Biden Administration Gives Up on Student Loan Bailouts

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Even a presidential administration as incompetent, feckless, and clueless as the Biden administration, it seems, can read the writing on the wall — if they get their noses rubbed in it. In the latest example of just this, the administration has withdrawn its plan to forgive a large number of student loans — and we can take the word “forgive” to mean “transfer the liability to the taxpayers.”

The Biden administration has withdrawn two major plans to deliver student loan forgiveness.

The proposed regulations would have allowed the secretary of the U.S. Department of Education to cancel student loans for several groups of borrowers, including those who had been in repayment for decades and others experiencing financial hardship.

The combined policies could have reduced or eliminated the education debts of millions of Americans.

Of course, these policies wouldn’t have reduced or eliminated anything. Money has been disbursed and has to be paid back. The Biden administration wanted to remove the liability of the young skulls full of mush who signed contracts for these loans, who read and presumably understood the repayment terms. If you’re wondering about whom will be assuming the liability for these debts, you may want to take a long, hard look in the mirror.

We’re talking a lot of money, here.

Here comes the rationalization:

The department wrote that it was terminating the rulemaking proceeding due to “operational challenges in implementing the proposals.” It said it would “commit its limited operational resources” in these final weeks of the administration “to helping at-risk borrowers return to repayment successfully.”

“Operational challenges,” we can take to mean “On January 20th, Donald Trump resumes office, and there won’t be any more talk of letting these young skulls full of mush off the hook.” That’s as it should be. These people signed contracts. The contracts stipulated terms, interest rates, repayment, and recourses available. Unless the federal government intends to abrogate a few hundred years of contract law, these loans, these contracts, can’t just simply be ignored.

If there were any sanity in the financing of education, of course, this wouldn’t be an issue. This is an issue for one primary reason: The federal government is involved. The endless federal gravy train has resulted in wildly inflated costs of education, an equally wild growth in the administration-to-faculty ratio and universities, and the explosion of Ethnic Underwater Dog-Polishing Studies degrees, which are the biggest waste of time and money since, well, about 90 percent of what the federal government spends money on.

The incoming Trump administration, it seems, intends not only to end this student loan repayment scheme but to greatly reduce the role of the federal government in education — which is a good thing.

Of course, the usual suspects quickly complained.

Consumer advocates expressed disappointment and concern about the reversal on debt relief.

“President Biden’s proposals would have freed millions from the crushing weight of the student debt crisis and unlocked economic mobility for millions more workers and families,” Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing counsel of the Student Borrower Protection Center, said in a statement.

While one is tempted to respond simply with “tough noogies,” it’s important to correct a couple of things that Persis Yu gets just plain wrong, including that this move wouldn’t have just “freed millions from the crushing weight” of anything; it simply would have transferred that weight onto the back of the taxpayers, many of whom have already paid off their student loans. And nothing is locking economic mobility for these people; millions more have achieved success while paying off the loans for which they signed contracts — and abided by the terms. But Persis Yu isn’t the only complainer:

“There are so many borrowers concerned about the impact of the new administration with their student loans,” said Elaine Rubin, director of corporate communications at Edvisors, which helps students navigate college costs and borrowing.

The borrowers shouldn’t be concerned. The same terms apply under Trump as under Biden. These people signed contracts. The terms don’t change when a new president takes office. Two questions are appropriate to ask any of these “student loan forgiveness” whiners:

“Did you sign a contract? Did you receive the money and spend it?”

Assuming the answer to both is “Yes,” then the only possible answer is “Then shut up and pay your own damn debt.”

And, once again: