The Student Loan Scheme
A deeply uncool administration is trying desperately to attract young voters.
President Joe Biden is using his federal agencies in a manner that appears highly unethical in an attempt to rig the vote this coming November. He needs to bolster his votes among the younger demographic, as he is notoriously unpopular among them. According to a Gallup poll, Biden’s approval rating has dropped 21 points since the beginning of his presidency.
This administration has tried many tactics to reach younger voters. It’s had TikTok celebrities come to the White House. It’s even had the popular Korean pop band BTS come and talk about anti-Asian hate. Ironically, a week after BTS’s visit, the band broke up. This probably didn’t do the White House any favors.
The enduring scheme that Biden had promised his young would-be voters is the prospect of student loan forgiveness.
Students can only see being under the thumb of student debt as evil. They whine about not realizing what would happen when they signed the papers agreeing to take on the loan. It’s sad in a way because their college tuition is much heartier than it was for us. They have our sympathy. However, this does not justify the outright theft of our taxpayer dollars to pay for their college education, which they voluntary took on.
It’s also unclear which students will even qualify for debt forgiveness. Is it all students? It is just those who attended public universities? Is it just those who meet intersectional qualifications?
Then you have to ask: What kind of education are we paying for? Is it the debt of a student who is going to join the workforce and make this country a better place? Or is it a person who went to college for some made-up degree? Some students with debt aren’t American and therefore can’t vote. Should they be excluded from the scheme?
The language that unscrupulous Education Secretary Miguel Cardona uses when talking about this is that of entitlement and oppression: “We are committed to fixing a broken system. If a borrower qualifies for student loan relief, it shouldn’t take mountains of paperwork or a law degree to obtain it. Student loan benefits also should not be so hard to get that borrowers never actually benefit from them.”
Looking at the track record of what taxpayers already pay for public education, the ever-degrading quality doesn’t justify the ever-growing budget. It’s a bad investment.
Ultimately, Biden’s scheme will most likely backfire. As American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Phil Gramm and US Policy Metrics partner Mike Solon put it: “If the courts strike down executive action forgiving student debt as Mr. Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and numerous other Democrats have occasionally suggested they would, the president would have the worst of both worlds. Few seeking debt forgiveness will vote based on actions that didn’t put money in their pockets. But everyone else will still be livid.”
The temporary alliance between the younger demographic and Biden in 2020 was that of convenience. Frankly, student loan forgiveness is not going to produce the shining crop of willing voters that the Democrats desperately need.