The Democratic Party has the presidency and a slim majority in both chambers of Congress. So when are free public college and trillions of dollars in student loan debt forgiveness coming?
If those things happen, they probably won’t occur under the Biden administration. These kinds of regressive policies that disproportionately help those who are better off likely don’t have the votes to pass through Congress. However, that doesn’t mean the high cost of college is a problem to ignore.
At the federal and state levels, both major political parties should come together and find practical solutions to reduce the cost of college.
That means that Republicans probably won’t get their wish of getting the federal government out of the student loan game, and the limited government crowd won’t get to eliminate Pell Grants. However, it also means that the Democrats won’t blow out spending to try to make free college happen or to pay off student loans.
A pair of federal solutions to help alleviate the student loan burden that has bipartisan support includes forcing states not to revoke people’s occupational licenses if they default on student loans and allowing people to discharge private student loan debt via bankruptcy.
The work license idea is something that both Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, support. How can someone pay back their student loans if denied the opportunity to work? It forces them to take on more debt to make those payments so they can continue to work, as Shoshana Weissmann of the R Street Institute has pointed out. Thirteen states revoke licenses for this, and while it’s a problem states can solve, a federal solution also works.
And allowing private student loan debt to be discharged via bankruptcy would cost a few billion per year and help those struggling most to pay off their loans. People could do this up until 2005, but after the federal government passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, that was no longer the case. President Joe Biden supported that bill, and private student loan debt ballooned as a result. It went from $56 billion in 2005 to $140 billion in 2011, according to the Center for American Progress. It gave private, for-profit colleges and private lenders a gift because it reduced the threat of them not getting as much of their money back if they charged higher amounts.
Allowing people to discharge private student loan debt in bankruptcy is something that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush supports and surely Warren, a staunch proponent of reforming bankruptcy law, would as well.
At the state level, there are other actions worth taking.
State schools, at the direction of state governments, should create more three-year bachelor’s degree programs and three-semester associate’s degree programs. They could do this by eliminating some of the unnecessary class requirements that have nothing to do with the major — such as a journalism major taking a lab science or a class on Eastern religion. Many European countries already have three-year degree programs, and centrist Republicans such as former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and current Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker support them. In New Jersey, Adam Taliaferro, a Democratic state assemblyman, proposed this idea last year, so it’s not a partisan issue.
And states should address the absurd costs of college athletics. In many states, the highest-paid state employees are sports coaches. At a minimum, moving Division I athletic programs that lose a ton of money down to Division III would save students money since eliminating programs is less feasible.
Private schools could also do the same thing. Some schools charge students more than $1,000 per year in fees to pay for athletic programs that don’t make money. The private University of Hartford decided last year that it will move its DI sports program down to DIII. It expects to save about $10 million per year as a result. With a student population of about 7,000, this would amount to savings of close to $1,400 per student.
College is getting more expensive every year. It’s time Democrats and Republicans work together and do something about it.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
