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STUDENT DEBT IS
A CURSE UPON AMERICA’S
FUTURE. BIDEN
MUST WIPE IT OUTby Astra Tayloron president joe biden’s first day
in office, one hundred people call-
ing themselves the Biden Jubilee
100 declared themselves to be on a
student debt strike. They represent a
growing movement of debtors who
are demanding that the new admin-
istration take bold action to cancel
all student loans during its first one
hundred days. They also represent
the estimated 45 million people in
this country who hold a combined
$1.7 trillion in student debt.
There’s a broad consensus that stu-
dent debt has reached crisis propor-
tions in this country. In 2012, when
Joe Biden was vice president, student
debt surpassed $1 trillion dollars. If
President Biden doesn’t do some-
thing, student debt will surpass $
trillion on his watch.
Skyrocketing tuition costs coupled
with diminished federal and state
funding have caused the nation’s bal-
ance sheet to explode. While students
from rich families graduate debt-free
because their parents have the means
to pay up front, most people have to
borrow. Because of interest, working
people wind up paying far more than
their wealthy counterparts for equiv-
alent degrees.
Fortunately, this is a problemPresident Biden can solve, without
going through Congress. The 1965
Higher Education Act granted the exec-
utive branch the authority to “com-
promise and settle” student debt. That
means that President Biden has the
power to direct the Secretary of Educa-
tion to wipe out all federal student debt
(an authority Donald Trump put to the
test when he suspended student loans
payments because of the pandemic).
Some might think the Biden Jubi-
lee 100 are making a radical demand.
They are not. Cancelling all student
debt is actually a step toward restor-
ing the status quo and returning to
the principles the American public
university system was founded on. Not
that long ago, college was much more
affordable or even free. That arrange-
ment helped build the American mid-
dle class by educating this country’s
workforce and citizenry without bury-
ing households in unpayable debt. All
the Biden Jubilee 100 are asking for is
parity. They deserve the same chance
as previous generations to attend col-
lege without having to mortgage their
futures and destroy their credit scores.
The fact is, cancelling all student
debt would help all of us—even peo-
ple like me who long ago paid off
their student loans.