Should the Government Forgive Education Loans for Post-Graduate Students?

Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan. The plan came out of the Department of Education to use the HEROES Act of 2003 to forgive billions of dollars in student loans.

The HEROES Act (an acronym for Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act) was passed to help military troops who went to fight in the Middle East. In particular, it allowed the troops to delay their student debt obligations during national emergencies.

The Biden administration wants to use this same law to forgive student loans for people who are not in the military. It is a plot to gain votes and to transfer the cost of the loans to people who have already paid off their student loans or who did not take out loans. If the Supreme Court rules for the Biden administration, people who did not even go to college will be required to pay off the student loans.

The lead plaintiff in the case is the Job Creators Network Foundation. The organization argues that the law applies to military personnel and not the general public. According to Karen Harned, chief legal officer for Job Creators Network Foundation, “This really is reminiscent of what we saw with the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] eviction program, the [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] vaccine mandate program, where the government really acted outside the authority of what it was given on a question of significant economic and political importance that really needed Congress to say this out loud, and the administration can’t do this behind closed doors.”

According to Fred Lucas at The Daily Signal, if the Supreme Court strikes down this mandate, it will be the third one shot down. The first one was the Biden administration’s eviction moratorium that was administered through the CDC. The second one was the COVID-19 vaccine mandate of private employers via OSHA. 

Lucas said that there are two important questions that the Supreme Court should consider. The first one is whether the plaintiffs have standing. The second one is whether the government illegally shut the public out of the rule-making process under both the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs how regulations are implemented, and the Higher Education Act, which governs the student loan program.

The Biden administration and the Department of Education declare that the education act is constitutional. I do not understand how it could be constitutional for the government to take debt from one group of people and put it upon the shoulders of the American citizens. In addition, the education act goes much further than it went for the military. The obligations for the military were merely postponed as they served their country in the Middle East, whereas the education department wants to end permanently the loan responsibility for a group of people who have post-graduate degrees.