I think the Loan Forgiveness Plan as planned was just a very expensive stunt that fixed nothing. Instead they should work on reducing education cost (or at least limiting future growth). Otherwise it's just a straight subsidy for schools that will keep raising tuition. Same for health care. The government shouldn't run even bigger deficits to subsidize schools and hospitals without controlling their cost.
The supreme court has been in the news a lot lately, and every time I see it I think about Wickard v Filburn where the courts decided that someone growing their own food on their own land to feed to their own farm animals was participating in "interstate commerce". Amongst all the rulings and changes to longstanding rights, this ruling still stands: if you grow a plant inside your house for your own use, you're participating in "interstate commerce" and can thus be regulated federal government.<p>(I realize the supreme court is only ruling on the cases that come before them, so this is a criticism of the entire legal system rather than just the supreme court.)<p>[0]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn</a>
The universities are first and foremost responsible for this situation, especially their predatory Masters’ programs that cost several arms and legs and offer little to no improvement in one’s career marketability.<p>Make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, and allow creditors to pursue the universities for repayment. Spending $100,000 you can’t easily pay back for a useless degree is foolish, but nobody should have been allowed to sell a product like that in the first place.
The student loan forgiveness plan aside, this seems like another decision which indicates the erosion of jurisprudence. Standing seems to have been conveniently worked around in this instance and the textualists of the court had no problem not interpreting the law as written to achieve this ruling.
The problem is that if you paid for college by your parents not fixing the leaky roof, living in a bad neighborhood, and choosing a worse college that didn't cost so much, you wouldn't get a refund the same way that someone who paid for it by a loan did. If you suffer now, tough luck; if you delay the suffering, you may get bailed out.
From the Bloomberg article on the same topic:<p>> Student loan payments are set to resume in late August after a three-year pause. Millions of people could fall behind on their debt.<p>So that is going to immediately hit the economy with some major headwinds.
Kagan's dissent regarding the standing of Missouri was fantastic. I am not a lawyer, but she seemed to clearly cut through every argument for hearing the case offered by the majority. MOHELA is not financially tied to Missouri; states cannot sue on behalf of their citizens; the SC of MO ruled against Missouri's obligations to a very similar entity (MOHEFA) when MO was sued over those obligations (and Missouri, presumably since it was the defendant, repudiated such ties in that case!).<p>Her case on the merits was... less convincing. I'm not convinced she's wrong, but I'm not convinced she's right. I have more thoughts, but they're long, and would distract from what I made this comment for. Nonetheless, having shown her case on standing, we do not need the merits.<p>What is surprising (and disappointing) is that SCOTUS here seemed to have abandoned its usual (good) policy of steadfastly restricting what it has the responsibility to rule on.
I am surprised to see this case had standing given the claim that financial harm was had due to only receiving $10,000 in relief instead of the full $20,000 by a borrower. Does anyone have better legal insight that can explain to me why the case was ruled on at all?
Can someone who understands law tell me if I'm correct?<p>SCOTUS said in a brief that a plain text reading of the HEROES act gave the administrative branch this power [1]. So, SCOTUS has invoked the Major Questions Doctrine (which I think the current court invented?), and through that, decided that this was too much power for the administrative branch to have? Is this a correct understanding of what has happened here?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-506/251435/20230104222942852_22-506tsUnitedStates.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-506/251435/2023...</a>
Aside from ignoring that obviously none of the plaintiffs had legal standing here, the "major questions doctrine" is an absolute sham of a legal theory.. I can't believe this court keeps going back to it to legislate.
College graduates on average have higher lifetime earnings than non-college graduates, and inherently have an advantage over non-graduates in a competitive job market:<p><a href="https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/research-summaries/education-earnings.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/research-summaries/education...</a><p>And the people taking these loans out aren't poor:<p><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/who-owes-the-most-in-student-loans-new-data-from-the-fed/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.brookings.edu/articles/who-owes-the-most-in-stud...</a><p>>Recently released data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances confirm that upper-income households account for a disproportionate share of student loan debt—and an even larger share of monthly out-of-pocket student debt payments.<p>>The highest-income 40 percent of households (those with incomes above $74,000) owe almost 60 percent of the outstanding education debt and make almost three-quarters of the payments. The lowest-income 40 percent of households hold just under 20 percent of the outstanding debt and make only 10 percent of the payments. It should be no surprise that higher-income households owe more student debt than others. Students<p>So it's unclear to me why these people in particular deserve debt relief, especially when you consider the non-graduates, who are at a marked competitive disadvantage, and have debt of their own, will indirectly be subsidizing it. The "so they can finally afford to buy a home" meme would make more sense if the non-graduates had an easier time buying a home, yet they're even less likely to be able to afford a home:<p><a href="https://corridorbusiness.com/study-college-graduates-more-likely-to-own-their-own-home/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://corridorbusiness.com/study-college-graduates-more-li...</a><p>The college-educated now form a powerful voting block, one that was crucial to Biden's victory:<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/us/politics/how-college-graduates-vote.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/us/politics/how-college-g...</a><p>and this whole movement feels like privileged, upwardly-mobile people voting themselves a handout they don't deserve, with money that could be much better spent helping actual poor people make ends meet
Really interesting reading both sides of this argument, but I do see something missing from the entire conversation (unless someone snuck it in and I missed it):<p>Independent from the side you take on this, this decision was made by the judicial branch in the context of (hopefully) the constitution. If you disagree with the decision, there's a process (albeit a long one (on purpose)) to change our system, but that process resides in the legislative body, not the judiciary.<p>I encourage folks from both sides of the argument to keep that in mind.
Biden must really like this decision. He has never really supported large scale forgiveness and does want repayments to start again. This gives him the political cover to restart payments without upsetting his base.<p>However, the Supreme Court appears to be hellbent to limit government powers in all areas other than those related to police powers, military, and foreign affairs. With an end to effective federalism as it pertains to domestic policy I think it will soon be apparent to everyone that the Constitution needs a rewrite. The structural representation imbalances will eventually necessitate a change of some sort. SCOTUS is doing what it can to make everyone aware of this.
Politically this was an interesting ride for Biden. He held it out as a carrot to buy votes in 2022 and the SCOTUS bails him out of actually paying the bill (with our tax dollars...). For sure it'll be part of the 2024 campaign that they need total filibuster proof Democrat control of Congress to get it pushed through.<p>The entire nationalizing of the student loan program was a long con (as part of the Affordable Care Act no less!). It originated with a message of, "<i>We'll save costs by cutting out the middle men!</i>". That was a complete charade as the goal from day one was to take control of the debt so that it could be selectively discharged.<p>Thankfully Trump's 2016 win has cemented a conservative SCOTUS for the near future and they put a stop to this nonsense. Regardless of the outcome of 2024, that's going to his most lasting impact on the country.
Do any HN constitutional scholars or lawyers who work in adjacent fields have any comments on the ruling? Having only read the introduction (which by definition is not a comprehensive argument, so I acknowledge that I'm drawing conclusions based on an incomplete understanding of the ruling), my intuition tells me the standing sub-decision could be abused by states, and the textually oriented picking-apart of the SecEdu's stance struck me as - forgive my ignorance, but - arbitrary and borderline petulant.<p>FWIW, I'm _not_ interested in discussing this from a socio-political standpoint. I'm just curious to hear opinions about the ruling from a legal perspective.