A6| Thursday, December 3, 2020 ***** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
public colleges and historically
Black colleges. He hasn’t said
whether he would support
changes to lending programs
such as Parent Plus.
The Education Department
requires only a scant check of a
parent’s credit history before
extending loans, and it performs
no assessment of their ability to
repay. The result: Some parents
have taken on amounts they
have little hope of repaying,
student debt researchers said.
The loans are often tacked
onto financial-aid packages to
fill the gap between studentborrowing limits and the cost of
tuition. “Our goals were to
make sure our children go to
college to get their degree so
they could support themselves.
That was our mission in life,”
said Sherina Harris, a 56-year-
old mother of three children
from Toledo, Ohio.
Ms. Harris estimated she
borrowed about $50,000 for her
daughter to attend Lourdes Uni-
versity, a private school in Syl-
vania, Ohio—about double the
school’s median debt load for
parents of about $25,000 ac-
cording to the data. Ms. HarrisLeahy, who has known Mr. Bi-
den for more than 45 years,
declined to comment. A
spokeswoman for Mr. Heinrich
confirmed his office expressed
concerns about Mr. Morell.
The Biden transition team
declined to comment. Through
a spokesman, Mr. Morell de-
clined to comment.
The conflict over Mr. Mo-
rell’s possible nomination is
reviving an intraparty debate
among Democrats regarding
the CIA’s history of enhanced
interrogation tactics, such as
waterboarding and extreme
sleep deprivation, treatment
that many consider torture
and were used in secrecy
against terrorism suspects
during the George W. Bush
administration.
Mr. Obama banned theirU.S. NEWS
individually. In many cases, par-
ent loans dwarf what students
can borrow through the federal
government, which is capped at
about $31,000 for dependent
students. Many of the borrow-
ers are low-income. Spelman
parents whose children received
Pell grants—typically reserved
for poor students—took out a
median $84,000 through the
parent loan program.
In a statement, Spelman
President Mary Schmidt Camp-
bell said the school has been
working to address the issue.
“We recognized how crippling
loans can be for our families. As
a result of this reckoning, three
years ago, the college began an
aggressive campaign to close
that unfunded gap and reduce
the need for loans.”
Through a donor campaign,
the college raised more than
$100 million in new financial
aid in the past three years, Ms.
Schmidt Campbell said.
The data release comes as
policy makers continue to de-
bate how to provide relief to
borrowers for record levels of
college-loan debt. President-
elect Joe Biden, a Democrat, has
said he would push to cancel
$10,000 in student debt for ev-
ery borrower with federal loans.
He has also said he would for-
give any student debt—among
families earning under $125,
a year—that covered tuition atsaid her husband died of pan-
creatic cancer in 2003. She said
her daughter told her the only
way she could stay in school
was if she borrowed from the
Parent Plus program.
Ms. Harris—a medical assis-
tant who at the time was earn-
ing about $40,000 a year—said
she was laid off during the re-
cession that began in 2007 and
declared bankruptcy. She said
the government garnished her
wages and tax refunds in recent
years to recover unpaid debt.
Starting about five years ago,
Lourdes noticed high default
rates on student loans among
former students and parents,
said financial aid director Callie
Zake. The school began offering
a program that pays a portion
of borrowers’ loans if they earn
under $47,000, Ms. Zake said.
Ms. Harris wouldn’t qualify for
the aid because she took out her
loans before the loan-repay-
ment assistance program was
put in place.
Some low-income parents
are paying top dollar to ensure
their children can go to dream
schools that score high on col-
lege rankings. Though some
elite schools, such as Harvard
University, waive tuition, room
and board for poor families, not
all offer breaks that are as gen-
erous. Among those that don’t:
New York University. There,
parents of low-income stu-dents—including those who
dropped out—borrowed a me-
dian $52,500. More broadly,
parents of New York University
graduates took out a median
$74,000 in Plus loans, among
the highest in the country.
New York University has one
of the smallest endowments per
student of top U.S. universities,
but has nonetheless made af-
fordability a priority in recent
years by restraining tuition
growth and increasing financial
aid, a spokesman for the univer-
sity said. He added that the
school is committed to provid-
ing educational opportunities
for low-income students.
