Biden doesnt need to do shit, your boy Trump will forgive your student loans.As clock ticks down, Biden abandons student loan relief proposals he lauded
The U.S. Education Department also moved Friday to rescind a proposed regulation that would have clarified the rights of transgender athletes.
Portrait of Zachary SchermeleZachary Schermele
USA TODAY
The Biden administration indicated Friday it plans to scrap his latest student loan forgiveness proposals, which could have wiped away debts for tens of millions of Americans and cleared new paths to relief for borrowers in dire financial straits.
The rationale? The U.S. Education Department has limited time and resources, and its leader would rather dedicate them to helping at-risk borrowers repay their loans. The plans would also likely face more legal challenges and be abandoned once President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
In official notices set to be published the day after Christmas, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona acknowledged the “uncertainty around the implementation” of the proposals.
“The Department at this time intends to commit its limited operational resources to helping at-risk borrowers return to repayment successfully,” Cardona wrote.
The move amounts to a death knell for one of President Joe Biden’s biggest initiatives to help Americans whose lives have been hampered by crushing student debt. Some advocates for borrowers said they were not surprised by the decision, which they viewed as another missed opportunity to fix a mounting crisis. Conservative critics characterized the administration's reversal as a recognition that the plans never had a chance.
“The Biden-Harris administration’s student loan schemes were always a lie,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said in a statement Friday. “With today’s latest withdrawal, they are admitting these schemes were nothing more than a dishonest attempt to buy votes by transferring debt onto taxpayers who never went to college or worked to pay off their loans.”