It was a quick reference, but somewhere around the middle of the speech tonight (before the pandemic and law enforcement discussions) Biden gave a shout out to “community colleges” which was met with much applause. I was interested to see whether Biden would touch on some of his other presidential campaign themes around education which have fallen a bit off the radar, such as student loan forgiveness. Back in 2020, he expressed support for forgiving at least $10,000 of federal student loan debt per person. The Department of Education did extend the pandemic-era pause on federal student loan payments several times, but otherwise it seems the loan forgiveness discussion has faded from the agenda. It’s likely there isn’t adequate support within Congress right now to pass legislation on the issue, with some lawmakers explicitly opposed to loan forgiveness. There also hasn’t been consensus that Biden would have the legal authority to forgive student loan debt through executive action. But given previous pressure from some Democrats emphasizing loan forgiveness as a “racial and economic justice issue,” I am curious to see if there will be renewed attention again soon. That attention certainly didn’t emerge during this evening’s speech.
From the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
