it was not supported by any evidence in the record. these are not asians. they are not from asia. these are people who were americans, they were born in texas, ohio, tennessee. they should not be the victims. we were born in 2005. quick thank you to all counsel in both cases. the case is submitted. >> a healthy democracy does not just look like this. it looks like this. where americans can see democracy at work. where citizens are truly informed. get informed straight from the source on c-span, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word on the nation's capital to ever you are. the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, powered by cable.

>> a healthy democracy does not just look like this. it looks like this where americans can see democracy at work and citizens are truly informed, a republic thrives. get informed straight from the source from c-span unfiltered unbiased word for word from the nation's capital to wherever you are, because the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span powered by cable. >> the u.s. supreme court has yet to decide on president biden student loan forgiveness program , relieving up to $20,000 of federal student loan debt. or 26 megan borrowers have applied for the program -- more than 16 million borrowers have applied for the program. payments will resume in october this year. and now a discussion on how the

supreme court could rule and the implications it could have on student borrowers. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [indiscernible voices] [footsteps] >> good afternoon. thank you for being here at the american enterprise institute. i am an adjunct fellow here. thank you for being here in person and thank you to those of

you watching online and thank you to our staff for making this event happen. i really appreciate all the hard work and for being here today. we are just hours away from getting a decision. there are 1.8 nearly $4.8 trillion in student loan debt in soon tomorrow morning, most likely, we will find out if hundreds of billions of those dollars will be forgiven by taxpayers. on the campaign trail joe biden promised to forgive a minimum of nearly $10,000 per borrower and may be as a result, on election day,, 61% of those at least with a bachelors degree supported him, better than hillary clinton did. 67% of those with a graduate degree supported joe biden, while his opponent received 56% support from voters with a high

school diploma or less. when he took office, he probably asked the democratic majorities in the senate and the house to back on student loan forgiveness -- back on student unforgiveness and they did not so instead he invoked emergency authority under the heroes act of 2023, a post-9/11 law which gave authority to the secretary of education to "waiver motto tight any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student financial programs under title iv of the higher education act as the secretary deems necessary in connection with the war or other military operation or a national emergency," and of course in this case the national emergency was the covid pandemic. as a result, $10,000 in relief was granted to most students and up to $20,000 for borrowers who received a pell grant. the costs depends on who you

ask. the administrations estimates put it at $300 billion, but other estimates are higher, including nearly $1 trillion according to research at the university of pennsylvania. there were immediate challenges and honestly it seemed unlikely that those challenges would prevail. it seemed unlikely they would even be granted standing to bring the case much less to decide the case on merit but here we are. the supreme court will decide on two cases, first on whether any of the plaintiffs have standing to bring the case, among the six states and two borrowers, and on the merits of whether the department has exceeded its authority and whether the policy itself was adopted in the appropriate way given that congress did not act. congress has subsequently acted

not to forgive lungs but to reject the administration's policy. the senate recently voted 52-46 including votes from joe manchin and jon tester along with kyrsten sinema from arizona. the house likewise voted 208-203 including a couple of democrats joining republicans to reject the biden administration's loan forgiveness plan. however, that bill was vetoed by the president elect the two thirds majority to overcome the veto. the implications of this case are wide reaching not just in dollars and not just for the loan forgiveness itself. there are many other cases that relate to loans today. according to my colleague, while this has been going on, nearly $300 billion has been spent since the begin of the pandemic on the loan repayment pause, which is costing about $5

billion a month, changes to defense, public service loan forgiveness and other policies. it looks like the pause will and this fall but just to date the department indicated that despite a congressional agreement, they might try to use executive authority, again, to shield students from defaulting. meanwhile perhaps, the biggest policy is idr, which could itself have hundreds of millions of dollars of impact and that number could go up substantially if lands are not forgiven after the supreme court rules. we will be watching all those policies and will talk with our panel about the implications and most important whether you agree with this policy or not, the fact is that there are 26 million people who are eagerly awaiting this decision because it affects their personal finances, so we want to talk about the policy but also the people involved here. finally one more plug, we want

to not just talk about the policies that we might not like, whether loan forgiveness or any others, but also we want to be for a number of policies, not just to address the debt issue, but address holistically student loans, higher education, and pathways to careers,, so we have been working with higher education strategy groups in a manual and others have participated in those groups and we will be releasing some new ideas and we will try to do it in a new and interesting way where people can interact with those policies and choose those policies they think are best for them. stay tuned for that. for now, i would like to interest the panel one by one. first of all, thank you for joining us today. i am going to start down at the end, russ ryan, senior litigation counsel at the new civil liberties alliance, a

nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group that works to protect constitutional freedoms. he has a particular interest in the securities and exchange commission issues and is currently involved in another student loan case in kansas, which we will be sure to ask him about. he was a partner at the low form king and spalding for 15 years and taught at the law school at george mason university here in the washington, d.c. area and we appreciate you being here. >> glad to be here. >> emanuel guillory at the american council on education, often seen as the voice of the nation's colleges and universities and they represent about 1700, including two-year and four-year both public and private. i have been fortunate to know him for a long time and in his time at prior roles at various organizations and on the hill

where he worked on the committee and education workforce, he was recognized as one of the top lobbyist for the hill in 2020 and 2021. we appreciate you being here. last but not least, senior vice president for social policy education and politics, all of those things at third way, which is a think tank that champions modern centerleft ideas. she writes extensively on education issues and she is direct, honest, and forceful. in her written comments to the department of education, which i can tell you for certainty because i was at the receiving end of those when i was at the department, sometimes we agree, sometimes not, but what she really tries to do which i appreciate is before the kind of bipartisanship that is about doing what is right, not just a little bit of sliver where both parties can agree. so i'd like that and we need

more of that in washington and i appreciate you being here. lanae: that was the nicest intro i have had. thank you. >> great. that to a good start. we would love to start with you and i will ask you this question , we had a big case today on higher education and we are expected to have a big case on these two student loan challenges. what is going to happen? what is going to be the implications for student loans, higher education in general, what do we expect? lanae: first, i want to say i was the one who said this was going to happen friday because i have known this for a long time and have been a court watcher and judicial nominee's that are -- vetter. and they love to run away before there are protests or i thought they would do it before the weekend and get out of town, so

i think it will be tomorrow morning and thought it would be the whole time, and i think that tomorrow morning's decision relate as kind of the season finale of the first season of this drama, and not the series finale. i think we will see a lot more to come, both on the hill and from the department, no matter how the court rules. my guess as a person who went to law school for a long time but has not done real law in a long time too his they will strike it down. if they were not going to strike at them they would have not wanted to run out of time and would've done it earlier, so that is what we will see. so for the left that has made this their cause célèbre, their number one ask, they will not be satisfied. they will say do it again, do it under different authority. go back and cancel it under settlement and compromise which is the other legal authority in

it was switched out in the end in the way the administration tried to go. they sent as much to the email list, if for some reason that the cancellation does stand, there are other lawsuits in the works. it will not be the end of the story, but you referenced all the things that need to happen now on student loans, and you know, it is really, it is really the borrowers who will be in a pickle now because i had someone at my office i to meet the other day, you know, i paid down a lot of my loans during the payment because, but then i got the money out and it is sitting in a savings account. do you think i should spend it? no, don't spend it. that person works of a think tank and washington, d.c. i don't think most people had the foresight or were educated on that is what they were going to have to do, pay those loan backs again -- back again and i

worry about borrowers who thought their balance was going to be down $10,000 or $20,000 and it is like, just kidding. that is not the way we should be making policy that is damaging to people, and it is worrisome because we were asked people to start paying down student loan debt again or for the first time for many people hope have never paid down bones who have just been up school in the last three years. we don't know where they live. their servicers don't have enough staff and we are not properly funding the fsa to find them until them where to pay their loans, so i just think like we are headed for disaster if we don't get ahead of this and really say, we need to clearly communicate the borrowers what is going to come and what is required of them and we frankly have not done that yet, and if her tried to put starting the payments plus a new income-based repayment plan plus you but you had these loans forgiven but now you didn't, that is a lot of change all at once. i think those of us who think

about this and washington, d.c. need to get ahead of it and help people sort through how do i make sense of all that and not end up in a place where i have no idea where to send my check to pay my student loan. michael: emmanuel, what you think? emanuel: well, to build off -- how do you follow that? [laughter] i think i would agree with my colleague in the sense that i think the supreme court will not allow this to go through at this is a fear we have had from the very beginning, and it goes back to when senator warren was champing the fact that we have to give student loan debt and chuck schumer got involved and they had harvard put out a report about why and using the authority at the aga to be the basis of authority and there was a persuasion to biden administration had the political push, we saw, felt the biden mystery sugar back-and-forth with ah, we don't know if we can

