, forcing them to pay the bill for these irresponsible and unfair student loan schemes.”
Biden announced the student loans plan in late August, fulfilling a campaign promise and energizing young voters ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. But the plan has run into problem after problem since then, leaving it in legal and legislative limbo and causing both political parties to point fingers at the other over who is to blame.
At least seven different lawsuits were filed in the weeks following the announcement, all making various claims that the plan was illegal. A judge then blocked it just two days after Election Day, leading to accusations that the Biden administration intentionally misled 43 million borrowers, knowing they’d never have to make good on their promise.
The case eventually wound up before the Supreme Court, whose conservative majority seemed skeptical of the proposal despite the presence of a raucous protest atmosphere outside the hearings.
With full cancellation now seeming unlikely, efforts have emerged to tackle the repayment pause. Then-President Donald Trump instituted the pause in March 2020 along with a plethora of other COVID-19-related policies that are only now expiring. Trump extended the pause twice before leaving office, and Biden has extended it six additional times. The pause alone is expected to cost taxpayers $195 billion before it expires.
Student loans refinancer SoFi Bank sued the Biden administration last month, seeking to end the pause, and now members of Congress are working to end it as well. On March 17, the Government Accountability Office decided Biden’s student loans policy is eligible to be overturned under the Congressional Review Act. Ten days later, Republicans announced they were seeking to do just that.
“The president’s unlawful, unilateral actions are destabilizing our postsecondary education system, harming students by enabling schools to continue increasing their prices, and costing hardworking taxpayers nearly $1 trillion, all to buy votes and advance a radical free college agenda,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chairwoman of the Education and the Workforce Committee.
But those who stand to benefit from student loan cancellation are fired up, as they showed outside the Supreme Court in February.
Ella Azoulay, a policy analyst for the Student Borrower Protection Center, wrote that the congressional action would not only restart payments but cause the Education Department to bill borrowers for back payments immediately and could see borrowers who received Public Service Loan Forgiveness have their loans reinstated.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has promised to fight the measure, which would only require a simple majority vote in the closely divided upper chamber. But Republicans have enjoyed a surprising amount of success given their slim House majority and minority status in the Senate.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) successfully moved legislation that forced Biden to declassify intelligence on COVID-19 origins, along with a bill that ended the national emergency over the pandemic that the president signed into law on Monday. The latter bill upset 197 House Democrats who thought the president would veto it.
That’s not likely to happen here given how much Biden has invested politically in student loan cancellation. But any additional pressure on the administration over the issue could put the White House in an awkward position, especially if it’s unable to deliver.
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Polling shows the public is nearly as divided over the issue as its political leaders. An NBC News exit poll found that 50% approved of Biden’s plan and 47% disapproved.
That divide could become sharper if Congress or the Supreme Court successfully strikes down loan cancellation.
