Biden’s Got One Last Chance to Cancel Student Debt
In 2019, the school was forced to close due to mismanagement and embezzlement of federal student aid dollars. Yet thousands of students just like Scott are still on the hook for money wheedled from their wallets by predators. They have put off medical care, been unable to save for retirement, had vehicles repossessed, and even experienced homelessness as a result of their Argosy debt. Granting relief to borrowers like Scott is not “forgiveness,” it is basic justice rooted in respect for existing laws written to protect vulnerable students from corporate greed and misconduct.
These laws, which have gathered so much dust under Democratic leadership, may not survive the next four years. However hostile to public education the incoming Trump administration might be, Trump will be a faithful friend to the for-profit education sector—con men of a feather, flocking together. Stocks of for-profit institutions are already rallying in anticipation of diminished regulatory scrutiny. Trump’s previous education secretary, billionaire heiress Betsy DeVos, did everything she could to sabotage student loan relief and aid education profiteers. Her likely replacement, World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon, has little public policy experience and strong corporate ties, as well as a troubling record of defending sexual predators in order to protect her own businesses’ bottom line. Her foremost credential is loyalty to a president who proudly ran his own fraud-plagued education racket, Trump University.
As we race toward an authoritarian iceberg clearly aimed at crushing vital government programs and agencies, Biden has a choice: He can act swiftly to save lives or wring his hands and abandon the people he pledged to serve. The more student debt Biden cancels in the coming months, the more lives he will save, plucking them from the harm and chaos Trump and his allies have promised. The Trump administration has shown us who they are and what they intend to do. We believe them. But for the next 50 days, Joe Biden is still the president. As such, he still has great responsibility on his hands, and a singular choice: To do everything he can to save lives, or to concede to the cowardice of false powerlessness.