do $50,000 for everybody. we need to target it more but there was that push within the caucus to go, no, we need to go as far as we canceled the proposal they came out with the be honest, we were happy that it was not a blanket forgiveness that they tried that at least target a little bit and put some sort of rationale to it, but that is he using the heroes back of 2003 which by the, way was that bill was first passed in august 2003 was led by a republican, john kline to be exact, and it was bipartisan, and when it was expended in 2005, again led by john kline, it was bipartisan, however in 2009, i believe, two years after, when that bill was put forth by the democrats that was not at all bipartisan even though george bush happened to approve the bill, but that was during the time when democrats had the majority in the house and in the senate, so when we

think about heroes 2000 think -- 2003, why that's a thing, september 11 happened in 2001 and congress was trying to figure out what do we do and how do we do and how do we best serve americans, so that was a way to get the secretary authority and, flexibility to just act quickly because when that attack happened, there was really not a clear process in place for the secretary to be able to move swiftly as such, but now obviously there has been back-and-forth arguments about well, do we really believe section two of the heroes back 2003 really gives the secretary the ability to forgive the loans. now let's think back to the trump administration, so obviously, cares happened march 2020 and the suspension of student when payments happen, right, but in 2021, betsy devos had redesigned that had resigned and there was a memorandum that came out basically saying the

administration does not have the authority to do this. they cited the constitution, article one, as an example and also kind of tried to you know in some way stick it to the incoming administration, but at the same time, when the biden administration came in, they of course rescinded that and said that while we agree that the analysis of the heroes back is correct we did not -- he rose back is correct, we do not, agree with that interpretation, so here we have what we always feared, a situation where our biggest concern as mentioned, are the students. the students are being jerked around you know back-and-forth. hey, you have to start repaying. this is the official cutoff date. no we will extended a little bit longer. if we recall and 2022, apparently december 31 20 was going to be the final date,

apparently, and i think they went ahead and notified borrowers in 2022, that a we have to -- ahrey we have to ramp up in payments have to start back and it was extended once again so as predicted i do believe that tomorrow will be the date that we find out that it is not going to move forward and then what does that mean forgive no does little more than 25 million borrowers who have submitted their applications, the 16 million borrowers who have been approved, you know, and how then do they begin to prepare to repay? but as michael mentioned in the beginning statement, just this morning we are learning that the department is actually wanting to build in a three-month grace period to this new plan they want to dub the save plan, which before there was not a name for, just amending or revising the repay plan we have now, and so i think that that also stems though from the remarks made in the oral arguments, so for those

of you who actually listen to the oral arguments in february, the germinal argument on behalf of the bite administration articulated that she believes that there will be a lot of delinquencies, you know, if there is no grace,, no nothing given to the students when they have to start repaying the loans. michael: that's why we could be in a situation where yet again there is an indefinite series of extensions, not on the need to pay because the interest will keep occurring. so let me go ahead to russ.i would love to hear your taken someone watching these loan cases in general. you are involved in several of them yourself and you have watch the court a long time. what will happen tomorrow from your perspective? russ: i tend to agree that if the course reaches the merits of the case, they will strike it

down. i think there is a majority of justices who do not think this is lawful under the heroes act, but first they have to find that one of these litigants has standing, and that i think is a closer question because if nobody has standing, that goes to the court's jurisdiction and the court cannot address the merits if it does not find that it has jurisdiction, so i see sort of three potential outcomes. one is they find no standing and then they do not address the merits of the policy and presumably echoes forward until someone with standing comes into challenge it again, and we can get to that later, because we think we have someone in the wings on that, but even if there is a decision that no standing, i do think that you may see some

occurring opinions or dissenting opinions that do address the merits, but they would not be precedential, they would be venting and hoping that lower courts will take the cues if the stars percolating up to the courts again. um, the second is they could find standing and declare it unlawful and as emmanuel said, i don't think that's necessarily the end of it. this administration has pretty much shown that it does not always take no for an answer from the courts. we have seen it before, but the rent moratorium issue that seemed to come back a second or third time, and the third chance is they find standing, but a majority of the court" and,

but we think it is within the secretary of education's discretion to do what he did in the situation, and again, that i think would be a huge win for the administration and i'm not sure there are many more urges to fight it at that point at the court definitively holds this is a lawful interpretation of the statute. i think that third scenario is pretty unlikely, so, that is sort of where i come out with it, but to follow up on something emmanuel said, i think that there were at least two occasions where the payment pause was declared last and final, and then as the date approached, oh, never mind, we will extended again. i think it has been extended something like eight times, and