The new data reflect the Par-
ent Plus loans borrowed on be-
half of students who graduated
in the 2018 and 2019 school
years. The data don’t include
loans that parents received
from private lenders, and par-
ents of graduate students can’t
borrow Parent Plus loans.
Parents have taken on a
greater share of their children’s
college costs in recent decades
for several reasons. Tuition has
risen far above inflation over
the past 40 years—and far
faster than household income,
leading families to rely on debt
in general. The median debt
taken on by graduates was
about $24,000 at the average
four-year college in the Jour-
nal’s analysis.Spelman College, a historically
Black school in Atlanta, bor-
rowed a median $112,000—
more than any other school in
the country, the data show.
About half of Spelman parents
take out the loans through Par-
ent Plus. Paying that back
would cost more than $1,200 a
month, the data show. In most
states, that is about the cost of
a home-mortgage payment.
These numbers don’t include
the loans the student took out
ContinuedfromPageOne
Debt Load
Mounts for
Parents
rector under President Barack
Obama and is being actively
considered by Mr. Biden, ac-
cording to a person familiar
with the matter. Unlike Mr.
Morell, Mr. Cohen isn’t seen
by progressives as someone
who has defended the interro-
gation program.
Mr. Cohen, a partner at the
WilmerHale law firm, spent
much of his government ca-
reer specializing in sanctions
and financial intelligence,
overseeing efforts at Treasury
to counter money-laundering,
halt terrorist financing and
craft sanctions regimes on
Russia, North Korea and other
entities. He joined the CIA in
2015, long after the interroga-
tion program ended.
Mr. Cohen is now a leading
candidate after Tom Donilon, a
former national security ad-
viser to Mr. Obama, withdrew
from consideration and Mr.
Morell came under scrutiny,
the person familiar with the
matter said.
The Biden team this week
sought additional feedback
from other Democratic sena-
tors about Mr. Morell, includ-
ing from Sen. Mark Warner
(D., Va.), the top Democrat on
the Senate Intelligence Com-
mittee, who told the transition
that Mr. Morell was a qualified
candidate and that his defense
of the so-called enhanced-in-
terrogation program shouldn’t
be disqualifying, other people
familiar with the matter said.
A spokesman for Sen.use upon taking office, a move
later codified by Congress.
While some progressives
have said any attachment to
the program should disqualify a
nominee for the CIA post, more
moderate voices in the party
have argued that anyone quali-
fied to lead the spy agency in-
evitably has connections to it.
“The only way you get
around that problem is picking
someone who has no history
with the CIA over the past 20
years,” a person familiar with
the conversations said.
The debate is the latest ex-
ample of Mr. Biden drawing
pressure from factions of the
Democratic Party over his ad-
ministration’s leadership picks.
Progressives have been push-
ing for more of their allies to
get top roles, while civil-rights
groups and several lawmakers
remain unsatisfied with what
they view as a lack of suffi-
cient diversity in the cabinet
picks announced thus far.
Whomever Mr. Biden se-
lects would succeed Gina Has-
pel, the CIA’s first female di-
rector, who kept the lowest
profile of any agency chief in
decades. She had more sub-
stantial ties to the agency’s
now-banned interrogation pro-
gram, and those ties imperiled
her eventual Senate confirma-
tion.
Like Ms. Haspel, Mr. Morell,
62 years old, is a CIA veteran,
although his career centered
on intelligence analysis rather
than recruiting and supervis-ing foreign agents. He has
strong support from former
top CIA officials, who often re-
flect the views of the agency
workforce, and is their favored
candidate to lead the spy
agency, former officials said.
His supporters say that Mr.
Morell played no formal role
in the interrogation program,
and wasn’t even “read in”—or
aware of its existence—while
it was continuing.
“The most successful direc-
tors in the history of the CIA
have had two characteristics,”
a personal relationship with
the president and national se-
curity expertise, said Marc
Polymeropoulos, a senior CIA
officer who retired last year
and was involved in counter-
terrorism operations. “Michael
Morell fits both.”
