Group challenging student debt relief: Biden administration giving universities ‘blank check’

One of the groups challenging the Biden administration’s student debt relief took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times on Tuesday saying President Biden is handing universities a “blank check.”

The advertisement is headlined with, “Why is the Biden Administration Giving American Universities a Blank Check?” and features an illustration on a check written out to American universities with no given dollar amount.

The ad — featured in the print edition of the newspaper — was taken out by the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative advocacy group that is backing the individual challengers to Biden’s debt relief plan.

“Biden’s unlawful student loan bailout allows colleges to escape accountability for saddling a generation of Americans with student debt,” it reads. “Biden’s short-term relief plan will only encourage colleges to increase prices in the future because they will assume someone else will cover the bill.”

Elaine Parker, the president of the group, said in a statement that the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan will “do nothing to address the tuition crisis” that affects American students.

“Universities are sitting on $700 billion in endowments but continue to hike prices well beyond the rate of inflation—taking advantage of unsuspecting families and minority students,” Parker said in a statement. “Forgiving hundreds of billions of dollars in loans will only provide short-term relief while encouraging college administrators to hike prices even more down the road.”

The Supreme Court started to hear oral arguments in the student debt relief case on Tuesday morning. Two groups are set to challenge the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan in back-to-back arguments as U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar will defend the administration’s plan.

One of the groups is made up of two individuals who are backed by the Job Creators Network Foundation, and the other is made up of of six GOP-led states that are represented by Nebraska Solicitor General James Campbell.

Republicans and Democrats have been split in providing debt relief for students, as Republicans have said that the plan would unfairly take taxpayer funds from those who never went to school or who have already paid off their debt to help pay off others’ loans. Many Republicans have also noted that the plan does not resolve expensive and rising tuition costs at universities.

Thousands of student loan borrowers are set to gather outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday to support the Biden administration’s relief plan. Democrats have long argued that the plan — which was announced last August — would help low-income and middle-class Americans in paying off the debt.

If the plan is upheld in the courts, some borrowers could get up to $20,000 of their federal student loans forgiven.