there is litigation over that as well,, so there is a lot that still needs to be figured out here no matter what happens tomorrow. i think that whatever happens tomorrow, it is going to, it is going to move the ball in one direction or other substantially, but probably not end this. michael: i'm going to stay with you for a minute and let's zoom out for a minute. i did not go to law school but i did graduate from fourth grade, and in fourth grade i learned there are three branches of government, separations of powers, checks and balances, and just from that perspective it seems like you have the situation where congress put this law in place, questionable interpretation of what they really meant the apartment's powers were. the department went ahead and acted in congress has essentially rebuked them and said we want this pause to stop,

and yet the president can veto that, and a simple majority in both houses is not enough. the third branch of government, the courts, as you said not being able to decide the merits of the case at all because of the standing question. and so, those of us who are little confused here, help us out. how does something like that happen where essentially one branch of government is acting, and it seems that the other two branches of government don't like it and they may not be able to do anything about it. russ: well, i have this memory that at one point, even when nancy pelosi was speaker, she, i think biden was already president, and she basically turned to him and said, you can't do this. you need us to do this. lanae: she turned to the present said he doesn't have the authority. russ: i kind of view it as a

bipartisan understanding that if we are really being honest this is something congress should be doing. if anyone does it, and i really have no official position on that, but if it is going to be done, it should be done by our elected representatives, and one of the reasons why it is so hard to find someone with standing on something like this is that exactly 100 years ago this month, the supreme court said that in general taxpayers no matter how much they are upset about the way their money is being spent, have no standing to challenge government action. and just by coincidence, the case was decided in june 1923, and it stood ever since pretty

much. in, you know -- and, you know, if taxpayers were allowed to sue over these things, you would have more litigation but you would have no short of people that shortage of people with legitimate standing. this is so much money that the average taxpayer is going to be in for hundreds if not thousands of dollars, and to meet the allis -- thought to be enough of injury to get you in court to plead your case -- that ought to be enough of injury to get you into court to plead your case. we don't have that. in this situation, people who want to get things done through administrative action are pretty clever, and they came up with what i believe they think is the perfect crime. it is a heist from the public and nobody knows it. michael: real quick. i want to get to emmanuel and --

this question of taxation, could have future republican president look at the tax code and say ok, my voters are here. i would just not audit people who do this or i will not look at the section of the tax code or not enforce these rules to the benefit of mostly my voters. can they do something like that? russ: i have not bought through that. the one that is more likely is a republican gets in there and says we really need to spend more money to shut the border and congresses, sorry, we don't have any and we are not giving it to you,, and the president says i will find a statute that gives me this question and i will write an executive order saying spend the money here. lanae: in fact that is what the trump administration did. russ: they tried. lanae: which is why some have you know, but this is not a good precedent in general, if the first trump administration decided they want to uses kind of authority to build the border

wall, i have no idea what a second more creative trump administration would come up with to do something with this authority, but it will be a heck of a lot more creative than that. michael: we will hold those conversations for another day. i want to go back to manual though -- emmanuel though, even if these loans are forgiven, it does not necessarily solve that people are taking on new loans every year. we have not change the nature of the loan programs and the institutions, you know, they are involved in that as well and are often clamoring for more tools to limit borrowing and make sure that college is more affordable, but from the institutional perspective, what is their responsibility and what are some of the tools that they would like to have and don't have today to make college more affordable? emanuel: yeah it is a really good question, well, first and foremost, talking with others

about this issue, of course they want what is best for their students, and in their opinion these are students who have graduated, so they are living their lives, pursuing their careers, and at that point the institution does not have a lot of control over what is happening, you know, choices being made, situations happening in the lives of their former students, but when it comes to accountability,, you know, there are proposals out than that obvious you want to hold more institutions accountable and from conversations i have had with our presidents, they do mind -- not mind being held accountable per se, but if it comes down to something like risksharing, which we been hearing about and seeing and there are proposals about that, then mike, you mentioned the ability to limit it, if that is the case. right now institutions do not have that ability in students are able to borrow as much as they need to in the plus loan

program, unlimited borrowing up to the cost of attendance, so sometimes there are concerns about what students are borrowing for, but that does not mean that presidents do not understand the fact that there are students from low-wealth families who are going to have to borrow more money because i don't have any other resources to pull from and they have to be able to eat and live and get to school and get back home, you know, those sorts of things. um, but at the same time, i would want to say that our institutions are very sensitive to the fact that um there is $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt still out there with about 33 million borrowers, right, and there is a huge need and they want to be part of the conversation of making college more affordable, which is why they have come together, and are very supportive of doubling the pell grant, so i have to prove that in there because they ask about that a lot, you know,