Mr. Wyden, a progressive
Democrat who serves on the
Senate Intelligence Committee,
said last week he would op-
pose Mr. Morell’s nomination
because he has defended the
CIA’s previous use of interro-
gation tactics that human-
rights organizations and many
legal scholars have said
amounted to torture.
Mr. Morell in past media in-
terviews has defended the
CIA’s methods. In his 2015
book, “The Great War of Our
Time,” Mr. Morell said the
most controversial interroga-
tion technique—waterboard-
ing—was effective in produc-
ing intelligence on the al
Qaeda terrorist network.WASHINGTON—Some Dem-
ocratic senators have privately
expressed concern to Joe Bi-
den’s transition team about the
president-elect’s consideration
of intelligence veteran Michael
Morell to lead the Central In-
telligence Agency, citing Mr.
Morell’s defense of the spy
agency’s interrogation tactics
after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror-
ist attacks, according to people
familiar with the matter.
Within the past two weeks,Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.)
and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D.,
N.M.) voiced reservations
about Mr. Morell, a former
acting director of the CIA who
had been widely seen by law-
makers and former officials as
a top contender for the job,
these people said.
Their doubts add to those
publicly expressed last week
by Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.),
who said he would oppose Mr.
Morell’s nomination for the
post, which has been left un-
specified even as Mr. Biden
has moved quickly to name
other senior national security
personnel.
The behind-the-scenes out-
reach came as other names
have emerged as potential
picks for the job, including Da-
vid Cohen, a former top Trea-
sury Department official who
later served as deputy CIA di-ByDustin Volz,
Warren P. Strobel
andTarini PartiPossible CIA Pick Met by Doubts
Former CIA acting director
Michael MorellJOSHUA ROBERTS/REUTERSPresident-elect Joe Biden
has said he intends to focus
his health-care policy on a re-
boot of the Affordable Care
Act and launch the first feder-
ally run health-care plan. But
the fate of his plans rests on
which party has control of the
Senate following Georgia’s
runoff elections in January.
Mr. Biden’s boldest propos-
als include lowering the age
for Medicare enrollment to 60
from 65 and instituting a pub-
lic-option health plan.
Tackling the surge of coro-
navirus cases will pose the
most immediate challenge. Mr.
Biden is focusing on the pan-
demic ahead of his inaugura-
tion with his own coronavirus
advisory group. He has already
used his role as president-
elect to urge the public to
wear masks and social dis-
tance, and his transition team
has begun working with the
Trump administration’s De-
partment of Health and Hu-
man Services.
They have also been in con-
tact with the Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention
and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the na-
tion’s top infectious-diseases
expert.
Once in office, Mr. Biden is
expected to use his executive
authority to mandate masks
on all federal property, and he
has said he plans to expand
drive-through Covid-19 testing
and follow guidance from pub-
lic-health scientists.The fate of the Affordable
Care Act will be an issue early
on. The Supreme Court heard
arguments Nov. 10 on a law-
suit from GOP-led states
claiming the ACA is no longer
valid because Congress zeroed
out its penalty on people who
don’t have health insurance. A
decision is expected before
June, which is typically the
end of the court’s term.
The high court could re-
mand the case back to the dis-
trict judge, leave the ACA as it
is, or strike down parts or all
of the law.
Mr. Biden, who supportsthe ACA, has said he wants to
resurrect the law’s penalty on
people who go without cover-
age, which could make a deci-
sion striking down the Obama-
era health law moot. Congress
could also preserve the ACA
by raising the penalty for not
having insurance from $0 to
$1, or seek legislation stating
that the health law doesn’t
rely on the penalty.
Senate Republicans who
have opposed the ACA might
balk at any measure that
would sustain it, but some
GOP lawmakers might wind up
backing such legislation ratherthan dealing with the fallout
of millions of people losing
health coverage in a pandemic.
