Biden Student Debt Cancellation Proposal: Even Worse than Expected

By Neal McCluskey of Cato.

"Yesterday, I assembled my top five reasons to oppose mass student debt cancellation in anticipation of the Biden administration announcing a plan today. The plan is somewhat different from what I expected, and worse than I feared.

All but one of my reasons yesterday applies to the proposal the White House put out today. Number two – cancellation would be skewed to higher‐​income borrowers – no longer applies.

As expected, Biden will cancel $10,000 for all federal student debtors up to joint filers earning $250,000. That includes, by the White House’s own admission, basically all but the 5% of top‐​earning households. The big addition is that Pell Grant recipients who also have student loans will get up to $20,000 in debt cancelled. Based on a very rough, preliminary estimate of the share of student debtors who received Pell and their earnings, that changes cancellation from disproportionately helping higher‐​income debtors to lower.

Meanwhile, my rough new estimate is that the cost to taxpayers will be $427 billion. To put that in perspective, it is more than the gross domestic product of Hong Kong and 182 countries. For those who support federal social programs, it is nearly 36‐​times greater than the federal government spent on Head Start in 2022. And if you support defense spending, it is nearly two‐​and‐​a‐​half times larger than the U.S. Army’s 2022 budget. And this, by the way, does not include non‐​cancellation elements of the Biden announcement, including proposals to significantly cut many borrowers’ monthly payments and more generous loan forgiveness in the future.

The other major objections to cancellation still apply.

First, people who go to college, and especially who get degrees, typically garner big earnings increases – $1.2 to $3.1 million over a lifetime – and job security that makes them among the least in need of help. And remember, student loans are a much bigger part of how people pay for graduate school than undergrad.

Second, massive debt cancellation will encourage even greater college price increases as schools and future borrowers will both expect more cancellation in the future. Naturally, the White House cited the incredible rise in college prices to justify mass cancellation without acknowledging the huge role aid has had in it. Never owning the problem you largely created is the federal government way!

Last, but absolutely not least, this is grossly unconstitutional. Congress, not the president, has the spending power, and there is no rational way that declaring a loan a grant is anything but spending. Of course, there is also no constitutional authority for these programs in the first place.

The major reasons to object to mass student debt cancellation might have changed somewhat from yesterday, but that doesn’t make cancellation any better. Indeed, what the Biden administration says it will do is worse than expected 24 hours ago, especially for the Constitution, federal taxpayers, and future students hoping for reasonable college prices.