something they really believe could be a great solution or at least, you know investing in the program which we have seen that investment from congress that has increased $900 over the past two fiscal years and changes to the application for others will help. thousands of more borrowers according to the secretary and what he has been articulating in hearings as of late, so i think the conversation continues. michael: great. staying on that issue of addressing other aspects of the loan program, you said that if we focus on loan forgiveness and not fixing the overall system, we will miss an opportunity, and if we do, shame on us. those are your words exactly, i think. have we lost our shot and if so, what do we do about that? what are some reasonable realistic reforms we should look to? lanae: we have not missed our

shot because there are still people enrolling in college and starting right now for the next academic year, taking out loans right now, and we need to fix it. one of my major concerns about the idea of wiping away past student borrowing is it does absolutely nothing fixing the problem moving forward and spends a heck of a lot of money doing so, so when you think about for example that half of this outstanding student loan balances from graduate programs, where there is essentially unlimited borrowing. that is a problem because if borrowing is unlimited, then schools have no reason to not double, triple tuition, make up whatever number they want, because we create a policy that says you can literally make up whatever number you want and students can borrow to fix it, and i think that is even more disconcerting when you look at

this new, you know, income-based repayment plan, which i think is really important and also creates a potential moral hazard, because were saying ok, you don't ever actually have to pay back your student loans again. we will never let your balance grow, no matter how much you're paying into this even if it is less than your interest would be, which again, incentivizes institutions to say, ok, great, i will make it more expensive. there is no reason not to. how do we change that incentive? we can't send blank checks out and not really know what the outcomes are that were getting. we can't continue to pay folks that are attending higher education programs, pay those programs without knowing anything about what the outcomes are and whether they are delivering a real return on investment to students and taxpayers. and we can't continue to have people taking out unlimited

loans for a program that they think will be good because you know what, it is accredited. it is allowed to access title for aid. that is a stamp of approval were putting on that program and it turns out a lot of those programs are leaving people not better off than when they enrolled. they are leaving people below the poverty line. they are leaving people making less than they would have if they had just gotten a job with her has good degree, and those also who had the loans, those who are defaulting, not able to complete their degree, but still have the learns of don't get the earnings premium from having a degree to pay for it, so we need to look across the board, and the thing that actually makes me excited and i don't often have a lot of optimistic views in washington, d.c. nowadays, but even in the past week and a half, we have seen bipartisan attention to this problem but i think it's super super important. about 10 days ago, senator

cassidy who is a huge leader on these issues, on the republican side, put out a package of bills that would limit graduate barring, that would also say -- borrowing, that would also say if you are an undergraduate program, any program, you have to show that most of the folks who enrolled in your program six years and 10 years later are making more than the average size go graduate. that seems like a very basic measure of return on investment to me. you better off or worse off than you would've been if you had been enrolled? and he went further and set for graduate programs, if you are not making more money than the average be a holder, don't go to that school -- ba holder, don't know of that school. it's interesting to think about moving forward and ties into what the in -- administration has done on the gainful,

important programs where they said same idea, earnings premium, are you making more,, if not, don't have the taxpayers pay for it, and then they went third -- further and said they would look at data for every single program not just for for-profit programs but all of them so it feels like we are moving in a direction where we want to look at the outcomes in higher education. there is still a lot to figure out about how to do that in a way that supports institutions during the yeoman's work that economic mobility, but at least we are talking about it and i think four years or five years ago that we were not. michael: i love the optimism. i share it. and you know, it probably depends on the details to execute over the finish line, but you know, you started by saying that you think we are going to have more seasons of this, that this will not be the end of the exciting courtroom drama. lanae that's right. michael: on student loans. you alluded to the idea that

there is a plan b from the more progressive wing of the democratic party. ok'd this did not work and got struck down by the courts, if that is what happens, what is that plan b and what it might look like. lanae the first will be protesting in front of the serene court which is why they wanted -- supreme court which is what they wanted to do it on the weekend and the second plan b, putting those signs on the lampposts all around the white house that say cancel student debt, which if you have been in washington, d.c. for longer you know the nine-months, you saw those all around the white house, so there will be a lot of grassroots pressure, i am sure, and it will be asking the administration essay, ok,, do it again, but instead of using this heroes act that will not be held, do it under the higher education act of 30 that says the department of education has the ability to compromise and settle different kinds of student loans because this money