If the GOP keeps control of
the Senate, it would most
likely work to block Mr. Bi-
den’s most ambitious health-
care goal: A public option,
which would be a government-
run program that retains pri-
vate health insurance. Premi-
ums for people who buy into
the proposed Medicare-like
plan could be lower than pri-
vate plans sold on the individ-
ual market. He also wants to
provide premium-free access
to a Medicare-like program forpeople in states that didn’t ex-
pand Medicaid.
GOP lawmakers are also
likely to rebuff Mr. Biden’s call
to expand subsidies for people
who buy health plans under
the ACA. Mr. Biden will none-
theless try to reverse some of
the Trump administration’s
actions that undermined the
ACA, using executive and ad-
ministrative authority to undo
waivers that let states change
the way they implement the
law. He is expected to curb ac-
cess to short-term health
plans that don’t comply with
ACA consumer protections.BYSTEPHANIEARMOURBiden Readies Broad Health-Care Overhaul
Among Mr. Biden’s proposals is a public-option health plan. If the GOP keeps control of the Senate, it would most likely try to block that goal.ANDREW HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESSPublic
462schoolsFor-profit
36schoolsPrivatenonprofit
807schools0 % 25 50 75 100Lessthan$25,000 $25,000to$49,999 $50,000ormoreParentalSupport
ParentsatprivatenonprofitcollegeswhotookoutParentPlus
loansborroweddisproportionatelyhighamounts.
Medianparentloanamount,byschool,
amongparticipantsatfour-yearcollegesSource: Education DepartmentNote: The number of parents who borrow at some schools is small, particularly at some elite
colleges that provide substantial financial aid, and schools with the smallest borrower counts were
excluded for privacy. Numbers reflect pooled cohorts of academic years 2017-2018 and 2018-
at predominantly bachelor’s-degree granting schools and exclude debt accrued at prior schools.WASHINGTON—President
Trump delivered a lengthy
speech from the White House
on Wednesday in which he in-
sisted that he won the election
and again declined to concede
to President-elect Joe Biden
less than two months before
Inauguration Day.
The address—which wasn’t
on Mr. Trump’s public sched-
ule and which he called
“maybe the most important
speech I’ve ever made”—
marked the latest rhetorical
escalation by the president as
he continues to contest the re-
sults of an election he lost.
Mr. Biden, meanwhile, is
moving forward with planning
for the White House. He has
announced key cabinet offi-
cials and his team has begun
coordinating with the Trump
administration. Mr. Biden’s
transition team didn’t respond
to a request to comment.
“If we are right about the
fraud, Joe Biden can’t be pres-
ident,” Mr. Trump said in the
46-minute recorded speech
from the White House Diplo-
matic Reception Room as he
ticked through a slew of state-
ments that have been proved
false or that his campaign
hasn’t substantiated in court.
Mr. Trump asserted that he
won the election “without ques-
tion,” even though the Associ-
ated Press said Mr. Biden would
receive 306 Electoral College
votes, well over the 270 needed
to secure the presidency. The
six most hotly contested battle-
ground states have all certified
their results for Mr. Biden, and
Mr. Biden’s lead in the national
popular vote currently stands
at nearly seven million.
No evidence of widespread
voter fraud has surfaced, and
homeland-security officials in
early November called the
2020 contest “the most secure
election in U.S. history.”
Federal officials have agreed
with state election authorities
that they have seen no evidence
that voting systems were tam-
pered with. Multiple federal
judges have dismissed Trump
campaign complaints, saying
they lacked proof of fraud alle-
gations. Mr. Trump is pressing
legal claims attempting to re-
verse the results in some states.
“To date, we have not seen
fraud on a scale that could
have affected a different out-
come in the election,” Attor-
ney General William Barr told
the AP on Tuesday.
The president’s rhetoric has
drawn sharp complaints from
Democrats, who say it is dam-
aging faith in elections, and it
is increasingly making Repub-
licans nervous heading into
January runoff elections in
Georgia that will decide con-
trol of the Senate.
BYANDREWRESTUCCIA
ANDALEXLEARY
In Speech,
Trump
Reasserts
Fraud
Claims
JOHN-CHRISTIAN.COM888.646.YourLegacy
BroughttoLife
FamilyCrestRings-ResearchIncludedOrderby
12/15for
Christmas!