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Higher Ed Policy Roundup: Vol. 6 - Issue 11
This Week in Washington
This Week in Washington
On Wednesday, a group of Democratic members of Congress wrote a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona about the implementation strategy of the Education Department (ED) should President Biden sign an executive order forgiving student loans. Recall that it has been reported that President Biden plans to cancel $10,000 of federal student loan debt for borrowers earning less than $150,000 (or $300,000 for married couples filing jointly). The letter asks ED to provide specifics regarding how ED plans to contact borrowers, how they plan to provide forgiveness to every eligible borrower and how they plan to apply forgiveness to borrowers with outstanding student loans. There is still no word from the White House on when a final decision or announcement on loan forgiveness will be made.
News You Can Use
Despite the public misconception of assured high salary careers, many student borrowers remain saddled by burdensome graduate degree debt.
A new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts indicates that most student loan borrowers who experience default do so multiple times.
New survey results find that graduate admissions officers are stressed: 46 percent are considering leaving their jobs and 49 percent said their job was extremely or very stressful.
Recent Legislation
The following bills have been recently introduced for consideration by the 117th Congress (2021-2022):
H.R. 8006 – Student Loan Accountability Act [Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA-3)] would prohibit certain Executive Branch entities from taking any new action to cancel federal student loan debt, outside existing forgiveness programs. It also prevents forgiven loans under existing plans from being tax-exempt and bars the government from sharing tax data while administering loan forgiveness to student borrowers.
H.R. 8076 – [Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN-4)] would prohibit certain Executive Branch agencies from taking any new action that would provide partial or total cancelation of a student’s education debt, outside existing federal student loan cancelation plans.