By Ben Ritz
The past two months have made clear that President Biden’s approach to making higher education more affordable isn’t working. First, bipartisan majorities of both the U.S. House and Senate voted to block his debt cancellation policies. Then, shortly after Biden thwarted that effort with his veto pen, the Supreme Court ruled that his attempt to cancel up to $20,000 of student loan debt per borrower was an illegal overreach of executive authority.
Biden responded to the setback by announcing two debt-cancellation schemes shortly after the Supreme Court issued its ruling. The first was the finalization of a new income-driven repayment (IDR) plan known as the SAVE plan. Biden also announced he would start a new process under the Higher Education Act to cancel more debt “for as many borrowers as possible, as fast as possible” through executive action.
