Morris and Mansour: Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Schemes Will Help Him in the Election – but Conservatives Can Seize the Issue
President Biden is rolling out his latest round of federal student loan “forgiveness” while continuing to support the predatory loan industry and subsequent degradation of higher education. Democrats are now banking on that scheme to pay dividends in November — but Conservatives should seize this left-wing pet issue and use government to end the education scam for good.
The Biden White House announced a new round of student loan plans Monday that would provide relief to millions of borrowers.
The plan would target those with “runaway interest” and people who have been paying for 20 years, allowing them to qualify for forgiveness under “income driven repayment plans,” the Hill reported.
Critics say this is a way of “buying votes” (true), but student loan debt is a real problem plaguing young Americans — keeping them from moving their lives forward after university, buying homes, having children — and Democrats are staking their claim on this issue, as Biden “cancels” billions of dollars of debt.
“The White House has touted the president as canceling more student loans than any other administration in history,” the Hill reported in March, detailing how strategists on the left think this issue will resonate well with Americans. They’re right. “In total, the Biden administration has forgiven $143.6 billion for 3.96 million borrowers,” the story said.
“‘I think [student loans] are probably one of the more impactful and consequential issues for those who may have went to college to pursue a higher education,’ said Antjuan Seawright, a Democrat strategist,” the Hill reported— and it is absolutely true.
Millions of Americans were bamboozled by the student loan industry, by Big Education, into believing life could only go well if they undertook a crippling financial burden before they were even old enough to have a beer. Now this is a huge problem, as young people struggle to save money and move forward with their futures.
And conservatives are ignoring it, despite having an opening to not only improve the lives of millions of citizens who arguably took on odious debt, but also to reform universities in this country for good— and solve this problem much more effectively than Biden is.
There is nothing particularly “left-wing” about the Democrats’ student-debt pet issue, as predatory loans to pay exorbitant college fees leave students unable to form families and — steeped in woke indoctrination — ill equipped for the workforce, if they can even get a job.
The left is just approaching it in a way that fits their agenda, but exacerbates the problem.
Biden’s loan forgiveness sets the stage for the next loan forgiveness — by forgiving student debt without ending the predatory student loan industry, Biden has ensured that another massive debt forgiveness looms on the horizon. This is comparable to Reagan’s amnesty in the 1980s, which set the stage for future amnesties and endless border crises, because he didn’t secure the border at the same time.
In 1981, public four-year college tuition cost $2,575 in 2021 dollars, and private four-year college tuition was $11,513 in 2021 dollars, according to Education Data. In 1984, adjusted median household income was $53,337, according to economic data compiled by the St. Louis Fed.
In 2021, public four-year college tuition was $9,580, and private tuition was $33,150, compared with a median household income of $67,521.
The skyrocketing of college costs picked up in the late-1990s, when the Clinton administration directed federal money to fund higher education. President Clinton increased student financial assistance by 20% and implemented government student loans, which eventually became a central source of college funding. As more money became available to borrowers, schools responded by increasing tuition.
Meanwhile, society lectured teenagers that they need a college education, and that taking out the equivalent of a mortgage in debt was worth it. At the same time, universities flush with cash became breeding grounds for left-wing extremism, and with no oversight or pushback, became well-funded indoctrination facilities for the woke, “critical theory” ideology we now see permeated throughout all corners of daily life.
Forgiving student loans is a politically thorny stance to take, but with so many teenagers having been convinced of the lie that they need an expensive college degree to do anything with their lives, and then preyed on by lenders to pay artificially set tuition rates, many Americans could be convinced that cancelling the debt is fair if the problem is fixed going forward.
Critics of student loan forgiveness often argue that it amounts to a bailout of rich people at the expense of the working class. It’s true that Americans who earn $75,000 a year or more carry 60 percent of the total student debt. This should be unsurprising. Professional degree programs, which are still the gateway to higher incomes, require more education. A typical medical degree could require $200,000 in student loans. However, doctors and lawyers aren’t the only people burdened with student loan debt. A 2022 report by EducationDate.org found that about 20 percent of the total public student loan debt is held by Americans who earn $35,000 or less a year. Student debt is an American problem, not a “rich” problem.
- “Cancel” unjustifiable debt by demanding it be paid by endowments
There are a number of ways debt can be “cancelled,” not only by government-backed loans being waved, but also by compelling universities to cover losses through their massive endowments. If a university cannot justify the rate it charged students through any deliverable, the excess fees ought to be treated as fraud and be returned. A scam as vast as the modern education system, duping millions of teenagers into paying for worthless degrees, goes beyond “buy or beware,” and universities should bear part of that responsibility.
The liberal arts and social sciences have been overrun by ideologues, and the departments have been turned into absurd parodies, leaving students shallow and empty. And colleges know this, but still market themselves as institutions of real scholarship, despite the fact that no serious adviser would ever encourage a student to enroll in a program like “gender studies” if they intend to prepare themselves for a productive career.
This is where conservatives have an opening to settle this odious debt and prevent it from ever happening again.
- Tie student loan debt cancellation to the elimination of federal student loan programs, and replace them with block grants to public colleges
Student loan debt cancellation must be tied to the elimination of the student loan programs of the federal government, and the loan programs should be replaced by block grants limited to public colleges.
With limited funds, universities will be forced to streamline their departments and get rid of frivolous departments that drain resources from the ones that actually make the school competitive. If money is limited, the first programs to go won’t be the engineering departments, which bring in corporate research grants and produce impressive and generous graduates, but much more likely the departments that don’t do anything productive.
The best way to reduce the amount of debt on young people, and the supply of tax-payer funded neo-Marxist agitator factories, is to also ruthlessly cap salaries and expenditures and impose limits on what universities can spend on. Further, annual support ought to be contingent on student post-graduation performance, adherence to opinion diversity, and free speech on campus.
- Treat debt as equity, make payments linked to income
For those who still need a loan to attend college, the debt should be treated as equity — like an income sharing agreement, where payments are linked to income and therefore never unaffordable. No more fixed payments based on what was borrowed, but instead, creating a variable payment based on what the recipient earns. There already are income linked plans, but making this universal would be one way to eliminate outrageously high loans for Taylor Swift studies degrees and force debtors to be more judicious about handing out money to 18-year-olds.
- Force universities to co-sign on loans
Another proposition for loan agreements going forward would be forcing colleges to bear some risk, also. Universities should be forced to co-sign on loans, so if too many of the income shares that went to them pay below a certain amount, the university loses money.
Conservatives need to understand that the student debt issue is not a “liberal” issue, and seize the opportunity it presents by approaching it strategically.
There is a lot conservatives can agree with the left on, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) proposal to expand the public education commitment to include a two-year associate degree. And lest anyone accuse us of embracing “socialism,” we would note that public funding of a high school diploma is not “socialism” but a necessary investment in ensuring a well-educated citizenry. A two-year associate degree today is equivalent to what a high school diploma once was.
So conservatives should offer college loan relief in order to foster family formation and prosperity among young people, but then also use the opportunity to crack down on the education cartel going forward and eliminate the predatory system that brainwashes young people to become radical leftist ideologues with no practical skills. Or, they can stay set in their ways and hand votes to Biden.
Emma-Jo Morris is the Politics Editor at Breitbart News. Email her at ejmorris@breitbart.com or follow her on Twitter.
Rebecca Mansour is Senior Editor-at-Large for Breitbart News. Follow her on Twitter at @RAMansour.
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