It has been several months since President Biden’s executive order canceling student debt was announced. Aimed to relieve some financial burdens from the pandemic, the order calls for the cancelation of $10,000 for most student loan borrowers and up to $20,000 for those who received grants qualifying within the income brackets. The order was controversial when first unveiled. It raised questions regarding constitutional authority and future economic growth. Moreover, it led to concerns about the fairness to borrowers who have fully paid off their debt versus those who have not yet or simply cannot.

President Biden justified his action under the Heroes Act, enacted in 2003, where Congress has given the education secretary power to discharge debt. The order has been challenged in a number of lawsuits. In the one case, six GOP-led states (Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina) filed a lawsuit challenging President Biden’s student debt relief program. Their case was dismissed by US District Judge Henry Edward Autrey, on the ground that the plaintiffs lacked “standing to sue.” This legal term represents a threshold that must be satisfied, where plaintiffs must show the policy in question is causing them clear and direct harm. The dismissal led the states to appeal to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. Here, the courts ruled that the Biden administration did not have legal authority to grant broad student loan forgiveness.

Separate from the constitutional and fairness questions is the question of how the educational system can become more accessible and affordable to all. To be educated is pivotal to one’s understanding of our world and identity. Being educated, gives one the opportunity to realize what we don’t know. It gives one empowerment—the freedom—to question, ponder, and ruminate about one’s beliefs. On a positive note, perhaps the unintended consequence of Biden’s executive order is that it highlights the need to make higher education more accessible to all.

In addition to the constitutional question, many states have argued that a federal loan forgiveness program would harm private lenders and cause a loss of business because it would prompt millions of borrowers whose federal loans were held with companies to consolidate their debt into the main federal loan program.  Initially, the U.S. Department of Education told borrowers that those with Federal Family Education Loans, or FFEL, could consolidate to qualify for the relief program. However, in late September, the Education Department decided borrowers with privately-held FFEL and Perkins loans no longer qualified for debt forgiveness.