Experts predict what will happen if the Supreme Court rules against the student loan forgiveness plan and ultimately the relief never materializes. So, the co-founder of the Debt Collective, Astra Taylor has commented that restarting federal student loans without providing forgiveness will lead to extreme political consequences for the Democrats. She also said that Biden will launch his 2024 re-election campaign as America’s debt collector.
The Speculations
Now, the speculation is, if the U.S. Supreme Court blocks the loan plan of the president. Then, Taylor said that Biden must explore other legal pathways to deliver relief.
She further pointed out that there is the possibility of the president, using other laws to justify his plan. For example, the Higher Education Act of 1965, states that Education Department can pay, enforce, waive, compromise, or release title, right, lien, or claim related to federal student loans. Now, the Biden administration is using the Heroes Act of 2003 to argue that it has the authority to cancel any student debt.
Here, it is interesting to note that the law allows Education Department to make changes to federal student loan programs during any national emergency. Also, critics accuse the administration of using the pandemic to fulfill a campaign promise and also say the relief is not targeted at those who have suffered economically because of Covid.
Another path, as Mark Kantrowitz, the higher education expert said that the president can try to extend the pandemic-era stop on federal student loan payments. But, that move, said Kantrowitz is likely to survive the legal challenge.
Further Speculation
It can be a disastrous blow to Black Americans. This is because a Brookings Institution report found, that the U.S.’s dollar 1.7 trillion student loan crisis has hit hard the Black Americans. The Black student loan borrowers now owe about dollars 7,400 and more, at graduation than their white peers.
That inequity gets worse with time and the Black college students now owe, on average, above $52,000, 4 years after graduation, in comparison to around dollars 28,000 for the average white graduate.
The national director of the youth and college division at the NAACP, Wisdom Cole said that if the student loan forgiveness of Biden fell through, then it will be a “disastrous blow to Black Americans,”. He further said that the racial wealth gap will certainly widen, and the cycle of economic inequality will further continue. As a result, if the country leaders believe that Black lives matter, then they should always understand that a failure is never an option.