WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is traveling to Wisconsin to announce details of a new plan to relieve millions of student loan debt. A trip coming a week after the battleground Midwest primaries has exposed the weaknesses of the Democratic president and Donald Trump, his Republican challenger.
Biden made the announcement Monday in Madison, the state’s liberal capital and home to the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus.
The new federal rule paving the way for student debt relief is not expected to be issued by the time the president speaks, but Biden will highlight a plan the Department of Education began working on after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its first ruling last year attempt at forgiveness had been thwarted. hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt.
Immediately after the court said Biden needed Congress to approve his original plan, the president said the decision was a “mistake” and “wrong” and announced that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona would seek a retrial where he would use his power under the Higher Education Act to waive the law. or in specific cases, endangering student loan debt.
A new announcement on student loan relief, a key issue for younger voters, could energize parts of Biden’s political coalition that have become disillusioned with his job performance. These are people whose support the president will need to defeat Trump in November.
In the Wisconsin primary on April 2, nearly 119,000 Republicans voted for a Republican candidate other than Trump, the party’s presumptive nominee. And more than 48,000 Democratic voters chose “uninstructed” over Biden, more than double Biden’s slim margin of victory in Wisconsin in 2020.
Nearly 15% of Democrats in Dane County, home to the University of Wisconsin and Madison, voted “uninstructed.” That is almost double the national total of 8%.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents Madison in Congress, said he was struck that concerns about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza were top of mind among voters in the past two weeks at five town halls in more rural parts of his district.
“I was surprised to see that the intensity of the Gaza issue came not from Madison students, but from older voters in more rural parts of the district,” Pocan said.
Pocan said the number of “uninstructed” votes shows the concerns in Wisconsin and that Biden must address them. He said he planned to talk about it directly with Biden on Monday.
“I want to make sure he knows that if we get a problem, the problem could be in Wisconsin,” Pocan said.
Biden’s new plan would expand federal student loan relief to new yet targeted categories of borrowers through the Higher Education Act, which officials say will have a stronger legal footing than the sweeping proposal passed by a 6-3 majority in the House last year. court was dismissed. .
The plan is expected to be smaller and more targeted than his original plan, which would have canceled up to $20,000 in loans for more than 40 million borrowers.
The department has outlined five categories of borrowers who would qualify for some or all of their federal loans. The plan is aimed at helping people with the greatest need, including many who might otherwise never repay their loans.
Among those asked for help are people whose unpaid interest has exceeded the size of the original loan. The proposal would reset their balance to the original amount by wiping out up to $10,000 or $20,000 in interest, depending on their income.
Borrowers who pay off their student loans for decades would have any remaining debt forgiven under the plan. Loans used for a borrower’s bachelor’s degree will be canceled if they have been repaid for at least twenty years. For other types of federal loans, it is 25 years.
The plan would automatically cancel loans for those enrolled in for-profit college programs deemed “of low value.” Borrowers would be eligible for cancellation if, while attending college, the average federal student loan payment among graduates was too high relative to their average salary.
Those who qualify for other forms of cancellation but have not registered will be automatically waived. It would apply to government loan forgiveness and borrower defense against repayment, programs that have been around for years but require notoriously complicated paperwork.
Under pressure from advocates, the department also added a category for those facing “hardships.” It would allow cancellation for borrowers who are highly likely to default within two years. Additional borrowers would qualify for relief under a broad definition of financial distress.
A series of hearings to develop the rule concluded in February and the draft is now under review. Before it can be finalized, the Department of Education will have to submit a formal proposal and open it to a public comment period.
The latest cancellation effort joins other targeted initiatives, including those aimed at public sector workers and low-income borrowers. Through these efforts, the Biden administration says it has canceled $144 billion in student loans for nearly 4 million Americans.
Biden stopped in Chicago for a campaign event before returning to the White House late Monday.
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Associated Press writer Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.
