Millions of student loan borrowers could see a portion of their debt canceled depending on the outcome of a US Supreme Court hearing on President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness program.
The justices will hear arguments in two cases Tuesday concerning the program, which is estimated to cost $400 billion.
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Arizonans made the trip to Washington D.C. ahead of the hearings, arriving Monday and camping out on the steps of the Supreme Court overnight.
They’ll be joining the People’s Rally for Student Debt Cancellation along with others from across the country, including national collaborators such as the Student Debt Crisis Center, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, Student Borrower Protection Center, and more at the Supreme Court steps.
Students will then lobby their representatives and express their concerns over the rising cost of college tuition and the student debt crisis.
ABC15 spoke to University of Arizona graduate and Arizona Students’ Association Southern Arizona Regional Director Miranda Lopez who’s joining the cause at the Supreme Court.
She said she has about $12,000 in federal debt from when she graduated in 2018. She said for two years after graduation, so was only able to pay enough each month to cover the interest accrued but was never able to make a dent in the principal amount.
Then, the pandemic happened, and everything went on pause.
“When the student loans were postponed, it was a relief to me because I was finally able to focus on things like, you know, getting health insurance and finishing paying off my car and all these other things that I hadn't been able to focus on,” Lopez said.
She explained how the relief plan, if put into place, would impact her.
“It would make me [feel] more secure about my future,” she said. “I want to buy a home, I want to have a family someday, and that dream seems a little more realistic, more attainable if I didn't have this debt weighing me down.”
Some of the biggest issues on the other side of the argument against the student debt relief plan are with the cost, which is expected to be an estimated $400 billion, and the potential impacts on other Americans who can’t benefit from it.
ABC15 spoke with Arizona State University graduate and Sedona resident Claire Crayton about her perspective. She said she was initially overwhelmed by her tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt years ago, but came up with a plan, stuck to it, and did what she had to to pay it all off.
She said she feels student loans are a privilege and are the responsibility of the borrower only.
“The idea of helplessness for something that you’ve previously agreed to is kind of bizarre to me,” Crayton said. “I can’t imagine asking to borrow money to go to school to obtain the degrees that I have obtained and then asking for someone else to pay that money off. I mean it kind of seems like a double whammy in a sense, like, I was happy that student loans were available to me because otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to go to school.”
