DENMARK, S.C. (WIS) – On Thursday, the White House announced it had canceled student loan debt for 35,000 more Americans, with more than 4.7 million people seeing these debts relieved under the Biden administration.
But both legal challenges and the November election could threaten the future of these programs, one of which was dealt a blow that same day, a reality White House officials and a key Democratic ally acknowledged during a trip to South Carolina on Thursday.
US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Congressman Jim Clyburn, the only Democrat in South Carolina’s Congressional delegation, met that day with South Carolinians who had their student loans forgiven in recent years.
“I thank God, and I thank the Biden administration,” Rev. Perry Griffin, a beneficiary of one loan-relief program, told them.
For about an hour, they heard stories on the impacts paying these loans — and then seeing their debts wiped away — had on their lives, some saying it allowed them to start saving for and even thinking about retirement for the first time.
Marlon Fox, a chiropractor from the Lowcountry, said at the time more than $120,000 of his student loan debt was erased, he had already paid more than $200,000 toward it — despite his initial loan only being for about $60,000.
“They paid off their loans a long, long time ago,” Clyburn told reporters. “They’re being forgiven for this unfair, almost criminal — some may be criminal — debt on interest that they still owe.”
The visit to Demark Tech came as South Carolina is among the GOP-led states trying to stop these programs from continuing.
“The Biden administration is basically, basically reworking, rewording a federal law to try pay off all of these debts. So on legal grounds, we believe it is incorrect, that it is unconstitutional, unlawful,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, a Republican, said.
South Carolina is one of the states challenging a student-debt relief push called the SAVE Plan, which a federal appeals court halted Thursday.
The case is expected to be taken up by the US Supreme Court.
It’s not the first loan forgiveness effort from this White House to face a legal challenge.
Last year, the Supreme Court struck down an earlier relief policy, saying the Biden administration acted outside its authority.
“They are rewriting a federal law, like they did before,” Wilson said.
Cardona believes they will see a different outcome this time around.
“The Higher Education Act does give me the authority,” he told reporters. “Some of these folks that are fighting this have gotten debt relief themselves, under the PPP Program. Some of these folks are the same ones that support tax breaks for billionaires. I’ll be damned if I’m going to step down. I’ll be damned if I’m going to slow down my fight for the people I just spoke to.”
The other threat facing some loan-forgiveness programs is the November election.
Many Republicans hope a victory by former President Donald Trump could end them, though some of these programs existed before Trump’s presidency and are still in effect.
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