The Supreme Court shot down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme, but that isn’t stopping Ron DeSantis from griping about it.
During Thursday’s remarks in Chariton, Iowa, the Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate fretted about “truck drivers” being on the hook for paying for “gender studies” degrees.
“And I look at … all these student loans that people have, and it’s not fair to say the taxpayer should pay for those,” DeSantis said. “You’re going to have a truck driver pay for someone’s degree in gender studies. No, that doesn’t make sense.”
DeSantis made these arguments before the Supreme Court decision this summer, and he seems intent upon staying the course even as the John Roberts court ruled against the unilateral cancellation of $10,000 in loans for all borrowers and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.
As he had before, the Governor also suggested universities should be held accountable for degrees that lack immediate economic utility.
“I also think these colleges and universities should be on the hook for the loans because they are responsible for providing a good education. They take all this money themselves with the federal government student loans and they want people to be in school for six years,” DeSantis said.
“They don’t care about the types of degrees. If they were on the hook for the loans, you would see zombie studies disappear. You’d see more very practical subjects being taught.”
While the previous student loan forgiveness plan is off the table, the Biden Administration is following through on plans to discharge long-term loans for borrowers who have satisfied their obligations of 20 years paying undergraduate loans or 25 years paying graduate loans, fulfilling the intent of a rule enacted during the George W. Bush administration. To that end, the Department of Education is resolving payment counts previously mishandled by loan servicers.
Based on the remarks, it was unclear if DeSantis objects to the ongoing process of resolving the inaccurate payment counts that have kept low and middle-income borrowers paying the debt for longer than federal law requires.
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