House Education Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx is ripping the outgoing Biden administration’s latest proposed student loan forgiveness scheme as “blatantly illegal” and demanding the federal Department of Education nix it.
Just before last month’s election, the Department of Education announced it was launching yet another attempt to get through President Biden’s hotly controversial plan despite numerous court slap-downs in the past.
The latest machination would again offer to broadly wipe out student loans based on hardship, including those thought to have an “80% chance of being in default within the next two years.”
“This fourth scheme is just as legally dubious as the prior Biden-Harris administration attempts to
‘cancel’ student loan borrowers’ debts, but have the American taxpayer pick up the tab,” Foxx wrote to DOE Secretary Miguel Cardona in a Monday letter exclusively obtained by The Post.
Throughout his administration, Biden has pushed hard to use executive action to cancel student loans en masse. The first effort involved the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act, which was scuttled by the US Supreme Court.
Since then, the administration has made various other attempts, including through its SAVE Plan, which was predicated on income-driven repayment and also has been stymied in the courts.
Under the most recent proposal, the administration would wipe out loans for individuals it believes have an 80% chance of defaulting by using a “predictive assessment using existing borrower data.”
“Congress has not written any enabling legislation to provide the Department the power to use artificial intelligence or a subjective application process to hear borrower stories of hardship and determine whose loans to cancel,” Foxx wrote in her letter to Cardona.
The Biden administration estimated that, if finalized, the latest proposal “would authorize loan forgiveness for approximately 8 million borrowers experiencing hardship.”
Foxx, 81, said that while the Education Department estimates the proposal’s price tag is just over $100 billion, other estimates “show the true amount could be eight times higher.”
Her letter comes as the public notice and comment period on the plan wraps up. The Department of Education previously indicated it would work to finalize the regulations behind the latest plan next year.
Foxx contended the Education Department is trying to be the arbiter of “subjective life circumstances” and insinuated that the rationale behind that proposal could lead to broader forgiveness.
“It would effectively give the Secretary direct control over the $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio and the ability to forgive any and all of the loans in it,” she bemoaned.
Foxx stressed that about 87% of Americans either never attended college or paid off their loans and would be on the hook for the forgiveness plan as taxpayers.
“This latest scheme is merely a Band-Aid that forces taxpayers to shoulder the responsibility of paying off someone else’s debt,” she wrote.
“Taken together, the Department has attempted to spend more on loan ‘forgiveness’ than the federal government will spend helping families afford college through the Pell Grant over the next decade.”
Instead of student loan forgiveness, she argued that the department should be focused more on trying to lower college costs and its revamp of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which was bogged by delays and other issues.
Biden, 82, seemingly pushed for student loan forgiveness in a bid to woo younger voters and excite progressives while running for re-election.
President-elect Donald Trump has opposed the sweeping student loan plans pushed by his successor and soon-to-be predecessor and has called for eliminating the Department of Education altogether.
The DOE did not respond to a Post request for comment.
