Student-loan relief advocates are pressing President Joe Biden to find other ways to forgive college debts after the Supreme Court on Friday struck down his administration’s signature program.
Backers identified an alternative legal strategy to cancel the student debt by invoking as 1965 law. Activists planned a rally on the Supreme Court steps and march on the White House shortly after the ruling was announced Friday and allies in Congress urged Biden to act.
“This fight is not over,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat. “The President has more tools to cancel student debt — and he must use them.”
Backers said delivering on Biden’s student-loan plan will be critical to turning out young and minority supporters for his re-election bid.
“This plan to cancel student loan debt is really an opportunity to reduce the racial wealth gap,” said Wisdom Cole, the NAACP’s director of youth and college. “It’s really important to follow through on this plan that was a key promise on the campaign trail.”
The high court’s Friday 6-3 ruling tossed out Biden’s plan to slash student debt of more than 40 million people, with the court’s conservative-leaning justices siding with six GOP-led states that sued to challenge the program. The debt forgiveness plan has been broadly embraced by young and Black voters who could be key to the president’s 2024 reelection bid.
Biden will announce new steps to aid borrowers later on Friday, according to a White House official who didn’t provide detail.
Overall 53% of American adults support Biden’s loan relief plan, according to a February Economist/YouGov poll. But an overwhelming 67% of 18- to 29-year-olds back it, and an even larger 72% of Black Americans of all ages do.
Read More: Student Loan-Relief Backers Warn Biden ‘Failure Isn’t an Option’
A massive lobbying effort will begin almost immediately.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which claims 1 million members, has a mobilization campaign ready to bombard the White House with emails and phone calls urging Biden pursue an alternative path. The 50,000-member Debt Collective is gathering signatures from its members calling on the administration to try again.
Biden’s current plan — to forgive as much as $20,000 in federal loans for certain borrowers making less than $125,000 per year, $250,000 for households — draws on authority in the 2003 Heroes Act.
Liberal groups argue the administration could instead draw on the Higher Education Act of 1965, which gives the Education secretary some broad authorities to manage the government’s portfolio of student loans.
Yet doing so would be time-consuming and probably couldn’t be completed before the 2024 elections, said Jed Shugerman, a law professor at Fordham University.
Borrowers are nearing the end of a Covid-related pause on student loan payments. Most borrowers will have to resume making payments in October.
--With assistance from Akayla Gardner.