is owed to the department, so essentially the department can say well, you do not owe it to me anymore, but i think a, like that will start this clock over again, and the poor people sitting around wondering if i have the $20,000 not, that creates a whole new set of jerking around that we will have to work about -- worry about, especially if you're making payments. should you be making payments are not? are your loans gone or not gone? it is unprecedented. what i worry about is that is the same authority that the administration hedged -- has used doing other things, including canceling loans defrauded by predatory institutions, which i very much support. that is the same authority they are using to do these income based repayment programs. if you asked the supreme court, uh-oh, hey, does this apply, and the answer is no other answer might be know for a lot of other things to do and whether there is questioning -- for people to

challenge it, but there are things the department should use that authority for, and if you take it to this extreme it may be stricken altogether and you don't get to use it. michael: there are questions in this case not just on these loan programs, but a lot of other areas where this department at this administration are may be stretching their authority a little bit beyond what power congress has given them in this -- and disciplined court has shown a willingness to courbet. emmanuel, i want to ask you, this is not a loan policy, and it has been fairly neutral on the loan issues, but you have been very outspoken in another area where the department is stretching its authority, which is third-party servicers guidance and potential regulation that might come out. for those who don't know, this could potentially involve the department education regulating the entirety of the education

technology sector, and has a lot of people worried, including the institutions that rely on them and many others providing any number of services to colleges and universities. tell us a little bit about what that might mean if the court comes down and says ok, you don't have this authority. you don't have this authority. could there be challenges to other policies as well? emanuel: my response would be yes, i think, absolutely. as we articulated to the department, we are very very concerned about the expansion of the third-party servicer definition, which is completely not in line, in our opinion, with the higher education act and the intent of congress and would cause issues and we are happy they put a halt on that, but even when you think about the manner in which they went about trying to move forward with that, it was regarding regulatory guidance, and earlier

in the spring the extra put out in their unified agenda that they were going to look at third-party servicer issues,, so you know, now you have a dear colleague and other sub-regulatory guidance, a blog as well, talking about these issues and what institutions have to do to abide and comply. remember, these institutions are made up of individuals who have good intentions, you know. they are there to help students but they are there to divide a service that is a quality academic program and the makeup of that, but these individuals also want to make sure they are abiding by the law, and so, if the supreme court does rule and say hey, this will not stand, i think that gives more weight to the fact that well, look at the third-party servicer issue are other issues like that that may come down the pike, we can book to this and pointed this and use this as an example of why they should.

and in a lot of ways, and the best way possible to say it is, stay within the lame-duck congress gave them, and in speaking to the department, like there are great and credible and smart people who work there, right, and they are trying to do what they believe is right, which every administration comes in, they put forward policies that they believe is right. and so, we cannot fault them at that but when it comes down to figuring out clever ways to give themselves the authority, what that should never be the case. congress, the purse, the branch that has that authority to determine these types of things, and to build on to something lanae said earlier quickly about student was repayment in general, there are too many repayment plans out there. there are too many repayment plans. lanae lay talked about it -- lanae talked about it but on the health side it was just introduced, and rolling back all

of as repayment plan simplifying those back to two which we have heard before, but being a little bit more generous to borrowers than what we have seen before in the past twoo. i think that shows that congress is really thinking about ways to simplify this process so that borrowers can better understand what it is they are getting into and what they have to comply with, in the same for the department with institutions. compliance, it should be easier to understand and to digest, and when you have all of these random things happening coming and going, then you just kind of create chaos, so. michael: so, we have been asking these questions with the assumption that the court will side uh with the states and the borrowers who sued, but it's possible they won't. we have no idea. russ, i want to ask you one final questions and then we will go to audience questions and then some questions from folks watching online, but you are

involved in another case that is on hold right now because of this case before the supreme court, tell us what happens if the court rules in favor of the department. are the loans forgiven? are there other cases that will put that on ice? tell us. russ: i think that if the court rules on the merits in the favor of the department, that puts challengers and objectors to this whole program in a tight spot. i am not sure that there is a plan b at that point. give us some time and we might think of one. [laughter] if all they did was throw it out on standing, well then our case presents a different standing theory and we argued in the amicus brief in the case before the court now, and we think it is an alternative standing theory. it is probably not the right time and place to get into the nitty-gritty on standing, but there is something called the

public service loan forgiveness that might've been mentioned earlier. and, nonprofits and state governments, nonprofits like aei, i guess, benefit from that because if you have outstanding student loan debt and you work for a nonprofit or state government for 10 years and make your payments throughout the 10 years, you get your entire remaining balance discharge after the 10 years. so come at theory of standing is that congress deliberately gave that competitive advantage to governments and nonprofits was they are seeking to hire and retain college graduates, and now comes now the department of education and says, oh, it doesn't matter who you work for, we are going to wipe out your debt, whether you work for a nonprofit, government, or for a for-profit corporation.

