Dozens of student-loan relief advocates descended on the steps of the Supreme Court on Friday to demand President Joe Biden find other ways to forgive college debts after the justices struck down one of his administration’s signature programs.
(Bloomberg) — Dozens of student-loan relief advocates descended on the steps of the Supreme Court on Friday to demand President Joe Biden find other ways to forgive college debts after the justices struck down one of his administration’s signature programs.
“Get it done, Joe,” urged Robin Lucas, 33, who has student loans from the University of Delaware in Biden’s home state.
Backers, who have identified an alternative legal strategy to cancel the student debt by invoking a 1965 law, planned a march on the White House shortly after the ruling was announced Friday. Their allies in Congress urged Biden to act.
“This fight is not over,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement shortly after the ruling. “The President has more tools to cancel student debt — and he must use them.”
Advocates 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 began almost immediately.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which claims 1 million members, urged supporters to bombard the White House with emails and phone calls telling Biden to 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.
“Not many of us are surprised with this decision, as disappointed as we are,” Lucas said at the Supreme Court. “My hope is that they will make moves faster than another two years.”
Borrowers are nearing the end of a Covid-related pause on student loan payments. Most borrowers will have to resume making payments in October.
“People are not ready. I am not ready,” Satra D. Taylor, a policy director at the Young Invincibles advocacy group, said at the Supreme Court. “My student loan payment was about $400. I don’t have $400 planned in my budget starting in October until the end of this year. I can expect that for many borrowers as well.”
–With assistance from Akayla Gardner.
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