The United States Supreme Court gave a setback on Friday to Joe Biden’s government and, by the way, to tens of millions of college students. The nine judges canceled the partial cancellation of their loans granted by the Ministry of Education in the last sentence of the judicial session. The Supreme Court ruling particularly hurts students with fewer means, most of whom are Hispanics and African Americans. For these groups, it is the second judicial setback after Thursday, in which the conservative supermajority in the Supreme Court of six justices to three dealt a fatal blow to affirmative action in college access by virtue of the applicants’ ethnic group. That same majority supported the new ruling, which agrees with the six states, Republican majorities, plaintiffs and considers that the Biden administration did not have the authority to order that removal without congressional authorization.
The 77-page sentence was signed by the president, John Roberts, and includes a private dissenting opinion from liberal Elena Kagan. The decision also comes when a three-year pandemic moratorium on repayment of these loans is about to expire. This moratorium provided for in September; Payments will resume from October to tens of millions of beneficiaries from this hiatus.
Joe Biden’s government has also agreed to give $10,000 in debt relief across the board. The number could rise to $20,000 for recipients of a Pell Grant, a broad federal program with loans from the Department of Education that benefits about six million students from low-income families. The measure included the cancellation of about 400,000 million dollars. For Biden it was one of the central arguments of his campaign for re-election in 2024.
Borrowers were eligible for this partial forgiveness if their individual income was less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples), leaving the top 5% of the population. According to the White House, Up to 43 million people may benefit from the decision, and this included canceling the total balance remaining for about 20 million people.
Since 1980, the total cost of public and private four-year colleges tripled, even taking into account inflation. Bill Grants came to cover nearly 80% of the cost of a four-year public college degree for students from working families, but it now covers only a third. This has left many low- and middle-income students with no choice but to take out loans if they wish to obtain a university degree in a country where tuition fees for public and private universities are much more expensive than in other countries.
The White House has argued that high federal student loan debt — $1.6 trillion and rising to more than 45 million borrowers — is a huge burden on America’s middle class. “They are struggling with high monthly payments and growing balances that make it difficult for them to accumulate wealth, as well as buy homes, save money for retirement and start small businesses,” he said.
For the most vulnerable borrowers, the effects of debt are even worse. According to an analysis by the Department of Education of a recent sample of college students, nearly a third of borrowers have debt but no title. Many of them were not able to complete their studies because the tuition fees were too high.
About 16% of borrowers are in default, which could result in the government charging them or lowering their credit score, which is a key figure for financial mobility in American society.
The burden of student debt also falls disproportionately on African American communities. Twenty years after he first entered the school, the average black student who began college in the 1995-1996 academic year He still owes 95% of his original student debt, according to a report from Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
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