i think that puts a nonprofit employers and state employers, it removes an advantage that congress gave them in the marketplace. i think that is a sufficient injury to constitute standing, so we think that our case would survive and then go forward, if all the court did was throw the case out on standing. but, yeah. we will see. michael: we will see what happens tomorrow morning. with that, we have time for a few questions. there are microphones going around.

yes, back here. >> hi -- [indiscernible] mark --, committee for -- when do you expect the administration to release the final income driven repayment rule and implement that and you expect a court challenge? michael: you want to take that? lanael yeah -- lanae: i never trust that is coming soon because that is happening in other administrations and because of covid and other things, but what i have heard is it is coming soon. it creates enormous pressure to get the rule in place, you know, as soon as humanly possible if they're going to start repayments. they need to tell people what plan they are allowed to be in, and they can't use no have people start finding out there's servicer and getting into a new payment plan and whatever, so i

think that we are hopeful that it will be in place and ready by the fall by the time people have to start bingo checks again -- start paying him again. they better start doing that because even if they do another round of litigation over you know using some other authority to cancel student debt, a lot of people still have student debt they need to pay and they would not have a cancel right away because there will be ongoing litigation, and so they need to have something to give to folks so i think they are trying to get it done very very quickly, but you know, there are only so many people in the department and a lot of other things to do, so i am hopeful it comes out by the fall. i think that there probably will be litigation,, but at least from you know what i've heard from some of the smart folks who spend more time in a courtroom than i do, there might be a tougher standing case there, because i don't, i am not sure

who has the injury to say that they can challenge the case. that being said, i mean, the court, the reason it was so clear that it was going to be very very hard to defend in court was because of the supreme court's decision last year in the epa case where the court said you can't do this like -- climate change to this regulation because -- and the standing was super super fuzzy bear but they said well, this is a major question. this is something that has a lot of political or economic significance, and so we were a little bit more flux -- flexing with standing because we should not but government do things that have huge significance and no one is allowed to challenge it in court. and so, if this is not a major question, i don't know what is, and it is possible that an

income-based repayment plan that is very frankly even more money than were talking about here, as mark one knows,, citing his research, is also a major question, so as a longtime court washer, i find people are strict on standing when they do not like the merits of the case in a very open to somebody having standing if they do, so it is very possible and it will certainly be challenging court. whether it gets this high, i don't know, but i also think it would be challenging congress and a lot of folks are worried about how expensive it is, and it will be the next target and there are democrats worried about how expensive it is too. if they had just done that congressional review act vote where a handful of democrats sided with republicans, they would have done it on cancellation and not going back on all the payment pause stuff, you would have seen a higher number of democrats side with republicans because there are a lot of folks who don't love the cancellation teaser don't think

that the department has the authority to do it, and you know, they were very worried because it actually meant you were going to go back and add balances to people, you know, people's loans, and that seemed unfair and a lot of folks voted against it but you would have ended up with a higher number of democrats, so it's possible we could see bipartisan movement as he said in congress decide this is our job to figure this out so let us figure it out. michael: it gets to something emmanuel was alluding to earlier, if you're having to squint at a 20-year-old law and you find some thing that gives you the authority to spend hundreds of billions of dollars, the court has said in the epa case and other recent cases that may be that will not be acceptable, so we will see how broad the ruling is tomorrow, if they do in fact rule against the department on some of those questions. russ, just briefly do you have an opinion on standing. it has been tough on this case

and there have been a lot of people sending -- sitting in this room, i remember at events fall and summer saying, no weight this will proceed in here we are at the supreme court. do you think there is a chance of someone having standing on a challenge to the idr plan? russ: i think it will be at least as challenging. i really haven't studied the idr in a way that got my wheels spinning about who might have standing, but just the little i know about it, i expect it will be a similar challenge, but you know, if there is someone out there, them, we will find them [laughter] michael: moving on to a question from people watching online. do you think the biden administration will cooperate with the bipartisan effort in congress to reform the student loan system? anybody want to take that? emanuel: well, i guess i will

try to chime in here. do i think they will cooperate? it depends on what chamber they are working with, maybe? i would say the house side, probably not so much just because the political ideologies and differences there, not because of the inability to work together, but on the senate side, they are forced to be more bipartisan on the issues so, if there's going to be successful collaboration between the department and chamber of congress, it would more than likely be the senate side. but, as we have seen in various proposals and what i mentioned earlier, there have been, there are ideas and thoughts that members have about repayment and simplifying that. this is nothing new. they have been saying that for years, but the department is still moving in a direction that is not simplification and in the rulemaking sessions, when they put forward this revised repay

