On Monday, Sept. 25 the White House held its first Campus Press Briefing of the 2023-2024 academic year. Student journalists from across the country attended via Zoom to hear from Biden-Harris administration officials and were encouraged to pre-submit questions about matters important to their communities. After reviewing the submissions, administrators decided upon focusing the briefing around college affordability, the climate crisis and student mental healthcare.
Communications director Ben Labolt started off by summarizing Biden’s current student loan forgiveness achievements. He stated that Biden’s administration “has canceled $117 billion in student debt for more than 3 million borrowers.”
The Supreme Court delivered a 6–3 ruling, early this year, effectively striking down President Biden’s plan to “establish a student loan forgiveness program that will cancel about $430 billion in debt principal and affect nearly all borrowers,” under the HEROS Act. Despite this ruling, the administration is determined to help alleviate some of the billions of dollars in higher education debt that borrowers shoulder.
The same day that the Supreme Court ruling was announced, the president publicly reaffirmed his commitment to student borrowers across the country. They noted that despite the decision, they are continuing to work on alternative plans to help ease student debt quickly and efficiently.
“We know that many young people are worried about student loans as a barrier to opportunity and the president’s hope is that all of these plans, and all of these actions, reassure students, reassure alumni, that the president has your back and he won’t stop fighting to bring the promise of affordability to more students and families,” Labolt continued.
The president’s determination was evidenced by the newly introduced Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan Labolt touched on. The SAVE plan, announced last month, is “the most affordable payment plan ever. Four million borrowers have already enrolled, including many of your schools’ alumni.” This plan will eliminate monthly student loan payments for those making less than $30,000 a year. If borrowers make more than $30,000 a year, the SAVE plan saves them $1,000 a year.
Labolt noted that “payment is based upon income and family size, not their loan balance” and that “any remaining balance is forgiven after a certain number of years.”
Additionally, the SAVE plan will also allow borrowers who pay their monthly required payment to not be charged any extra interest.
“You can expect more actions of forgiveness to be announced in the coming weeks as well,” said Labolt.
He also commented on the possibility of a government shutdown affecting borrowers in the next couple of days, stating that the president and the Democratic party do not support it.
“The house really needs to get its act together. There’s no reason for the government to be shut down. This is not something that the president or Democratic leadership support. Republicans are doing it if their extreme ideological demands aren’t met and we’ll continue to keep the pressure on.”
In addition to the introduction of the SAVE Act, Labolt claims that President Biden has “secured the largest increase in pell grants in over a decade. Students are likely to receive this additional aid this fall.” Pell grants are a form of need-based aid where students do not have to repay the government.
The Quad asked if Biden has any last minute plans for student loan forgiveness before the end of his term. Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, Bharat Ramamurti, answered, commenting mostly on Biden’s previous achievements. He mentioned Biden’s improval of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which relieves debt for people working in public service areas like teaching, nursing and the police force.
“We’ve gone from a few hundred people getting their loan forgiveness under that program to tens of thousands of people getting their forgiveness.”
All Ramamurti said of Biden’s future plans was, “we hope that within a few months, sometime next year, that we’ll be in a position to take another crack at it under a different legal theory.”
The Johns Hopkins News-Letter questioned the president’s plan to support institutions of higher education after the SCOTUS decision against affirmative action admissions. LaBolt mentioned Biden’s response to the Supreme Court, stating “he really believes that diversity is a huge strength of the U.S.”
“The court didn’t deny the value of having diverse student experiences on campus,” said LaBolt. “There are certain factors that colleges can still take into consideration in the wake of the decision that the president’s administration have pointed to.”
One of the factors Biden encouraged colleges to take into consideration is adversity. In his official remarks on the decision, he stated, “What I propose for consideration is a new standard, where colleges take into account the adversity a student has overcome when selecting among qualified applicants.”
He was clear in his remarks that in accounting for adversity, colleges should include students who lack financial means, as too few get the opportunity to go to college.
Labolt made a point to emphasize this at the beginning of the briefing stating, “President Biden understands the importance of higher education. It’s got the power to unlock doors of opportunity for millions of students like those who read your papers — that’s why he’s been focused on fixing the broken student loan system and making college more affordable for students and families.”
In regards to the climate crisis, LaBolt again mentioned Biden’s previous accomplishments on the topic, noting Biden’s signing of the Inflation Reduction Act into law which will enable the U.S. to cut emissions in half by 2030. 21 million acres of public land and water have been protected under the Biden administration, with Biden planning to conserve more lands and waters than any other president in U.S. history.
However, earlier this year Biden also approved the controversial ConocoPhillips Willow Project. A large-scale Alaskan oil-drilling project that has been vehemently contested by young people across the nation and Wildlife and Climate Activists alike. According to the Washington Examiner, many of whom argue that “he broke a campaign pledge to not approve ‘new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters.’” These campaign pledges have since been removed from Biden’s website where a strange Error 404 message appears in its place. It is not clear exactly when this portion of the website was removed — before or after the Willow approval.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the president after the decision was announced stating that he “kept his word where he can by law… Some of the company’s leases are decades old granted by prior administrations. The department [of interior’s] options are limited when there are legal contracts in place.”
Labolt also claims that “the president sees [climate change] as really the one existential threat to humanity and existential threat to the United States and something that he’s committed to taking the most substantial domestic and international action that’s ever been taken by a president before.”
In a more recent move, Biden established the American Climate Corps last week. This new job training program is scheduled to equip 20,000 young people to work against the climate crisis. According to the official White House website, these trainings include “restoring coastal wetlands to protect communities from storm surges and flooding, deploying clean energy, managing forests to improve health and prevent catastrophic wildfires, implementing energy efficient solutions to cut energy bills for hardworking families and more.”
The final topic addressed was student mental healthcare. LaBolt stated that last summer, Biden signed into law the Safer Communities Act, which over the next five years will invest $1 billion dollars to help young people access mental health care. Over 14,000 mental health professionals will start work in America’s schools this fall as a result of this funding.
The administration is also investing $200 billion in 988, the national suicide and crisis prevention hotline.
Olivia Carzo is a fourth-year English major in the Honors College with a concentration in Visual and Digital Rhetoric and minors in Journalism and Linguistics. OC920925@wcupa.edu
Emma Hogan is a fourth-year English major with a minor in Journalism. EH954390@wcupa.edu