Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against President Biden’s plan on student loan forgiveness.
In August of 2022, Jed Shugerman, a law professor at Fordham Law School, correctly predicted the Supreme Court would strike down President Biden’s plan by using the "major questions" doctrine. Shugerman wrote:
"The Roberts Court has effectively abandoned Chevron deference to the executive branch in questions of 'vast economic and political significance.'
This new approach, known as 'the major-questions doctrine,' does not turn on 'textualism'— reading just the words of the statute on their own — but instead emphasizes the context, purposes, and legislative history of the statute."
In March of 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and used the HEROES Act for the initial pause in student loans.
This authority was used by the Trump administration, and the Biden administration, to justify extending the pause on student loans from 2020 to 2023.
In April 2023, President Biden signed a congressional resolution formally ending the pandemic and the emergency powers that came with it.
The Biden administration argued in court that the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act gave the president the authority to cancel student debt.
President Biden’s second plan is using the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965 to justify their authority instead of the HEROES Act.
In 2020, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced a resolution outlining a plan to cancel up to $50,000 dollars of student debt.
Both argued that Section 432(a) of the HEA gives the Secretary of Education "broad administrative authority to cancel Federal student loan debt."
Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, has argued that "there is a longstanding presumption against interpreting statutes in a way that renders parts of them superfluous."
If the Biden administration uses Sen. Warren’s argument, Professor Somin believes it will "render superfluous" other parts of the HEA that explicitly limit student debt relief.
This makes the HEA vulnerable to the "major questions" doctrine.
If the Supreme Court rejects President Biden’s second plan, it might not happen until after the 2024 election.
Politically, President Biden can pander to millions of voters while having the second plan rejected after the 2024 presidential election.
He announced his first plan before the 2022 midterm elections. It was only after those elections that the first plan was rejected by the Supreme Court.
The Republicans cannot stand idly while President Biden panders to 43.6 million recipients of student loans and their families.
The Republicans must force Biden’s hand.
We need Congress to pass a bipartisan plan to address the costs of college in exchange for partial student debt forgiveness.
According to the Federal Reserve, the total amount in student loans increased from approximately $481 billion in the first quarter of 2006 to $1.77 trillion in the first quarter of 2023.
According to the Congressional Budget Office:
"Various factors have pushed up tuition over time. The cost of the services that colleges and universities provide has increased, driven in part by increases in the cost of employing faculty and staff.
"At the same time, support from states and localities has decreased, which has particularly affected public colleges and universities. . . . Economists have estimated the extent to which expanding student loan availability contributed to colleges' and universities' ability to charge higher prices for the same services.
"To do that, economists studied periods in which students’ or parents’ ability to borrow for school changed sharply."
Any serious plan should acknowledge that college degrees are not equal in value.
According to a recent study, after four years in the workforce, a computer science graduate ($104,799) in 2023 earns on average twice as much an English major ($42,000) or a psychology major ($43,000).
We should provide student loans only if the student is studying a major that can pay these loans back.
If college students want a degree in drama/theatre arts and stagecraft ($29,672), or some other low-paying major, they can pay for it out of their own pockets.
As enrollment will likely drop, this will force our colleges and universities to reduce the number of professors, staff, and sinecures.
According to the CATO Institute, "Between 2001 and 2011, enrollment in degree-granting institutions rose 35 percent, but executive and administrative staffing rose 57 percent."
A third of recent college graduates are working at jobs that do not require a college degree.
Many employers require college degrees for jobs that don’t require them.
The millennials are the first generation in American history where a majority is doing worse than their parents by age 30.
We cannot reverse this horrible trend unless we fix our universities.
Robert Zapesochny is a researcher and writer whose work focuses on foreign affairs, national security and presidential history. He has been published in numerous outlets, including The American Spectator, the Washington Times, and The American Conservative. When he's not writing, Robert works for a medical research company in New York. Read Robert Zapesochny's Reports — More Here.
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