plan, and i think at that time they were calling it the extended income contingent repayment plan, the name they had used in the negotiating rule session, a number of negotiators were upset saying why are we creating another plan for borrowers in addition to all the other plans we have. this is already too much. why don't we simplify? it was across the board. we were sayings simplify, semper fi, and that is not what we have gotten, so we said ok, we would not invent a new plan but revised the repay plan and making a different but never hearing it is going to be called the safe plan, so is that new or what are we doing here? i wanted to talk about that quickly because i believe there is a lot of political pressure with the idr to move forward because in august last year when the white house put out the announcement about this whole $10,000, 20,000 student one debt forgiveness, they also reveal details about this income-driven repayment plan, which were different than what we saw in

the negotiated dealmaking session -- rulemaking session so from the first time a lot of us were reading about this plan with new things we did not even know the department was even considering. so since that conversation has been happening since august, for the department, i think there is political pressure for them to get this thing to the door by november 1 so that it can be unaffected effect by next july. it will be interesting having them do that, plus fulfill the robust regulatory agenda they put out earlier this year. lanae: the reason everyone can agree on simplify and it never happens is if you're in the department, to give them credit for this, or any department for that matter, if you were going to change the plans, you can't make everyone go into a new plan that hurts anyone, right? you can't say oh, i'm going to change your plan into one that is less good for you personally financially. there are so many permutations of people and how much they are

making and how much loans they have and how long they have the payoff and whether they are eligible for aps a left, all these things, so you can be like ok, let's start over because you have all these loan contracts that are out there, so we would love to start over. we would love to do that. everybody is trying and there is a lot of you know, there is a lot of movement to say ok, well, i think what they were thinking is, if we make this one as generous as we are, maybe this will be coat -- ok for everyone because it is generous. which is possible. i don't know. that is more complicated. on the bipartisan front, we will have to see bipartisan action around these issues very soon, around funding fsa. we need, if we are going to get you know, the student loan payment starting again, we are going to start this giant machine again, we have to staff it. and servicers have laid people often don't have people to take

the calls. servicers do not know whether borrowers have lived because people have moved and people have graduated who have never made a payment, there are so many problems and not enough people to staff it. i am not an expert on this but the folks we work with the new america, they think that basically we need to double fsa's appropriations to make the payment restart happen in any way that is not a complete disaster, and i'm not sure if you have been following, but there was a debt ceiling, some limits on what we can spin, and others a bigger fight about maybe we want those limits lower, and so we have a lot of money lying around, but it is incumbent on these members to get together and figure out where we will pilfer from to make this happen, because if we just bleed into yeah, everybody has to pay their student loans but don't prepare the machine to make that happen, we could see the student loan mission collapse, and that's not good

for borrowers, taxpayers, anybody. one of the most cynical republicans i talked to about the sidwell, maybe they would just try to make the loan mission collapse and say well, i guess you don't have to pay your student loans because no servicers to collect them. i don't think that's the best way forward so we have to make it work again, work in the future for borrowers, and that will take both democrats and republicans absolutely. michael: and you wonder why it is so hard for students to figure any of this out. you just read the mind of someone who asked a question about fsa from somebody watching alonso thank you, we will cross that off the list. we have just over a minute left if anybody in the room has a very quick question, we can go right here. just wait for the microphone, if you could. >> thank you. you brought up the debt ceiling just now. i'm curious to know if there had

been no debt ceiling deal struck , do you think the president would have used executive action to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally, do you think the supreme court would have struck that down or recognize the economic consequences that have -- would have come with that? lanae: even the president's lawyers said they would strike it down which is why they had to do something in agree to the funding limits. literally the presence lawyer said you cannot do that, so at least there are some limits to what folks in the administration think their powers are here and they swallowed something. you can't kick the pause part out was a surprise to people in that deal and i think it gave the administration cover because they can't and they were going to be asked to kick it out again if the court was against him tomorrow so they were like ok, see now we can't, in there trying to figure it this making sure people do not default, but

it was interesting because nobody knew there was can happen and all of a sudden everybody was like, what is in their? >> now we have to fund starting the loan payments again. >> the secretary did now we havn hearings that they were definitely ending it. so that came before the fiscal responsibility act. i think it was easy for it to be apart partisan agreement because the department put it out there, so it was there. >> for the third time, it's their time fine. >> tomorrow morning, hopefully we will have an answer to all these questions and many more but there might be more drama to come on this and many other issues. please join me in thanking our panelists. [applause] thank you so much for coming.